She shifted to face him. “It was a long time ago.”
“Doesn’t make it hurt any less. Hell, I hurt after being abandoned by a goddamned football team. But I have a strong, tight-knit family who loves me. I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t have them. And look at you—you’re smart, you’re successful, and look at the person you’ve become. You did this all on your own.”
She looked down, then back up at him. “I didn’t do it alone. I had a very nice foster family, I was lucky to land a really great scholarship, and I had mentors to help me along the way.”
“But not a family—not your mother. The person who should have been there for you, cheering for you and supporting you.”
“Not everyone has the traditional nuclear family, Cole. Some of us actually survive that.”
“I know.” He leaned in and brushed his knuckles across her cheek. “And you can try and pretend it’s okay. That you’re strong and tough and you don’t need anyone. That you didn’t need her. But that’s all bullshit. I know it, and you know it.”
Savannah stared at Cole.
“You’re so pushy. I told you my story. Why can’t you leave it alone?”
“Have you ever dealt with it?”
She’d spent so many years holding it all inside.
“I’m here right now, aren’t I? I obviously dealt with my past.”
“I’m not talking about surviving it. Yeah, you survived it. But you haven’t let go of it.” He rubbed her arm. “What she did to you mattered. It wasn’t fair.”
He was wrong. She was fine. It didn’t matter. She had always shown everyone how strong she was.
“Show me how you feel, Peaches.”
Damn him. In a matter of a few weeks, he’d seen right through her. One music box, and he’d known.
Her bottom lip trembled. She got up, walked to the window to look outside, staring at the darkness, not really seeing anything but the years falling away, stripping away the cool, confident woman she was now, revealing the scared little girl she once was. She’d vowed to never go back to that place, to never revisit those feelings again, yet here she stood.
Cole wrapped his arms around her. She stiffened.
“It’s okay to be vulnerable, Savannah, to let someone see you scared.”
“I’m not scared. Not anymore.”
He tightened his hold on her. “She hurt you, abandoned you. What kind of mother does that?”
“She was sick.”
“Stop making excuses for her.” He turned her around to face him. “Did you ever get mad at her? Did you ever lash out, even in a room by yourself, and voice how you feel?”
She looked past him, to all those nights she’d waited in the foster home. “Every time the phone or doorbell rang, I was sure it was her. That the reason she’d left was so she could get clean, and then she was going to come back for me.
“But every time the phone or doorbell rang, it wasn’t her. She didn’t get clean. She didn’t come back. She wasn’t thinking about me, only about herself. Like always, it was about her and what she needed, never about what I needed.”
He swept his hand down her arm, his touch light. He wasn’t pulling her in, wasn’t trying to hug her, just giving her comfort. “What did you need?”
Anger and hurt finally won. She slumped against him. “I needed my mother. I needed her to take care of me.” Tears spilled from her eyes and she didn’t try to hold them back. The floodgates had burst and pain wrenched from every part of her. “Why did she do that to me? Why didn’t she take care of me?”
Her legs wobbled and she started to sink to the floor. Cole was there to catch her, to wrap his strong arms around her. He dropped down and pulled her onto his lap.
She leaned her head against him and sobbed, so hard that for a while she felt like she couldn’t breathe. And through it all, Cole held her, stroking her hair and her back while she cried out the misery, loneliness, and abandonment she’d felt as a child and all through her adulthood.
For the first time in all these years, she let the memories come through, remembered the good times she’d had with her mother, and all the bad times, wrenching fresh tears and agony so painful she wasn’t sure she’d survive it.
And still, Cole held her, murmuring words of comfort, a solid presence while she let go of it all.
When she had nothing left to cry, she leaned her head against his shoulder, so spent she couldn’t even talk. Cole picked her up and carried her into the bedroom. He sat her on the bed and went into the bathroom, came back with a warm washcloth to wipe her face. He took down her hair, slipped off her shoes, and unzipped her dress, making her stand so he could slip it off her, then he moved her onto the bed and put her under the covers.
Exhaustion took over and she crawled in. He undressed and climbed in the bed with her, shut off the light and pulled her tight against him.
There was so much more she wanted to say to him, but she didn’t have it in her to have that conversation.
Not now. She needed to regroup.