“So you thought you’d add insult to injury by leaving me by myself at the hospital?!”
“I was wrong. I know I was wrong.”
“You didn’t answer my phone calls. You ignored my texts. You forbade everyone from even telling me where you were. What is that, Sean? Who does that?!”
“I didn’t know what to do.” His eyes begged for understanding as he approached the foot of the stairs, making his way closer to me. “Those photographers?” He pointed somewhere off into the distance. “They would never have acted that way if I wasn’t with you.”
“So you decided to call it quits and leave me to clean up the mess?” Guilt I could understand, but abandoning me?
“You were hurt because of me.” He jabbed a finger into his own chest. “Joanie was in a car accident because of me, because of my career.”
“No.” I crossed to the top of the stairs, unable to stand still any longer. “You don’t get to claim responsibility for their actions. I was hurt because the paparazzi are soul-sucking vampires who see nothing but dollar signs when they look at you or anyone else.” My anger at what those people had done to us compounded the fire inside me, making my voice tremble.
“Exactly. They’re after me because of who I am and what I do. And by bringing you into my life, I put you at risk.”
“And have I ever run away from that? Do you think I fell in love with you without knowing what that meant? I knew what I was doing, Sean! I might not like parts of it, but I went into this thing with my eyes wide open. I accepted every risk, every annoyance. But it seems like you didn’t. You ran. Instead of sticking it out and staying by my side, you left me!” The raw ache in my heart broke my voice. “Do you have any idea how much that hurt?”
“Yes, Libby. I do.”
It took me a moment to realize what he meant, and when I did, it gouged a hole in my heart. Still, he hadn’t said it with anger. Instead it was just a statement of fact.
We’d never talked about it. He’d sent me the letter from rehab, yes. But other than that, we had never talked about what it had been like for him when I’d left. “That’s not the same thing,” I said, my voice a desperate whisper as I tried not to let the guilt and shame overpower me. “This situation was totally different.”
“No, it was exactly the same.”
My face scrunched up. Hurt by the accusation, angry that he would imply that I was somehow the thing that had driven him away.
He came up a few steps. “I was hurting you—again.”
My anger morphed into confusion.
“You walked away for your own good,” he clarified. “I was doing the same. I walked away because it was the best thing for you.”
I glared, unwilling to accept that reasoning.
“At least,” he said more quietly, “I thought it was best for you, but I regretted it as soon as I was gone.”
“Then why didn’t you come back?”
“I was going to, but when I first made the decision to leave—to protect you—I called Naomi. I made sure she was going to come, and then I gave my phone to Randy. I told him not to let me have it back, and he didn’t, even when I asked for it. Even when I demanded it.”
“You could have driven here! You could have found a landline. Cell phones aren’t the only form of communication.”
“I know. But when he wouldn’t give me my phone, it reminded me of all the reasons I had decided it was best to remove myself from the equation, and I thought I should give it some time. Because if I came swooping back in and that ended up being a mistake, I would just make everything worse. I didn’t know what was right.”
I made myself breathe in and out twice before responding. “And I’m supposed to trust that this time—now—you won’t do the same thing? You won’t decide tomorrow or next week that all those good reasons you had really were the real deal?”
“I lasted less than two days, Libby. By last night I was barely functioning. I realized my worry for you hadn’t decreased. It had increased. I realized I didn’t trust anyone else to take care of you. I made Randy give me my phone back. I may or may not have taken a swing at him before he took me seriously. I started texting Nick, demanding to know if you were okay or not.”
I blanched. Nick hadn’t said anything about that.
“At first he told me. He would text that you were fine and then send me a middle finger emoji.” His laugh held no real humor, only derision. “But this morning when I asked for the third time, he just said, ‘If you want to know, you’ll have to come see for yourself.’” He rolled his lips in, biting on the insides, holding himself in check. “And he was right,” he confessed. “The fear of losing you and the knowledge that I hurt you really did a number on me.” His eyes were red, almost haunted. “I didn’t know which way was up. I didn’t know which impulses to follow and which ones to reject. But when I went back and read the texts you had sent me, I realized that you were right and I just hadn’t been willing to hear you. I was being a coward. I wasn’t protecting you by running away. I was just giving in to my fear. And I knew that I couldn’t live my life constantly wondering if you were okay. You will always be the most important thing in my life, and it would be the greatest regret of my life if I let you go.” He climbed two more steps.
My heart hurt from the effort of containing all the love and anger and confusion he stirred up inside me.
“I love you too much to let someone else take care of you. That’s my job. If you’ll let me take care of you.”
I breathed slow and shallow for several seconds, desperately wanting to let him back in but terrified. “I thought—” I had to swallow back my emotion. “I thought maybe you’d gone off the deep end again. That you weren’t talking to me because—”
“No.” He shook his head vehemently. “I didn’t touch anything. I didn’t self-medicate. You know I’ll always be fighting that fight, but I’ve got the tools now. I’ve been doing good.”
“I know you have.” Which was why his disappearing act had been so jarring.
“But I’m still going to mess up in other ways. I’m still going to be stupid once in a while. But I will do my best to make sure it’s not often. And I will never put you through anything like this again.” The confidence in his voice soothed my tattered heart a bit.
I swallowed twice before I could look him in the eye and speak. “There will be more paparazzi. There will always be people who want more of you. But leaving me will never fix it.”
“I know. I know you’re right.” He was only four stairs away from me now. “I was just so scared for you. And as much as I try to tell myself it’s not my fault, it feels like my fault. And before, when you left, us being apart was the right thing. So I thought maybe you would always be better off away from me. I thought that was the right thing.”
“But it’s not.” I stepped down the remaining stairs that separated us, taking his face in my hands so that I could press my forehead to his, tears dripping down my face. “Please tell me you’re done thinking that. Please tell me I’m not going to have to worry about you walking out on me for my own good.”