Things We Never Said (Hart's Boardwalk 3)

Nina raised an eyebrow, but answered, “When I was eighteen. She was older. It didn’t work out.”

“Do you hate her now?”

“Not really.”

“You still love her?”

Nina sighed. “Are heart-to-hearts going to become a regular thing between us? Because I’d like to prepare myself.”

Not in the mood, Michael turned to leave, but Nina grabbed his shoulder.

“No, I don’t love her anymore. You okay? This about McGuire’s sister?”

“I used to love her,” he bit out, feeling cold. So fuckin’ cold.

“Ah, okay.”

“She did something. Now I hate her.”

Nina studied him, not saying a word, but it was the way she did it, like she could see what Michael wasn’t saying.

He looked away, gutted. “But I still love her too. How fucked up is that?”

“Mike …” Nina tightened her hand on his shoulder and squeezed. “That’s when you know it’s real.”

He frowned in confusion.

“My mom always told me when you love someone, even on the days you hate them, that’s when you know it’s real.”

That ugly knot in Michael’s gut tightened because he didn’t want it to be real with Dahlia. It hurt too much.

“Maybe you shouldn’t be in tonight, Mike. Your head is somewhere else.”

“I’m fine,” he snapped.

“You’re not. If I were you, I’d sort your head out. Say you’re sick and come back to work tomorrow night.”

That was the problem, wasn’t it? Because it would take more than a goddamn night to sort his head out. It had been eleven years since he’d met Dahlia McGuire, and his head, his heart, had never been the same since.

Something broke inside me after my confrontation with Michael. With my mom, I’d always been able to convince myself that she was partly to blame for my behavior and that her vitriol was not my fault.

However, Michael was a different story. One of the reasons I’d fallen for him was because he was that guy who didn’t judge—he understood that people made mistakes. And he forgave. He forgave Gary for a lot of stuff he’d pulled over the years because he knew that Gary hadn’t had it easy growing up with an abusive single father.

He forgave his mom for never defending him against his dad because he knew it wasn’t in her nature to be confrontational or … brave, really. It hadn’t meant she didn’t love him and so he’d forgiven her.

That he couldn’t forgive me, that he hated me, made me realize the magnitude of what I’d done. How could everyone else forgive me? How could Darragh and Davina? Even Dermot, who had been kind to me when he saw how fucked up I was by the encounter with Michael? He’d taken me back to Dad’s where I’d promptly locked myself in his old room.

Because I couldn’t face Dad.

Out of everyone, my father should be the one who couldn’t forgive me. I’d made him promise he wouldn’t tell my family where I was, and I’d put him in the middle of that. I’d driven a wedge between him and my mother.

I’d … I was the catalyst in his youngest daughter’s death.

Why didn’t he hate me?

Like Michael.

“I do hate you.”