I paused. “I haven’t really thought about that. It’s hard to know what Madison was thinking—if she was thinking…” My voice faded away.
“You told me once that she would have frozen in the car if she were me.”
My lips curled into a smile as I looked over at Julia. “She would have.”
“Yet she came to you to do what Phillip couldn’t. That’s drive,” Julia said. “She came to Ashland after she got out of the institution, and she planned…she stole medications. She was at the consignment shop where I bought my dress. I thought she worked there. What she did to us, it wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment attack. It was planned.” Julia’s voice grew stronger. “I can have sympathy for her circumstances but not for what she did to Vicki and Margaret or you and me.”
“I don’t blame you,” I said. “You deserve your feelings. I think I agree, but what eats at me is Brooklyn. She has lost her mother—and not just recently. I didn’t know that Phillip had Madison committed.”
“What would you have done if you knew?”
My nostrils flared as I exhaled and looked up. The ceiling was exactly the same as it had been for a week, and yet I was counting the tiles as I pondered Julia’s question. “I don’t know.” I reached for her. “I made terrible decisions. I let my need to be more and better than Lip fuel the destruction of a woman whom at one time I thought I loved.”
Julia’s blue eyes widened. “It’s okay to have loved before me. I can live with that as long as I’m who you love now.”
“I do. You are.” Tugging her hand, I pulled Julia closer until she was over me. I kissed her soft lips. As our kiss ended, I shook my head. “You changed everything.”
“I don’t want to change you.”
“Without you, I would have died thinking that what I felt for Madison was love and what I felt for Phillip was hate. Black and white. No gray. I would have taken that to my grave if it wasn’t for one woman, one beautiful, caring woman I found along the side of the road.”
“Van…”
I placed my finger over her lips.
“I could have been an old man, thinking I knew love, but the truth was I didn’t. My connection to Madison was unhealthy and obsessive.”
“For both of you.”
I nodded. “I can see that now. I see it because now I know love. I know it because you’re here. I see it and feel it. Even this minute when you should be running, you’re here.”
She lifted my hand as our fingers intertwined. When her blue orbs came my way, she asked, “Besides the people involved, who else knows about this?”
“No one.”
Her smile grew. “That’s one of the things I love about you. Of all the women in the world, you’re sharing this with me. I don’t need to pass judgment on what you’ve done. I wasn’t there. It wouldn’t be right or fair. I can appreciate that you’re trusting me. And yes, I do love you.”
I reached out, running my thumb over Julia’s cheek as my touch skirted over her arm. It was as if I couldn’t stop touching her. “I don’t know if what we have started was red sin or if I am the fucking luckiest man on the planet. What I do know is that I wasn’t ready for love when I was your age. I was too focused on more—”
“Bigger and better,” Julia interrupted.
“I can’t hate Madison for what she did.”
Julia tilted her head.
“I don’t love her, but I can’t hate her.”
“I’m not sure I understand.”
I pushed the button, lying myself back. Patting the pillow, I wordlessly asked her to lie back down. Once she did, Julia pulled up the covers, and I reached for her hand. “Hate is too consuming,” I said. “I’m sorry for what I’ve done to Madison. I’m relieved that all of us will recover from her behavior, but I no longer have enough emotion inside me to give any more to her. You are who I want to spend my emotion on.”
Rolling on her side, Julia’s blue eyes stared into my gaze as if she were not only listening but reading my thoughts. For one of the first times in my life, I was completely transparent, open, and strangely vulnerable. I longed for her to see that, to know that I was telling the truth.
Finally, she spoke, “She needs help.”
“She does, and her husband needs to step forward. He’d legally cut Lena out of everything. I’m still not sure how Madison was discharged. I’d guess that the police are investigating this all the way back.”
“I spoke to a detective over the phone when I was with my parents.”