Attempting to push away those feelings, I thought about Michael’s confession and how he wouldn’t talk to Kiersten about his family. What did that mean? Had he completely lost touch with them? And what about Gary? I’d known they were drifting apart after Gary found out we were together, but there had been no mention of him at all since my return. “Do you still talk to your parents? To Gary?”
If he was surprised by my questions, he didn’t show it. Instead, he relaxed against the couch. “I see Mom sometimes. I try to avoid Dad as much as possible. To say it fucked him off that I made detective and he retired as a plain old beat walker is an understatement,” he told me. “Things between us went from bad to worse when I first made lieutenant. You know my dad. No matter what I do, I can’t win. Last time I saw my mom was after Kiersten and I filed for divorce. My dad is usually out on a Sunday at a bar, but the bastard had deliberately stayed around so he could go on and on about how I might think I’m something with my detective badge, but a man isn’t a man if he can’t keep his woman happy.”
Anger boiled in my blood. “Motherfucker.”
Michael gave me a small grin. “Yeah.”
“And Gary?”
He shook his head. “Gary left not long after you. Took a decent paying job in construction with a cousin in North Carolina. He never came back, and we lost touch over the years.”
Goddamn it.
I left.
Gary left.
“I’m sorry.”
“I had Dermot. Your dad.” He shrugged. “They’re like family.”
The swelling feeling of love and heartbreak building in my chest was almost too much to bear. I knew we’d needed to have this discussion, to put it all out there, but it also became crushingly clear that I needed to let go of that little spark of hope I’d held onto all those years concerning Michael.
No matter what he’d discovered today, he would always feel abandoned by me. After his parents’ abandonment came mine. Then Gary’s. It didn’t matter if he learned to let that go, I wouldn’t.
I would live with all kinds of remorse, that feeling sharpening every time I looked at his handsome face.
The thought exhausted me.
I loved him.
God, did I love him.
But at some point, I had to start loving myself too.
My tangle of emotions wouldn’t go away overnight, and I knew it was the same for Michael. “Do you blame me?”
Michael turned, studying me, and I wondered if he could hear my heart pounding. “I understand better now.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“I can get past it.” He sat up, determination hardening his features. “To be with you, I can get past it.”
Wrong answer.
Because while he was attempting to get past it, there would be more moments that would throw up our history, that might lead to arguments. And Michael had proven he could gut me worse than anyone.
I loved him. So much.
But as much as he blamed me for leaving, I knew there was a part of me that blamed him for not coming after me.
Too much blame.
Too much hurt.
And something more. Guilt I still kept buried deep that wouldn’t release me from its grasp.
When Michael wasn’t around, I didn’t feel it. And I didn’t want to feel it.