Stone (Pittsburgh Titans 2)

I also know I have to be honest with her, so I boil down my issues. “I don’t know if I’m good for you.”

Harlow’s expression softens, and she makes a step for me. I hold up my hands to stop her and shake my head. “Let me get this out. I need to get this out, so you know where I’m coming from.”

Harlow’s expression pinches with worry, but she steps back. “Okay. You can tell me anything, you know.”

I nod, deciding to take a page from my brother’s book. “I know I can. Just as I know you will understand when I tell you that I feel like my world is constantly shifting underneath me, and I can’t get my balance. And while you are one of the best things that has ever happened to me, you’re also the one who’s knocking me the most off balance.”

“I see,” she murmurs.

I shake my head. “I don’t think you really do. You know the surface stuff. You know what my family is like and the problems I’ve had. You see a guy who isn’t quite like my brother, but that I’ve got potential.”

“You’ve got more than potential, Stone. You’re an amazing man.”

I shake my head hard, because she’s not getting it. I look at her with a tortured expression. “You don’t get it… I think I am more like my father than I am the man you need me to be. When we were just at dinner, I was getting angry about your brother. I was wondering why he couldn’t get his head out of his ass and be a better person. I was angry at your parents for not doing more to make him grow up. I was even angry at your dad for not doing something to help you stay with his firm. All this is completely ridiculous, but I realize that I am so trained by my father to try to control everything, I don’t know if I’ve got the ability to be understanding of what other people are going through.”

“That’s not true. You were understanding of Brooks and even understanding of what I go through with alcohol.”

“Sympathy, Harlow. But I don’t know if I can understand it. In the long run, I always want to be able to support you, no matter what. But Christ, I’m pissed at your parents for their parenting, which is completely fucked up because they raised an amazing daughter. What type of person does that make me?”

Harlow motions toward her living room. “Maybe if we sit down—”

“No. I don’t want to talk about this. I’m confident I’ll eventually ruin what we have. I didn’t have a good role model. Things are new and fresh with us, so things are easy. I don’t know how to be truly supportive when the going gets rough. I don’t think I can do this relationship because I’m pretty sure that failure and disaster are coming, and it’s going to be completely my fault because I don’t know how to do this.”

Harlow comes toward me, and I hold my ground. She steps right into me and puts her hands on my cheeks, forcing me to look at her. “You’re having a moment, Stone. It’s bound to happen. The past hasn’t been kind to you, but you have to push past it. I know you can.”

I wrap my hands around her wrists and pull them away from me, holding them in place. “You have a faith in me that isn’t deserved, Harlow. You don’t even really know me.”

Disappointment fills her eyes. She pulls her hands free and steps backward. “If I told you right now that I was craving a drink, and I absolutely needed to have one, and that I was going to do it no matter what you told me… would you think the worst of me?”

“I don’t know.”

I can tell by the look on her face that’s exactly what she expected. I know she was hoping that I would say without a doubt that I will always support her, but I don’t trust enough in my values to give her that. My father didn’t give me reliable values by which to live. He made me look out only for myself.

Her voice is so soft, I can barely hear it. “I am far from perfection. As wonderful as my life is, it can get ugly and messy at times. I can handle it on my own. I don’t need you. But if you are standing by my side, I need to know you’ve got my back. Forget everything else that you were just talking about, everything that is plaguing you right now. If you can’t emphatically state that you would have my back no matter what… no matter how ugly things got… then I need you to walk away from me.”