Maddie paused. It would be so much easier if she just got out of this car, if she didn't sit next to him for the long drive back home.
Then she decided that it didn't matter. Not in the long haul. Caleb was going to be a part of her life forever once the baby was born. For their child's sake, she preferred that they remained friends. That would be the best case scenario in this situation. It was such a simple act, him driving her so she wouldn't have to take a bus to the BART station, and if it made him feel better, then so be it.
"Yes, I did," she said quietly.
Caleb gave a sharp nod, waited for her to buckle her seatbelt, and then he was pulling away from the curb.
This was going to be the longest car ride of her life.
FORTY-FOUR
Maddie directed him to her car in the parking lot at Walnut Creek and Caleb slid into the space next to it. He could feel her eyes on him, could feel how close she was, and he had the urge to just pull her across his lap and wrap his arms around her so she would never leave him again.
During the entire drive out of the city, her words had been burning tracks in his mind. They hurt. The defeat in her eyes, the sure steadiness of her voice as she spoke about how hopeless their future was together … he could see the cracks burrowing their way into her heart and it fucking tore at him. He hated that he was the cause of her pain, of her resolve.
Maddie was finally giving up on him. After everything that they'd been through, after all the fighting, after all the ugly words he'd thrown in her face, this was the final straw for her. And he deserved nothing less.
Even if he did love her, even if he couldn't stomach the thought of a future without her and couldn't imagine waking up with anyone else, Caleb didn't know if he could be everything that she wanted him to be. He would always be broken in some way. Maddie had begun the process of putting him back together, but there were pieces missing that could never be recovered. He feared that he could never be whole for her. And that was what she wanted.
The thought of letting her go was met with a dizzying and fierce resistance. Maddie might believe that they were over, but he was a determined man. A selfish one too. She might have given up on him, but he would never give up on her.
Right at that moment, he could start. He could try and explain why this was so difficult for him, to try and give her something that he knew she'd wanted for a long time-for him to open up. He just wasn't sure how far he was willing to go.
When she reached down to unbuckle her seatbelt, he reached across the console and caught her hand.
"I-," he started, but the words stuck in throat. And it was so damn frustrating. He tried again, "I need you to … "
Shit, he was awful at this.
"Caleb?" she asked, brows furrowing.
He must've sat there for five whole minutes-and Maddie didn't move, as if sensing that he needed time-until he could find the words. When they tore from his throat, they were ugly and bitter, but he was glad to be rid of them.
"All the women who have ever fucked me over in my life have told me that they loved me."
Maddie's hand stiffened in his own. He ignored that they were sitting in a parking lot, that people passed by his car every now and again, looking at them curiously before averting their gaze.
"My mother. Charlotte. Victoria." He paused, his hand tightening before he continued. "Stella, my aunt."
Maddie's lips parted. "She … she … "
"Does that disgust you?" he asked, his lips twisting.
"Caleb-"
"She told me on multiple occasions that she loved me. I hated her fucking guts, yet I let her fuck me and I let her tell me she loved me."
There it was. The shame, the hatred, the ugliness. It stabbed at him, chewed at his innards, consumed parts of him that could never be reclaimed. So many years of that bleakness, that darkness, always wondering why it had happened to him. Always wondering why he had allowed it, why he hadn't spoken up for himself, defended himself.
He struggled with it still. They were old memories and they only surfaced when he least expected them to. They were memories that would always be under his skin until the day he died, but he'd learned to live with them, to coexist with them, so that they didn't consume him.
Maddie was utterly silent. Caleb wondered if she was even breathing.
"It didn't happen all the time," he told her, voice rumbling in his chest. "Maybe once or twice a month. She was conflicted about it, can you believe that? She'd come into my room at night, when my uncle was asleep, and every time I heard that door creak open, I wanted to vomit. And I hated when she touched me. If I didn't wake up when the door opened, she would wake me with her hands. And it would be dark, but it made my skin crawl. Afterwards, she'd tell me the same thing. That she loved me. That I couldn't tell my uncle because he wouldn't believe me. She'd threaten me. She'd panic, I remember that. She would whisper to herself that it was wrong. That she wouldn't do it again."