He did. He’d been patient and loving, bared his soul to her and had put his life on the line to save hers. It was time they had that talk—time she told him the truth, time to roll the dice and see where they fell…
With a deep breath, Fiona began.
“Ryan, I think we both know I was a complete mess when we first met. There were a number of contributory factors, so this is likely to come out as a nonsensical jumble, but hopefully it will make some sort of sense in the end. I’ll warn you now, it’s likely to be a long story, because elements of it go back a long time.”
“It’s all right, a chuisle. Take all the time you need. I’m not going anywhere.”
She nestled more deeply into Ryan’s embrace, needing his strength around her, so that she could face the part of her past that had driven them apart. She’d avoided it for so long, but if she were to have a future with Ryan, she had to do this.
“All my life—until relatively recently—I tried to be what other people wanted me to be, what I thought they wanted me to be. Please, spare me the lecture on how stupid that is. I know it now, but when you don’t know anything else, and you believe your life is no different from anyone else’s, you don’t question it. Why would you?”
Fiona let out a heavy sigh. “So there I was, trying to live up to all these expectations people had of me, to be the perfect daughter, the perfect sister, the perfect friend, for as long as I can remember. I was only a kid when I started believing everyone else was more important than me, and I had to keep them all happy. I think I know what triggered it, but…I hope I’m wrong.”
She paused, trying to find the words to explain the forces in her past that had affected her so detrimentally. “Dad worked away a lot, and when he was home, he didn’t take much notice of Nat and me—he left parenting up to Mum, and she expected me to live up to her rather…rigorous standards.”
“Did they love you?”
Fiona hesitated. The question probed into memories she didn’t want to examine in the light of hindsight. She could answer it honestly, but answering it positively…that was a different matter entirely, so she didn’t answer at all. “Ryan,” she said softly, “it’s all in the distant past now. They’re all dead and gone, and raking up the past to that depth won’t do anyone any good.”
Ryan’s arms tightened around her. How could he know that was exactly what she needed, so that the truth of the past wouldn’t overwhelm her? She sensed that there was something he wanted to say, but was putting a tremendous effort into keeping silent. For that alone, she could love him forever.
“And then you came along. I tried to add the perfect girlfriend to the mix, and I ended up putting a wrecking ball through your life—the one person I should never have done that to, but I did. I’ve never regretted anything as much as I regret that, and always will.”
The less-than-happy memories wouldn’t be denied. She tried not to feel the way his arms comforted her—she didn’t deserve that comfort for what she’d done to him.
“I knew there was something going on, Fiona, but I could never figure out what it was. I just knew that something was very wrong, because you never asked for anything—not of me, or our relationship. You were always so self-sufficient.”
“I learned at an early age not to ask for anything. That trigger I mentioned? As I said, I really hope I’m wrong, but I think it was something my grandfather said. I remember this one occasion—when I was a little kid, he told me that other people were more important than me, and with Mum only being happy with me when I did exactly what I was told…You can probably see where this is heading.”
To say that Ryan swore would be a vast understatement. Fiona winced at the vicious expletives that damned her family to hell and back. She absently stroked the strong, muscular forearm lying across her stomach, thinking back to that time. “Ryan, it’s all right—it’s over. It all happened a long time ago.”
“It’s not all right, and if it really had been over, you and I wouldn’t have spent the last three years apart!” Ryan’s tone was harsh, directed at the family members who had treated Fiona so appallingly badly. “No wonder it felt as if you didn’t need me. I knew it wasn’t normal. I’d never had a relationship like that—I’d always felt needed, but with you, it was completely different.”
He was silent for a moment. “That’s why I kept pushing you, trying to get you to open up to me. But the more I pushed, the more you retreated…until there was nowhere else for you to go. I’m sorry, Fiona, so sorry. I wish I’d known the questions I should have asked.”
She turned in his embrace and put her arms around him, trying to take the pain from him, hating that he was feeling like this because of her. “It wasn’t your fault, sweetheart, it was mine. All mine. It was only when Mum went into the home, a few weeks after we split up, that I started taking a long look at myself.”
“Your mother?” Ryan’s tone reflected his bafflement. “You never mentioned her, and neither did Natalie. I just assumed –”
“What you were meant to assume,” Fiona supplied, her tone as bleak as her memories of the time. “Would you believe I was trying to protect you? From a part of my life that I didn’t want to affect what we had? Nat and I had a pact—neither of us would talk about her with anyone outside the doctors and medical staff. We were the only family she had, so there was no one else who needed to be a party to what was going on. As for her friends, over the years, she’d managed to alienate nearly all of them, and the ones she hadn’t turned her back on drifted away because of behaviour she couldn’t control.
“I know this will sound selfish to anyone who hasn’t been through it, but we had to try to keep a part of our lives unaffected by Mum’s problems. We couldn’t let it take over our entire existence. That’s why we never said anything—not to Joel, not to you.”
“Does Joel know about your mother now?”
Fiona shook her head. “I don’t think so. Nat’s never said anything about telling him, so I can only assume that she hasn’t.”
“I think he should know—he has a right to know what you’ve both been through. Tell me what was wrong with her, darlin’. Tell me everything.”
Dear God, this was it. She had no choice but to be completely honest now, and there would be no going back. “Some background first. Dad died, eight years ago now. Nat and I had already moved to our own places—Nat about twenty miles away but I was still fairly close to our family home.
“Mum was living there on her own. The signs were gradual to begin with, but it was only with hindsight that we recognised them for what they were. We never even imagined that the cause could be what it was. I gave up my place and went back to take care of her. I was still working full-time, but it started to get more and more difficult. It sounds crazy, but even living with her I still couldn’t see it for what it was.”
“What was it, a rúnsearc? You said she went into a home. What happened, darlin’?”
Soft and low, his voice gave her the safety net she needed to face this most painful part of her past.
“Dementia. ‘Young-onset’, they said. I kept her at home as long as I could, but there comes a point when you have to accept that they need more care than you can physically provide. And admitting that you’ve reached that point is so difficult. It sneaks up on you—you think you can cope with each small deterioration, and to begin with, you can, but it mounts up and mounts up without you realising just how bad it’s really getting.
“Not only that—she’d always said she didn’t want to go into a home and that just added to the guilt –”
“Guilt?” Ryan exploded again. “Jesus Christ, Fiona, what the hell did she want from you?”
She reached up to cup his cheek with her palm. “Don’t, Ryan. I told you—it’s done with, it’s in the past. It’s gone.”
“Maybe so,” he conceded grudgingly, “but I want to know everything. Tell me what happened.”
“For the first few months, I visited almost every day, but then I got the
flu. I didn’t want to risk giving it to anyone at the home, so I stayed away. That was when I first saw what had happened throughout my life—how I’d let other people control me and dictate everything I did.”
That wasn’t all, though. Fiona knew she should tell him, but she hadn’t even told her own sister. Even the idea of admitting to it…no, she couldn’t, not yet.
“The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to change. I couldn’t do anything about the past, but I could change my future. I was in a job I hated, and I’d been living my life to please everyone else but me. It was time to find out who I really was.”
“It can’t have been easy. What did you do?”
“I had some savings, so I jacked my job in and started doing things I liked to do instead. I even managed to start earning a living doing them. As I told you, I’m not making a fortune, but I get by. More importantly, I’m doing things that make me happy, and that’s something you can’t buy. And while all this was going on, I thought about you every day.” She remembered that time with an ache in her chest. She’d missed him so much.
“My phone number never changed—why didn’t you call me?”
She shook her head. “After the way we parted, I had no right to. Not only that, I was convinced you’d have moved on, found someone else less complicated, and you deserved to be happy.”
She stroked his silky hair, kissed his cheek. “I knew Nat and Joel were getting serious—I also knew my name was in the frame for chief bridesmaid. I can’t lie, I heaved a sigh of relief when they told me that you weren’t going to be the best man, that you might not even be able to make the wedding at all due to work commitments. But when I saw you in the church and found out from Nat that you were still single, it brought everything back.”
She hugged Ryan just that little bit more tightly. “I know I hurt you three years ago. I wanted to keep you away because I didn’t want to risk doing it all over again. I could have kept my distance for the few hours of the wedding reception, but then you gave me your damn phone number.”
“I never thought you’d use it, a ghrá. I hoped, but I have to admit, I tried not to hope too much.”
“I needed to apologise to you—that was my justification for calling you. I owed you that—and I thought it might give us both what we needed to move on. A little presumptuous on my part, possibly.” Her mouth curved into a small, self-conscious smile.
“But then you stayed with me and…what happened, happened. Afterwards, I had to acknowledge how I still felt about you…and I wanted to see if we could have another chance.”
Eyes closed, Fiona rested her head on Ryan’s shoulder. “When we were together the first time around, all the times I met you at a hotel and I couldn’t stay all night, all the times we had to leave somewhere early …it was because I had to get home to look after Mum. I took more responsibility for her—I wanted one of us to have a life, and I wanted that to be Nat, especially when she met Joel. They were so right together. One of us could have a better future at least.”
“And you didn’t think that you were entitled to something better as well, a rúnsearc?”
Fiona shook her head. “It’s as I said—I was already a mess, trying to be what I thought people wanted me to be. I’d been like that for so long I didn’t know how to be any different, and then there was Mum. Nat may be younger than me, but she’s so much stronger than I am—she stood up to Mum all her life. Of the two of us, it was obvious that I should be the one to go back when the time came. My life was already screwed.”
“It didn’t have to be that way, darlin’. If you’d just told me –”
“I know. Or should I say, I know that now. I met you, and I knew almost immediately that you were different. I’d seen what Nat had with Joel, and even though I wanted the same with you, I knew I could never have it. I had the responsibility of Mum—I couldn’t expose you to that, and in spite of everything that had gone before, I couldn’t turn my back on her. In the end, something had to give.”
“Us.”
Pain shot through Fiona again, emotional pain that was almost physical in its intensity. Ryan’s arms around her were a vivid reminder of what they’d both lost. “Yes, and I am so, so sorry that I put you through all that.” She wanted to cry but the pain went too deep.
“I wish you’d told me, darlin’. That was too much for you to bear on your own. You should have shared the load with me.”
Again, Fiona shook her head. “I couldn’t. I couldn’t even share it all with Nat. Even now, she doesn’t know how bad it got at its worst, and I don’t want her ever to know. Her memories of Mum are better than mine, and I don’t want to change that.”
“But you’ve changed.”
Fiona lifted her head from his shoulder, drew back so that she could look at Ryan’s face, the face she loved so very much.
“Mum went into the home a few weeks after we split up—it all happened very quickly, because I reached breaking point. I couldn’t cope anymore. As I said, I visited her regularly for months, but then I was forced to take that break.”
“What happened then, a chuisle?” he prompted when she paused, lost in the past. “You didn’t just reconsider your future, did you?”
He was far too astute, and something told her that, much though she wanted to avoid reliving that part of her past and burdening him with it, Ryan wouldn’t let her avoid the issue. “I did that eventually, but first…it was hell. I hit rock bottom.” Her voice was barely more than a whisper. “Nat still doesn’t know about the time I spent on antidepressants, trying to get myself straight.”
She shouldn’t have told him. When she saw the pain that dimmed his beautiful eyes, she wanted to wrap her arms around him and take it all away. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have –”
“Gone through all that alone. Dear God, Fiona, what were you thinking?” he asked, his voice as gentle and loving as his arms.
“That it was my problem to deal with.” It was as simple as that. “I came off the medication when it had done its job. I was able to sleep again, and think again, and that was when I dealt with finding out who I really am. And when the time came, I could also deal with Mum finally being released from her living hell.”
“I’m sorry, a rúnsearc.”
She shook her head vigorously. “No. Don’t be sorry, Ryan. I started grieving for her the day she was diagnosed. The day I took her to the home and left her there, that was the day I really lost her, the day I cried as if she had actually died. When all comes to all, she was still my mother, and she would have been horrified to see what happened to her.”
Fiona took a deep breath. Here was where it all ended. It was in the past, it was history—it had taken Ryan from her once, and she wasn’t going to let it do that again. “Sweetheart, you had three questions. I called you that night at the hotel because I needed to apologise. Now you know why I split us up. The final question is why there’s never been anyone else.”
She kissed his cheek. “I could say that it was purely because I was so messed up, had so much to deal with—that would be part of the truth, yes, but a very small part, and more of an afterthought than anything else.
“The main reason—the only reason, as far as I’m concerned—is that I’m already in love with someone. He’s incredibly special, even though I forced him out of my life three years ago. I never told him that I loved him, because, at that time, to tell him that would be to put a weapon in his hands to hurt me. I’d only ever given that weapon to one other man, and he used it against me.”
“And now?”
She could hear the tension in Ryan’s voice. “This special man came back into my life when I least expected it. I found I still love him, and I still want him. I want to have him in my life, and for that to happen, I know I have to risk putting that weapon in his hands. So here it is.
“I love you, Ryan—from the moment you turned up on the doorstep with those flowers. Now you know why I couldn’t invite you into the house, or spend that full da
y with you—I wanted to, but I had to contact Nat and ask her if she could sit with Mum. It was a miracle I was at the pub that night anyway—Mum was actually having a good enough evening for us to risk leaving her for a few hours.”
“A miracle?” Ryan stroked her hair. “I always said we were meant to be together.”
“So you did,” she remembered with a smile. “Anyway, the next day, that’s why I asked you to come back in the afternoon, to give Nat a chance to come over.
“It’s also why I could never go away with you, apart from that one time when you came back from your deployment. Nat insisted on using a week of her leave to stay with Mum while I was with you. I did love you, so very much, and I never stopped. That’s why I never wanted to look for someone else—I had nothing to offer anyone else, because everything I am belongs to you, and it always will. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Fiona doubted she had ever talked that much in her life. She was drained. She felt as if she’d unloaded her heart and soul, and for the first time she felt free, no matter what happened next.
She was resting her head on Ryan’s shoulder. As she came down from the emotional high of finally sharing her feelings with him, she became aware of his unnerving stillness. His arms were around her, his chest was rising and falling with each ragged breath he took, but he was saying nothing.
Fiona’s pulse pounded under the onslaught of a sudden attack of nerves. Hearing the story couldn’t have been any easier than telling it. Very slowly, she lifted herself away from him, bracing herself for what she feared she might now see, because she simply didn’t know what to think.
One look at his drawn face, the glimmer of unshed tears, told Fiona all she needed to know. So much for her resolve not to allow the past to take Ryan from her again—she’d done it again, hurt the one person she should never hurt, the one person who she should always protect. She’d been so intent on telling him the whole truth that she hadn’t stopped to think that sometimes, a selective truth was the better option.
A Wanting Heart (Club Aegis Book 2) Page 9
