Submit and Surrender (28 page)

No, what was terrifying about it was watching how happy
she
made
Ford
, and knowing she could break his heart. It was watching him talk to her about the son he almost had, and realizing that he needed her, in his way, just as much as she needed him.
That
scared her. She could hurt him as bad as he could hurt her. It blew her mind. And it terrified her, with that familiar kind of panic, which surprised her.

That man had taught her more things about herself in the past few weeks than she’d learned on her own in thirty years. And that last lesson was a total mindfuck, because she’d never been in a position where that was possible before.

And she was willing to deal with the mindfuckery—she
was
dealing with it—until she got those messages.

The first one was from Charlie. Just the first one. “I can’t do it. I’ll call you when I get where I’m going.”

And the next bazillion were from Nicole.

She didn’t need to call Charlie to know he wasn’t answering his phone, so she didn’t bother. She just called Nicole to tell her she’d be there in a few hours, and what she’d heard had frightened her.

Nicole just sounded…flat.

Adra broke every speed limit in the book on the way down. She told herself the whole way that she was overreacting, that this was obviously just her own neuroses kicking into hyper-drive again, that she’d get there and it wouldn’t be a huge crisis, and she’d go back to Ford and resume the business of slowly changing her life.

She told herself all sorts of reasonable things.

One of the worst things about being prone to anxiety and freaking out and imagining the worst-case scenario in every little situation was when she actually turned out to be
right
.

The house was a little bit of a disaster. It looked like…it looked like one of those places she’d seen on television pre-intervention. The sink was overflowing with dirty dishes, so the boys had started putting them on whatever surface was available, piling them up into little statues of cereal bowls and cups that adorned the entire house like tiny little cairns. Someone had done a load of laundry days ago, but it had never been folded or put away, and was just taking up one of the seats on the couch, so the cat had claimed it as a bed. There was trash on the floor like a fine layer of debris.

Adra wouldn’t have believed this level of chaos could build up in only a few days, except she had seen those boys at work herself. In two days they could level the place down to the studs if they wanted. So this wasn’t exactly as bad as it could be.

None of it was such a big deal on its own, not really. She could imagine things getting out of hand even if both parents were around; it happened with kids. But Adra knew her sister-in-law. And Nicole was a neat freak.

So this level of disaster was not good.

She picked her way through the house like it was an actual disaster zone, or like she had to be careful of destroying evidence, and didn’t catch herself until she got to the kitchen. It was the silence, that’s what was so weird. This house was never quiet. It spooked her until she saw the boys out in the yard, playing some sort of game.

And then she got to the bedroom and her heart broke a little bit more.

Nicole was lying in bed, surrounded by used tissues. Adra just stood there for a second in the doorway, trying to catch her breath. She had found her mother like this so many times. So many.

Except that Nicole, when she heard Adra come in, turned over, startled, and sat up. Nicole grabbed a tissue, apologizing, Nicole tried to engage, be normal, or as normal as she could be under the circumstances. Adra’s mom…Adra’s mom wouldn’t have done any of that. She would have been drunk or too depressed to speak, or both. She wouldn’t have moved from that mountain of tissues. She would have just kept staring at the wall with vacant, sad eyes.

“Oh God, you scared me half to death. I thought you were one of the boys,” Nicole said, dabbing at her eyes with a clean tissue. “I just…I had to send them outside so I could have a cry. I’m trying to schedule it,” she said, laughing through her tears.

Adra blinked.

Snap out of it, Adra. She’s not Mom.

“What can I do?” she said.

Nicole leaned back against the headboard. “Give Charlie a brain transplant?”

Adra wanted to cry, but she made herself laugh instead.

“How are the boys?” she asked.

“Oblivious. Daddy is on a business trip again. I had to work from home, though, so that’s why the place is a mess,” she said. Then she sighed. “I don’t know how long I can keep any of this up, though.”

“When was the last time you slept?”

“Sleeping?” Nicole said wryly. “What’s that?”

Adra flopped on the bed, feeling miserable and powerless. Just like she felt when she was a kid, and she had to watch her mother go through the same thing. Of course, Adra had gotten older and realized that, no matter how much Adra loved her, her mom had her own issues, that it wasn’t all that simple. But the feeling was still there.

“I am so sorry, Nic,” she said.

“It’s not your fault,” Nicole said. “I know what he’s like, Adra. I know…I knew about this, kind of. I mean, I knew what I was getting into. I know that sounds completely insane, but…I love him.” She shrugged.

Adra stared at this woman she’d thought she knew, and realized she only knew a very superficial part of her. “How are you not losing your mind?”

Nicole looked at her. “He always comes back, Adra.”

Adra forced herself to smile, but inside…

Inside, she was screaming. Inside, she remembered how there was a time when their father didn’t come back, and she felt ten years old again, powerless to stop it. Inside, she felt afraid.

***

As steadfast and sure as she was, Nicole was also just worn out, having gone through something like this countless times, and she’d reached her limit. And even though Adra had seen this so many times before, she still felt like a kid with no idea what to do.

So she did what she’d done when she was a kid—she took care of stuff.

She cleaned. She was like a whirlwind dervish of cleaning. She made the boys come inside and help, mostly as an excuse to check on them. They seemed fine, but she wondered. She wondered how long it would be before they figured out something was wrong, and that made her want to suit up and hunt her brother down. She would
not
let this happen to these boys.

And while she was thinking of ways to fix her brother’s screw-ups, she made Nicole take a sleeping pill, because even an apparent stoic superwoman needed sleep. And she was relieved to hear that Nicole’s parents were coming down from Seattle, the one piece of good news. They were retired, had all the time in the world, and were great with the boys. Nicole had plenty of people who wanted to help her.

Just not her husband.

So by the time Adra put the boys to bed, her heart aching when each one of them hugged her, she was a mess on the inside. She kept it together up until the rest of the house was asleep, and then…

Then it started.

She had let herself forget what this was like. She had driven down here in a total panic because she’d remembered, suddenly, she’d remembered the things she’d let herself forget. And just because Nicole wasn’t broken by it, the way her own mother had been, that didn’t change things, not really. She had let herself forget what her family was really like.

She had been so, so stupid.

So when Ford called her, she knew what she had to do.

“Adra, why are you crying?” he said.

She could already feel it in his voice. He was worried. She could imagine him pacing around that house, just looking for something to do, for somewhere to put that energy. She knew the only reason he hadn’t insisted on coming with her, let alone tracked her down, was because of how much he respected her, but this would be driving him crazy. Causing him pain. Adra was perversely grateful that he was far away, that it was just his voice tugging at her heart over the phone, because she knew that if she had to see him in person she could never, ever do this.

“Because of what I’m about to say,” she said.

There was a pause.

“Tell me what happened,” he said.

“He left,” Adra said. “Nicole says he’s coming back, but I don’t… I’d forgotten what this is like, Ford. It’s bad.”

“Does she have anyone else? How long are you staying?”

“Her parents are coming. I’m staying as long as she needs me.”

“I’ll come down.”

Adra closed her eyes and stifled a sob.

“No,” she said.

“Adra,” he said, after a moment. “Don’t.”

“I’ve been so stupid,” she said. “So, so stupid. You don’t understand. If you knew…”

“I’m coming down.”

“No!” she said, suddenly desperate. She really couldn’t do this if she had to see him. She didn’t care if that made her coward so long as it didn’t make her the woman who made promises that she couldn’t keep.

“You deserve so much more, Ford,” she said quietly.

“So do you,” he said, and she could tell he was saying it through gritted teeth. There was nothing that annoyed him more than when he thought she disparaged herself. She smiled sadly.

“Not that,” she said. “I know I deserve more too, but it’s not…it’s not that simple. I’m not
capable
of this. I’m not. But you are. I can’t do that to you. I can’t risk it.”

“That is
my
risk to take,” he said, and it was the first time she heard him sound angry. “
Mine
. You’re afraid, Adra. I’m not.”

“Yeah, no shit,” she said.

“Adra, I love you. I don’t care about anything else.”

“That’s exactly the problem,” she said. “Don’t love me. Please, don’t love me, don’t be hurt by me, don’t trust me. I’ve been so afraid of being hurt by you, because I love you more than I ever thought I could love someone, but the truth is, I’ve been hurt like that before. I know what it would do to me. But if I ever did this to you…”

She stopped, and covered her mouth while she sobbed.

“Adra,” he said.

“If I ever did this to you, I couldn’t handle it. I couldn’t survive this. I can’t be this person. I can’t. I can’t risk it. I’m not as strong as you are, Ford.”

“You don’t have to be, damn it. I can be strong for the both of us until you’re ready.”

“I want you to have a family,” she said. “I want you to have all the things that you want… Ford, you know I have complete faith in you, don’t you?”

He paused.

“Yeah,” he said.

“Thank you for that,” Adra said. “I honestly never thought I’d be able to say that about anyone.”

“Adra, I know what you’re going to say, and you are wrong.”

“I’m not wrong,” she said. “I
don’t
have faith in myself. How can I? I can’t…I can’t do this to you, Ford. Please. I just can’t.”

There was a silence. An aching, ageless silence where Adra was alone in her misery.

And then he said, “No.”

It was the voice. The Dom voice. Even then, even at that miserable moment, it made Adra sit up straighter.

“This is wrong, Adra,” he said. “You are scared, and that is understandable, but saying you are not capable…”

He actually sounded angry.

“You are wrong,” he said again. “And I am losing my patience. I will be damned if I let you think those things about yourself.”

Adra closed her eyes again, and felt fresh tears glide down her cheeks. She loved him so much that it hurt, and she had to do this one thing right. What was it that she’d learned through this mess with Charlie? She couldn’t fix it.

“Not even a Dom can fix everything,” she said quietly.

“This one can,” he said, his voice like iron. “Watch me.”

“No, you can’t,” Adra said. She took a deep breath. She had to burn this bridge once and for all. She had to go for the jugular. “And you’re not right about everything, either. You can’t be this perfect, Ford. No one is. And I am the worst person in the world to use to fix your life.”

There was a silence. A long, cold silence. Adra held her breath to keep from crying. She’d just tried to hurt him in order to do the right thing, and the worst part was, it had worked.

“That’s what you think I’m doing?” he finally said. “Using you to fix my life?”

She couldn’t even bring herself to say it again. But she couldn’t do this, either.

When Adra finally spoke, her voice sounded as dead as she felt inside. “You can’t change who I am, and you can’t change who you are,” she said. “You should find someone else, Ford. Because you can’t have me.”

Adra barely slept. It was one of those nights where it felt like she hadn’t slept at all, just tossed and turned and tried not to think about Ford even while she missed him with a physical ache, until suddenly, too quickly, it was morning. And there was another day.

She actually didn’t feel any better than she had the night before. Possibly that was not surprising. She was just…dead. A zombie. She was able to get up, go through the motions, but not one part of her felt alive.