“I don’t know why you do what you do, but you’re a good man, Connor.”
Her declaration hits me like a punch in the sternum. After all that’s happened, how can she possibly think I’m good? I have to show her how wrong she is or this house of cards is going to destroy her when it falls. And it inevitably will.
Desperately, I play the last card I have to hold myself back from the inevitable fall at this point . . . the ugly truth.
“I started down the wrong path young, as a teen. You saw my parents, my house. There were all these rules and expectations. Society rules, family rules . . . I hated everything about it. What to wear, what to say, how to smile even as poison dripped off your every word. It was all so fake, totally useless. So I escaped any way I could, rebelling with stupid shit at first.”
Poppy’s hand stills but doesn’t lift from my shoulder. “Like what?”
“I’d sneak out, not even to do anything wild, just to be out and see if I’d get caught. I didn’t. Then I started drinking and smoking, tried drugs, and was generally up for anything that might piss off my parents. Anything and everything I could do to just make them pay attention. All I wanted was them to look at me as more than some type of fucked up asset, some toy to be paraded around at the right times in front of the right people. And they . . . didn’t even notice. So, I tried other things. Pickpocketing, stealing, you know.”
I shake my head, remembering those days. How I’d felt invincible and untouchable. “It was a rush. The truth is that it became what I lived for. The rush of being able to beat the rules, to throw up my middle fingers to the world . . . because rules had never done much for me. And at the time, my world seemed so fucked up. At first, I would sell the shit I stole to friends or a friend of a friend, but eventually, word got out. I got hired for a job here or there, and ironically, I felt like I’d made it. That felt like success to me, because people were noticing me.”
“I get that.”
“The buzz I got from getting away clean was only topped by upping the ante. That’s when I got in deep. Poppy, I’m good at what I do, have skills that make it the perfect job for me. And I’m not exactly conditioned to be the sort of person who can sit behind a computer and bang out reports or spreadsheets or what the fuck ever all day. So am I good, Poppy? Fuck no. I haven’t been that in a long time, and no matter what good I do in this world, it’ll never be enough to balance what bad I’ve done.”
Surely, she must get it now. She has to understand.
But instead, she runs her fingers through my hair, scratching the back of my neck lightly. “I can see that you’re good.”
I huff out a humorless laugh. “Are you deaf? Didn’t you hear everything I just said?” Shit, I’ve said way too much already. Nobody knows all the things I just told Poppy.
That’s all been buried deep in a dark hole inside me for a very long time. But even with all that floating in the air between us, she’s as stubborn as a mule.
Finally, I lay it out. “If you want to have a good life, if you want to have the happily ever after you deserve . . . you’d run the other fucking way every time you see me. Because the worst thing of all is . . . I can’t keep pushing you away. I’m a greedy bastard.”
She pulls my chin up, forcing my eyes to hers. Hers are glittery with tears, but there’s steel in their blue depths. “You listen to me, Mister. If anyone should be mad as fuck at you, it’s me. But I know everything you just said . . . and asked you inside anyway. Because I see something that you’re either too hurt, too scared, or too ashamed to admit. There is still good in your heart. And for whatever you did, you’re also fixing it. If you were some turdnugget bastard, that’d be different. But you’re not. You care that I’m freaking the fuck out. Right?”
I snort. “Turdnugget. Is that even a word?”
“Right?” she demands, her fingers on my chin getting tighter.
She has zero sense of self-preservation and no concern that I’m on edge. The edge of what? I don’t know, but I know my skin feels too tight for everything bubbling up inside me.
“Yeah,” I answer begrudgingly.
“And you’re helping me, right?”
“Trying, but you keep trying to get yourself in trouble. B-n-E and assault with a deadly weapon, for starters.” The attempt at a joke is a last-ditch effort to thwart the impact of her scooping my soul out with a rusty spoon.