But me?
I didn’t know what brought it to me.
I had no free time, no hobbies.
I had no children.
And I didn’t really, truly understand what love was.
Ugh.
That felt sad even to think.
But it was true nonetheless.
My partners had been chosen logically. My heart had nothing to do with it.
Sure, I loved.
I loved my parents, my friends who I rarely got to see, my sister, my grandparents before they passed.
But when it came to romantic love, I was clueless as a newborn baby. I was as lost as people on a road trip before Google Maps was invented.
I didn’t understand it.
For myself.
So I didn’t understand it in Kai.
Toward me.
I didn’t mean to hurt him, and at the times the wounds happened, I guess I really didn’t even see it. But I was seeing it now. I was kicking myself for it now. For every time I misinterpreted his kindness, for the way I brought Not-Gary into the office, for, Oh God, the day I showed him my ring, foolishly thinking he had just… gotten over me because he had stopped being so attentive.
He hadn’t gotten over me.
He pulled away so I stopped hurting him so much.
There was a sharp, stabbing sensation in my stomach at that, something real enough to make me roll onto my back, pressing a hand there, half expecting my palm to come away bloody. That was how much it hurt.
I lay there for a long time, pressing my hand to my belly as if to staunch bleeding, wondering how many times I had made Kai feel exactly this.
“Hey, honey, what’s the matter?” Kai’s voice asked, soft, but rough from sleep.
“Nothing,” I lied, not even remotely convincingly.
“Then what’s this?” he asked, his hand reaching out, swiping across my cheek, showing me the wetness there.
I hadn’t even been aware I’d been crying.
That was how out of touch I was with myself, with my feelings.
I half turned on my pillow, eyes finding his. “How don’t you hate me?” I asked.
“What?” Kai’s voice lost the sleep in an instant. “Hate you for what?”
“For being clueless,” I explained. “For hurting you with my own lack of awareness or… understanding.”
Kai paused, actually giving it some thought, something I appreciated more than simple assurances or denials.
“Because… while you don’t understand, I do. I get you. I’m not angry or upset because I know you have never hurt me through any fault of your own. I know that you have never really… grasped this whole thing,” he said, waving a hand between us. “You can’t be blamed for something if you didn’t know what was going on.”
“But I did hurt you.” I latched onto that, needing to know it. For some reason, needing to hear him say it. Just to prove that I was right. Or to punish myself with. I didn’t know.
Kai hesitated, but I refused to take it back, forcing him to exhale slowly. “Yes.”
My eyes squeezed shut, forcing a few more tears down my cheeks at the motion.
“Jules, don’t,” Kai pleaded, fingers wiping away the tears.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. There’s nothing to be sorry for. I’m responsible for my feelings, not you.”
“You should like someone like Gemma.”
“What?”
“Someone romantic and sweet and kind and good. Like you.”
To that, all I heard was a low chuckle, something rolling and masculine and, well, kinda sexy, to be perfectly honest.
My eyes opened, finding him up on his elbow, looking down at me, lips quirked up, eyes dancing.
“What?” I demanded when he said nothing, just kept giving me that unreadable, but somehow amused, smile.
“You’re ridiculous,” he declared, shrugging as though that explained anything at all.
“No, I’m not.”
“You are,” he insisted, nodding almost solemnly.
“How so?”
“You are acting as though there is a choice in who you love. It doesn’t really work that way. You love who you love.”
“Now you’re being ridiculous. Of course love is a choice.”
“Being in a relationship with someone is a choice. Loving them isn’t. There are plenty of people divorced today who still love one another. And there are a bunch of people out there who love someone with everything they have, but choose not to be with them because they’re addicts or they’re unreliable, or they cheated. The choosing to be with someone or not part, that is a choice. But who you end up falling for, that is completely out of your control.” His hand moved out, pulling the collar of his shirt down from my neck a few inches, the brush of his fingers seeming to make the skin tingle while he did so. He ran his finger down the center of my cross. “You believe there are some things that are out of our control.”
It wasn’t a question, but I answered it anyway.
“Yes.”
“This is just one of those things.”
“Kai?”
“Yeah?” he asked, finger still tracing my cross, his gaze focused there.
“Why didn’t you ever make a move? You know… way back when? Back before Gary? Back when there was no one in the way.”