“We protected him because we thought he would get better. Looking back, we were too young to know any better. We should’ve told someone about his issues. But he kept his alcoholism so well hidden. Our grandfather was suspicious, sure, but we protected our father. Not out of loyalty for him, but maybe for our mother? I don’t know.”
“You were children.”
“But maybe if we had gotten him the help he needed early, we could’ve stopped the years of pain we felt after.” I shut my eyes, afraid Zahra might catch the wetness building in them.
Men don’t cry.
You’ve always been weak.
Pathetic.
All the memories flood my head at once.
“Pain tests us all in different ways.”
I nod. “I think for him, he ruined what everyone else loved because he couldn’t stand to lose the one person he cared for most in the world.”
“And what do you think he ruined for you?”
“The one thing I was good at. My brothers had sports, or comic books, or special clubs. But me? I was the odd one out. The disappointing artistic one who talked too much and dreamed too big.”
Zahra’s lips remain pressed together, although I can read a hundred questions in her eyes.
I exhale. “I got to the point that I started resenting myself. All I wanted to do was make my dad happy, but instead, I proved to him time and time again why I failed. Why I was the weakest of his sons. Why my mother was better off never seeing me become such a pathetic child.”
A tear trickles down Zahra’s face. “You can’t believe that.”
Look at you making her cry. Always the same disappointment.
I shake the thought away. “I—I don’t know. But I changed. There was a shift in my mindset after—” I stop myself from revealing too much. “I withdrew. Learned everything I could from my brothers and stopped caring about anything but proving my father wrong. I spent every day proving why I wasn’t a disappointment.”
“At the expense of what you loved?”
“It was a price to pay for peace. I didn’t think I would draw again—”
“Until you saw my atrocious drawings.”
I nod with a small smile. “Because I didn’t know it at the time, but I wanted you to see me.”
39
Zahra
I want to kiss Rowan until his lips are swollen and the sad look in his eyes is replaced by lust. Part of me wants to go back in time and protect that little boy who wanted nothing more than to dream and draw and be who he was without being attacked for it. I’d do anything to shield him from his father’s ugly words—a result of him hurting just as much as his sons.
I tighten my arms around his body. His ocean breeze scent washes over me as his head drops to the curve of my neck. He releases a shaky breath.
I’m not sure what this is but it feels right.
His heart pounds against his chest at an unsteady pace. “I didn’t tell you this for you to pity me.”
“Then why?”
“Because—” His voice trails off.
I give him the time he clearly needs. We do nothing but sit here together, basking in the comfort of each other’s company.
“You—because—” The fire conceals most of the redness in his face, but I catch the look of terror in his eyes.
I brush my lips across his, leaving behind the faintest kiss. “Because what?”