I tried to swallow, but my throat was so dry that as much as I swallowed, nothing helped. Blinking awake, I found myself secured in Griff’s hold, up against his body again. This time on my bed.
I shifted and his hold loosened enough for me to move to a sitting position. Swinging my legs over the edge of the bed, I moved off it to go in search of water. I made it to the kitchen, filled a glass and drank every last drop. Turning, I found Griff standing behind me, worry on his face.
“Sorry,” I apologised as I placed the glass on the counter.
“There’s no need to apologise.”
“God, what time is it?”
“Just after ten. You slept for hours which you must have needed.”
“Thank you for coming to get me earlier…I don’t think I could have gotten myself home.”
He moved closer to me. “Do you want to talk about it, sweetheart?”
It was the last thing I wanted to talk about but the one thing I knew I had to talk about. I looked up into his face, and the care I saw there gave me the strength to bare my soul. “I haven’t seen my mother for twenty years, and she turned up two days ago, sick in hospital and wanted to see me. God knows what I thought would happen, but I went to see her after work today and it was the worst thing I could have done.”
He took hold of my hand and led me to the couch. Sitting, he positioned me on his lap, his arm around me. “Start at the beginning,” he said.
“The beginning?”
“Why haven’t you seen her for twenty years?”
Shit.
Thinking about this was hard work. I wasn’t sure if it was good for a person’s soul to dredge the past up like this or not. But I wanted him to know me, and this was a huge part of me. “When I was nine, my father had a horse riding accident and ended up on life support. He was in a coma for months and my mother walked away from us. I came home from school one day and she was gone. Her sister took me in for a few months, but she didn’t want another kid to take responsibility for, and eventually I ended up in the foster care system. I think my aunt thought my mum would come back, or my dad would wake up, but Mum didn’t, and Dad passed away.”
His jaw clenched. “You never saw her again?”
“No, not once. And I never knew she had another daughter until six months ago when Magan searched for me. Mum had walked away from her, too. When she was five. She’s also now in the foster care system.”
“Fuck,” he swore, and I completely agreed.
I shifted so one arm was around him, and I tangled my fingers in his hair at the nape of his neck. “I don’t think I can ever bring myself to understand her actions. Maybe I went to her today hoping it would help, but it didn’t. It just dredged all the shitty feelings of not being worthy up. And hate…It brought up all the hate I feel towards her, and I don’t want to feel hate, but I do.” My voice cracked on that last sentence. I lived my life totally against the feeling of hate, but as much as I tried, I couldn’t stop that feeling from bubbling up when I thought of my mother.
He was silent for a beat. When he spoke, I knew deep in my bones that he had first-hand experience with what he said. “Hate is a double-edged sword, baby. Sometimes it’s all you’ve got and all you’re capable of feeling. Sometimes it gets you through when nothing else can. When you think you’ll go fucking crazy from what you’re going through, you need something – anything – to grip onto and believe in…just to get you through to that next level of feeling. But it’s not a good place to be for too long. It’ll eat you up and rip your soul out if you hold onto it for any length of time. At some point you need to find a way to move past it, into an acceptance of sorts. You need to accept that the person will never be who you need them to be - and that’s on them, not you. Acceptance doesn’t mean you accept what they gave you…you never have to do that.”
His words worked their way into my heart and I knew they would help me. Maybe not today, or tomorrow, or even next month, but at some point they would be like a switch lighting up my darkness and leading the way for me to move past the feelings that didn’t serve me.
I pressed my lips to his and kissed him.
Slow and deep.
I loved that he gave the same back to me. He didn’t push for anything else; he simply let me lead the way, and after last night, I knew that was out of character for him. And that meant so much to me.
I felt special.
He made me feel special.
20
Griff
Sophia’s bed was empty when I woke and goddamn if that didn’t force me out of bed faster than I’d ever left one before. I found her sitting outside on her back patio in the morning sun, sipping coffee and staring into space.