She jerked a shoulder. “I guess.”
I squeezed her hand. “No, that’s exactly right. I’m just glad you got to graduate.”
“Yep. Not magna cum laude like you, but summa.” She smiled at me. “I was lucky. What with mom and then… you… I might not have thrown myself into my studies like I did. But I just couldn’t seem to do anything other than cry if I wasn’t thinking of something else. School became a refuge.”
“I’m so sorry, Lauren.”
“I know you are,” she told me, and I sensed that for the first time, she realized I meant it.
“I never wanted to hurt you. I-I only wanted the best for you.”
“You were the best for me,” she countered softly, her gaze on our joined hands.
“Not in New York I wasn’t. I’m mad that you didn’t get the chance to fulfill those dreams you had, but imagine if you’d been tied to staying in New York when your mom got sick?” I grimaced. “Things have a habit of working out the way they do for a reason.”
“I don’t have to like what you did,” she retorted stubbornly, and I knew this was always going to be a sticking spot if I didn’t proceed with caution.
“Of course you don’t. I sure as hell didn’t. You think I wasn’t miserable without you?” I snorted my derision at that belief. “Hell, Lauren, I love you as much now as I did then. We’re soulmates, baby.”
Her mouth rounded as her eyes caught mine. When she let out a soft breath, I knew I had her.
I knew she believed me.
Thank God.
Chapter 13
COOPER
“You didn’t have to come with me.”
Lauren turned to stare at me, her brow rising higher and higher as she did. “I don’t have to do anything, but I still do it.”
I snorted at that particular reasoning. Something about her never made sense, yet at the same time, she always made sense. It was a paradox, one I’d fallen into many moons ago, and one that I had never wanted to escape from.
It was cold out here, and the truth was, I hadn’t wanted to get out of the car even though this had been my suggestion. The hazy fog seemed to slip around our feet as we huddled together in the early evening chill. It was damp and dismal, but then, when weren’t graveyards?
Traffic had made an hour journey take three hours so we were arriving here way later than scheduled, and as each moment of delay had hit home, I’d had to ask myself if I was doing the right thing.
Since the bat to the brains, something had shaken my resolve in regards to my father’s death. Okay, maybe brute force had done the shaking, but I’d had plenty of hits to the head during games over the years, and never had this kind of need to come back here.
But while in the hospital, a strange need had overcome me. It wasn’t something I could particularly explain, but that was a need for you, wasn’t it?
I’d never really forgiven my father. Not for the many sins he committed in his life, nor for the way he left us. What he’d left as his legacy.… A legacy that had destroyed my mother, and had her dying far too young after years of backbreaking work when she’d never been raised for that, was the major reason I held such a deep loathing for him.
She might have sounded elitist when I thought of her as never having been raised for ‘that’, but some people were frail. It was just a part of their nature. She’d been like that. Just like I was made to work crazy hours, and had had no problem holding down several jobs at college while maintaining a 4.0 GPA and fulfilling all my scholarship requirements… I certainly hadn’t inherited her frailty or her fragility.
I’d been a snot-nosed brat the last time I’d been here. Dressed in my best bib and tucker, my mom had forced me into an expensive black suit that I’d hated. But to be fair I’d hated most things that day. I’d been young, too young to understand what was going on, but well aware that my entire world had just changed. Rather than try to put all that into perspective, the way my Oxford’s had pinched my toes and the tight squeeze of my shirt collar had been at the center of my hatred. I’d been surprisingly satisfied as the damp dew on the grass had turned to mud, marring their pristine polish, and later that night, I’d taken a pair of scissors to the necktie my mother had forced me to wear that day.
I can distinctly remember that satisfaction. A bitter happiness in a world that suddenly made no se
nse.
I can remember my feelings of confusion, could even feel them now as I stood here. It was weird to mirror the feelings of a small boy, but hell, maybe it was time I processed them.
My life had gone full circle in a way because of the man lying at eternal peace here. I’d broken things off with the love of my life because of an inherent need to be better than my father. To do more, to achieve more, to have more security. To never, ever be in the position I once was. Yet, I had all the trappings of success now, and the one woman who mattered the most at my side.
Lauren’s hand squeezed around mine, jerking me from my thoughts. “You doing okay, Coop?”