“It’s different from an addiction in the sense that there was no high for me. There never was. I wanted to be in that darkness, and my rage kept me there. The other way it was like an addiction was that I didn’t think I needed help. I certainly didn’t want help.”
“So what changed?” she asked.
“That night I came to you.” He released one of her hands and palmed her baby bump with an incredulous smile. “Did the guys tell you what happened at the house?”
She shook her head. “No, but they all seemed pretty upset.”
“Cam was missing. Steady, Tox, Chat, Herc, and Ren were poring over files and combing security footage looking for leads.”
Charlotte nodded, remembering the search for their teammate who had been abducted and taken to Mallorca.
“I waltzed in there like a grade-A jackass. Asked the guys if they wanted to go out drinking. Got my ass handed to me pretty soundly. And Chat, well, he went there. He brought up my capture. Told me how they had barely eaten or slept the entire time I was missing. Inside, it felt like an avalanche, remembering that time, realizing how much they cared. I stormed out onto Steady’s rotted deck, crashed through the floorboards, and landed in the sand.”
“Oh, Finn.”
“Charlotte, that fall… It was exactly what I was feeling inside. Like this bullshit wall of fury was crumbling down in a heap, and there was nothing left but a pile of rubble. For the first time in six years, I didn’t feel angry.”
“What did you feel?”
“Lost.”
She unclasped their hands and held his face. Her eyes glistened, but no tears fell.
“So I came to find you,” he said.
“I want to help. How can I help?”
“That’s the thing, Charlotte. With this… recovery, I guess you’d call it, comes the realization that I’m not good enough for you.”
He quelled her protest with an extended finger. “I mean on paper. I don’t know much about you, but I know you’re rich. Your parents’ place in New York was enough to show me that. I know you’re brilliant, and I know you’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever laid eyes on. And I’m this fucked up guy with a scarred face and no visible means of support. Two of those three things I think I can fix, but I have to do it, Charlotte. You and the baby can’t fill that hole. I have to fill it and come to you complete. I can love you with everything I am, but I’d like what I am to be deserving of your love.”
“Wh-what?”
“Sorry.” He hoped he looked suitably chagrined. “I’m getting ahead of myself.”
Twitch stared at him agog, hoping her eyeballs wouldn’t pop out of her head and roll around on the porch. Love?
“Wh-what?”
“Sorry.” He looked like a little boy trying to charm his way out of trouble. “I’m getting ahead of myself.”
What on earth was happening? And why the hell couldn’t she speak up? Had she been struck dumb? She loved the man she spent a week with in New York. Oh sure, she had negotiated with herself, berated herself, told herself it was a crush or a dalliance or an infatuation, but she knew deep down it was love. Being with Finn seven years ago was like understanding love in its raw form: two people as their true selves sharing moments in time. Then came The Shattering—immediately followed by devastation, denial, grieving, revisionist history, self-loathing, anger, and acceptance: the seven stages of heartbreak.
His next words made Twitch wonder if she even needed to speak because Finn read her mind. “What happened in New York was love. I know we never said it, but we both thought it. And I also know you’ve probably spent seven years trying to convince yourself that you didn’t feel what you felt. But you did. And so did I.”
Finn stood and wore a path across the porch. “What I did to you in that bar was nearly unforgivable.”
“Nearly?” she questioned.
“I’ve experienced unforgivable acts, Charlotte.”
That reconnected her mouth to her brain. “That is completely unfair, and you know it. My pain may not be as extreme as yours, my injury not as deep, but it still wrecked me, Finn. It still changed me. And you know what? In some ways, it’s worse because you didn’t know those evil bastards who tortured you, but I knew you. And you’re right. I did love you.” She stood and moved until they were toe-to-toe. “So until you hold your heart in your hand and offer it to another person, only to have them step on it, don’t tell me what’s forgivable and what’s not.” Then she stamped her foot for good measure, but Twitch feared it came across like a child having a tantrum. A thought that was confirmed when she was met with Finn’s amused eyes.
She dared him to laugh at her. “What?”
“Goddammit, Charlotte.”
And that’s when he kissed her.