“I know…you heard the call go out and that you came straight to the hospital,” I told him. “I’m sorry you had to go through any of that. I just wasn’t ready to…to see you.”
“You don’t need to apologize.” He squeezed my hand. “What’s been going on in here?”
I raised a shoulder and then became aware of what I was doing. I wasn’t being honest. I was hiding, and damn, if Tanner deserved anything from me, it wasn’t to sit here and act like a tool.
Taking a deep breath, I slipped my hand free. I couldn’t be touching him when I had to be honest. Weird, but true. “I’ve spent a lot of time talking.”
“About?”
I smiled wanly. “Everything.”
“Would you…would you tell me?” he asked.
This was hard. Putting voice to this stuff, especially to someone like Tanner, who probably had only ever seen one side of me, but it was something we focused on during my sessions with Dave. To put a voice to what I was feeling, to cope that way instead of bottling it up…and turning to a bottle.
So I told him.
I talked about always rushing toward tomorrow, my restlessness and all those quiet moments. I confided in my fear of letting my parents down and how I couldn’t settle on a future. I even told him about when I’d taken my first drink and how it felt to not care about anything, to feel like I was free, and I told him about the crash, because that feeling never lasted.
When I was done, I was exhausted. It was like shedding skin, but all of these things I spoke to Tanner about, it wasn’t the first time I gave them a voice. These were all things that Dave had snaked out of me, one meeting after another.
I exhaled loudly. “So that’s…that’s everything.”
“Yeah,” he said quietly, and I peeked at him. He was staring at the wall. “That is everything. I…”
My cheeks heated. “You’re probably wishing you hadn’t asked.”
“No. Not at all,” he replied quickly. “I just didn’t know. I mean, I knew you…I thought that there was something going on, but you’re getting help.”
I shifted. “Sometimes I wonder if I would’ve changed on my own. If I hadn’t gotten in that car and had the accident, if I would still be doing what I was doing,” I admitted.
Tanner nodded slowly. “I don’t think you’ll ever know, but you know what, it doesn’t matter. You’re doing something about all this now, and that’s what counts.”
I glanced over at him. “Really? That’s what counts?”
His brows knitted. “Yes.”
“I don’t know. I think it has to be more than that. I messed up, Tanner. I drove drunk and could’ve killed someone. I think that counts.”
“It does.” He twisted toward me. “But you didn’t. You only hurt yourself. And you’re getting help. The fact that you are facing this is a big deal. And Syd told me you didn’t fight it when your dad said you were going to treatment. Facing this takes real courage.”
Courage? I wasn’t sure about that.
His gaze searched mine. “Just in case you’re wondering, I’m not looking at you any differently, and I’m still waiting for you to come to me.”
My jaw nearly hit the floor. “What?”
He grinned a little. “Andrea, I really care about you. What I feel…” He moved his hand to his chest, above his heart. “I—”
“I’ve been diagnosed with depression. They think it’s a chemical imbalance, since I haven’t had any major life changes that would cause this, but that’s not something that is as easy to diagnose as people think it is. I have anxiety too, and it could be coming from the depression or the drinking. Or it could be a whole different set of issues. It could take months to really give a definitive diagnosis, but I’ve been self-medicating,” I rushed on, getting it out there. “With alcohol, and God knows what else.”
Tanner blinked. “Okay.”
A knot crept into my throat. “I think I’ve always known. I mean, I knew my head—my thoughts sometimes just didn’t make sense. Like it always went to the worst-case scenario and I…I don’t think I’m good enough or worthy enough, and those quiet moments, God, they’re killer. That’s what’s really going on with me, so please—please don’t say anything you really don’t mean.”
He didn’t say anything for a moment and then, “First off, you are fucking good enough and you are worthy. Okay? Yeah, you made a shit choice when you got behind the wheel of that car, but that’s not going to define who you are from this point on. You know why?”
My eyes widened. “Why?”
“Because you learned from your shit choice. You are still learning. You are doing everything to not make a shit choice like that again. And secondly? You have depression. So do how many million other people? I’m not trying to downplay it. I know it’s serious shit, but do you think that makes me think less of you? Depression isn’t a villain in this. The way you were trying to cope with it was. Depression isn’t the bad guy and neither are you. Not when you recognize what you’ve done.”
Tears rushed my eyes.
“And finally?” he continued. “I love you, Andrea.”
My lips parted. “Come again?”
He barked out a short laugh. “I love you. Okay? I’m not quite sure when I realized it or how long I’ve felt it, but I know that’s what I feel. Trust me. When I thought you were going to die, the panic and horror I felt? Yeah, I know how I feel.”
All I could do was stare at him.
“I’m not expecting you to say it back to me.” He gently cupped my cheeks and tilted my head back. “I don’t want you to say it back to me now, because when I hear those words, I want you to be sure. I want you to say them with only happiness in your eyes. I can wait for that. I will wait for that.”
As I stared into his eyes, in that moment, I knew that I still loved him, but I could not shake the feeling, the realization that I so did not deserve him.
I did not deserve the happy ending Dave loved so much.
Chapter 24
Andrea
“Do you really believe in happy endings?” I asked.
Dave arched a brow as he sat behind the desk. “Of course I do. Without them, what’s the point of all of this?”
It had been two weeks since I’d seen Tanner, two weeks since he’d said that he loved me and he’d wait to hear me say it with only happiness in my eyes. Two weeks where I had a hard time accepting that I deserved a happy ending.
“It’s a strange question to ask,” he commented. “May I ask why?”
The last thing I wanted to do was talk about Tanner with some oddly attractive guy. Why, oh why, did my counselor have to be a dude? “Tanner said—”
“Oh, the dreamy Tanner?” He grinned when I narrowed my eyes on him. “Continue.”
“He said that he loved me,” I told him.
Dave picked up the baseball. It was like he had a special relationship with the damn thing. “Is this a bad thing? From what you’ve said, he’s a good guy.” He threw the ball up and caught it. “Or do you not feel the same?”
My heart did a little jump. Answer enough. “I…I love him.”
“Does he suck at kissing?”
I rolled my eyes.
He chuckled and then quickly sobered as he clenched the ball. “Do you think you don’t really deserve it—the happily ever after?”
I pulled my legs up and wrapped my arms around my knees. A moment passed and Dave waited, and from prior experience, I knew he literally would sit there and wait until I opened my mouth. “I don’t know,” I said, shrugging one shoulder. “I mean, I’m a fuck-up and I’m a shitty person. I could’ve killed someone, and he…he deserves someone better than that, you know?”
“Having depression does not make you a fuck-up, Andrea.”
I frowned. “That’s not what I mean.” Or was it? I was still coming to terms with what it meant to have something that was shaping my life.