I study the colors on his arms, a million different tiny pictures I’m sure I could study every day for a year and find something new each time. Unique. Beautiful. Just like him.
“I’ve been seeing a therapist since I was a kid.” He keeps his face toward the pool deck.
I’m comforted to know he has someone to talk to, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little jealous. I wish I could’ve been there for him, his shoulder to cry on, his sounding board. His everything.
“Remember that night we spoke about the nightmares?” He peeks up at me from beneath a few longer pieces of his hair that have fallen over his forehead. “Mac, I can’t—shit, this is impossible.” He leans back in his seat, throwing a forearm over his eyes.
I roll my lips between my teeth. He’s in pain, hurting, and it’s killing me to watch. I just want this over with so we can get back to us. The present day us.
With a deep groan, he’s back, eyes on mine. They’re conflicted, and damn it’s hard to hold his stare. “I don’t remember much from my past.”
He’s going there.
“When I was ten I was taken out of a foster home.” He talks fast, as if he can’t wait to be free of the words. “My time there was a . . . before and when I was there is all kind of a blur.”
I force an emotionless mask as my heart thunders against my ribs.
“I get flashes—recurring dreams.” He shrugs and uses his fingers to spin his lip ring. “They’re pretty violent. Evil. All except one.”
My nose and eyes burn with emotion as it threatens to unleash. I need to give him this, allow him this moment. His strength is astounding and I can’t help but envy him.
“My shrink says that some trauma from my past is locked up in my head somewhere, torturing me.”
As if what he had to endure as a child wasn’t enough, he’s still suffering. I guess I expected that, but the hopeful side thought maybe it’s possible to move on from the ugly. The successful career, popular band, all his friends, he looks like he’s doing great. But what’s going on inside his head is the proof behind his past.
A past he can’t remember.
A past he doesn’t know exists.
A past that I can give back to him.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” I cough to clear the sob that’s pushing to the surface.
“No.” He leans forward, tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. “That’s just it. I made more progress yesterday than I have in years”—he smiles, small but unmistakable—“because of you.”
Game. Over.
I cover my face with my hands, no longer able to hold back the rush of emotion. I thought I knew pain, internal anguish, heartache that stung so badly you pray for death. I was wrong.
This is worse.
“Whoa, Mac.” He pulls me from my chair and into his lap.
I curl up there, while sobs rip from my chest. He holds me tighter, rubbing my back and saying soothing things that I can’t even hear over the sound of my breakdown.
As if I could feel any worse? Guilt for not saving him when I had the chance and now the shame that I’m still not strong enough to tell him everything, consume me. He’s exposed his weaknesses, let me in and never looked back, but me . . . I can’t bear to tell him the truth.
It was stupid to think my coming to Vegas would be good for anyone. He says my presence in his life has helped, but he’s not talking about me, Gia. He’s talking about Mac.
And Mac is an illusion.
She doesn’t exist.
What the fuck am I doing? I want to scream, break, and destroy. Sanity wanders off as my thoughts turn desperate. I dig fists into my eyes, pushing back my frantic desire. Think. I’ve come this far. I can’t give up yet, not when I’m so close.
Mac isn’t real—her social security number, ID, eye color. But that’s who he wants—the fake—not me.
Unless . . .
I could become Mac permanently, change my name legally, and keep dying my hair. The contacts will be harder to keep up with, but not impossible. It would be worth it to be with Rex, to keep him in the dark about his past, our history.
My crying quiets as a new plan forms.
“Why are you crying?” He’s still rubbing circles on my back. “What did I say?”
I wipe the moisture from my cheeks “I hate that for you. All of it.”
“Yeah, baby, me too.” He gives me a squeeze. “But things are lookin’ up. I’m here with you, got you in my arms, biggest fight of my career tomorrow night, and you in my corner. That’s what I’m trying to tell you, Mac. I’m thinkin’ with you by my side, there’s not much I can’t do.”
I pull back enough to see his face, and it doesn’t look like he’s joking. “I think you’re amazing.” And so much more.
His hand moves to cup my cheek. He runs his thumb along my lower lip. “I want to kiss you, but there’s one more thing you need to know before we go there.”
I take a deep breath and nod.
“In the past, after I, uh . . . sex, or actually after sex, I sometimes get sick.”