Page 94 of Badd Love
Dane was beside me, sitting cross-legged, close enough to touch but very carefully giving me space. "Are you relieved or…?"
I nodded. "Honestly, yes. I know you're not supposed to be happy when someone dies, but…I am." I laughed. "Is it terrible that I feel lighter and freer knowing both my mother and Danny are gone?"
Dane shook his head. "I don't think it is. I didn't know your mom had died."
I shrugged. "I didn't either. Danny was the one who told me, ironically. I guess she got some kind of super-aggressive cancer and was gone within a few months. Good riddance to the old bitch, and good riddance to Daniel Hezekiah Cohen."
I looked at Dru, on my left. "Thank you, Dru."
She wrapped one arm around me. "Anything, any time. You're family now, no matter what happens."
I sagged, hunched over. "It may take me some time to lean into that."
She squeezed me with that arm. "That's okay. We've got a lot of big personalities in this family, and all of us have been through some shit. You have a support system in place, now, Lindsey. I know it won't come easily or naturally, at first, but just try to let us help you if and when you need it."
I let myself lean against her. She was soft and warm and comforting. At first, I just leaned sideways, but then something dissolved inside me and I twisted toward her.
My eyes burned again, but I couldn't find the courage to fight them. I couldn't remember the last time I'd had a motherly hug—Rune's mom, a few months ago, probably. I wasn't a platonic huggy sort of person, generally. But just then, with Dru's arms around me and her warm spirit and calming, soothing energy surrounding me, I just…collapsed into her, sobbing hysterically.
"Oh, oh, oh," Dru murmured, gathering me against her chest, petting my hair, and rocking me like a baby. Which, to my eternal mortification, was wonderfully and inexplicably comforting. “There we go, there we go. Let it out, sweetheart. It's okay."
The world evaporated as I let go of the last strangling bonds of restraint, of emotional suppression. I'd wept for the child I was, and I'd wept for what Danny did to me, but I'd never wept for my lack of a mom. I'd never wept for the ache of loneliness I'd always felt, even when I had Rune and the Rigbys and Raquel. I'd never wept for how fucking hard life could be, even without trauma.
I let Dru Badd hold me, and I let myself go. With the amount of crying I'd done over the last two months, you'd think I'd be all cried out, but apparently not.
When my tears finally cleared up, I straightened, sniffling, and wiped at my face. "I'm sorry. I just—"
Her hand covered my mouth. "No ma'am. No apologizing. A mama knows when someone needs a hug and a good cry."
I nodded, glancing at Dane, who was sitting and watching, a soft smile on his face. "Not the reunion you were hoping for, huh?"
He shifted closer to me, resting a hand on my knee. "It's what you need. All I care about is you."
I shook my head. "I don't understand how you can be so understanding when I did everything I could to push you away."
"Because I love you."
Dru moved my hand to rest on Dane's and stood up. "I think that's my cue."
I snagged her arm. "Dru? I…"
She leaned down and kissed my crown; I barely knew the woman, and she was showering me with more love and affection than I've ever known. It was tilting my world on its axis. "I know, sweet girl." She put her lips to my ear. "Love him back, Lindsey. Take a risk. Just jump."
"What if I hurt him again?" I whispered back.
"You will—and he'll hurt you,” she said, in a more normal volume. “It's life, it's marriage, it's love. What matters is what you do next. Do you forgive him? Does he forgive you? Do you approach the problem together? I'm not a big churchgoer kinda gal, but at weddings they always read that one chapter about love. You know what I'm talking about?" I nodded, and she continued. "The part I always remember is where it says, 'love keeps no record of wrongs.'" She squeezed my shoulder. "I've tried really hard in my marriage to not be the wife that drags out old arguments or trots out that stupid thing he said six months ago during a different tiff. As long as you remember that loving someone is a choice, not an emotion, you'll be fine. You'll make it."
I frowned. "Not an emotion?"
She smiled, nodding. "The feelings come and go. Don’t get me wrong—I’m just as hot for my man now as I was twenty-three years ago when I met him. But when he pisses me off? I'm not so hot for him. I still love him, though, because while I may not always bein lovewith him, as in feeling the whole gamut of squishy, gooey, heart-eyes, I-love-you-baby stuff, I will alwayschooseto love him… even if that just means not murdering him in his sleep like I sometimes want to. And trust me, I've lain awake beside him more than once and considered smothering him with his own pillow because he did or said something monumentally idiotic…and honey, he's a man. He's gonna. So isDane. What matters is making the choice to love even when you don't feel the emotion of love. Make sense?"
"I…yeah? I think so." I looked at Dane. "It's just hard to picture what that looks like."
Dane smiled. "Stick around, watch my parents, watch my aunts and uncles. You'll see it in action. We don't hide our messes. I've seen every couple in my family get in fights on any number of occasions, mostly in private but occasionally in public. And I've seen them resolve it with love and forgiveness one hundred percent of the time."
"All I ever saw was dysfunction, abandonment, abuse, addiction, and selfishness," I said. "Sorta made me cynical about relationships, I'm realizing."
Dru squeezed my shoulder once more. "Honestly, Lindsey, just tuck all that aside for now and focus on what's in front of you. Which is Dane. Figuring out what being together looks like. The rest will come in time."
