Love My Pain (Cape Falls Book 6)(32)

Sophie sighed. “I don’t know. I know Is was scared in case someone did try. No one did though. Everyone knew our folks had left. Good riddance as well. I never liked how they were able to make Is cry. It has been nearly eight years. I doubt they would ever come back. They’re probably dead somewhere.”

“You don’t sound too cut up about it,” he said.

“There is only one parent I know, and that is Isabel. She’s my mom, my dad, my best friend, my everything, Edward. I love her. She’s my Is. I don’t think she knows how much I appreciate everything she did for me. Even when I was being an asshole to her growing up. She’d just sit there and take it. Eventually, I’d be the one humiliated.”

Edward knew she didn’t just sit there and take it. Isabel had other means of dealing with what was going on in that head of hers.

****

“How was lunch?” Edward asked.

Isabel strapped herself in and smiled. “It was fun.” She was getting closer to the girls every single day. She and Amy had hit it off straight away.

“Good. I just got finished talking with Sophie.”

“Is she okay?” Isabel asked. She hadn’t talked to her sister in a couple of days.

“She’s fine. We were just chatting about everything and nothing. She’s already talking about Christmas.”

“She loves Christmas. We would decorate the trailer as much as possible. It was kind of hard to do, but we made do with what we had. It was fun.”

“You’ll have a field day with my place then. Don’t worry about the expense either. I’ve got you covered.”

“You’re always so good to me.” She rested her head back on the seat, and smiled at him. “I missed you.”

“I missed you, too.” He took hold of her hand and pressed a kiss there, heating her up. She pressed her thighs together remembering the feel of him sliding inside her. “Why didn’t you tell me that you had quit the online college?”

“It slipped my mind.”

When she went to withdraw her hand, Edward held onto it.

“I want you to sign back up for it.”

“Why?”

“Because I remember how excited you were talking about it, okay? You could have gone to college. I saw your test scores. You graduated with a decent grade. It wasn’t sloppy.”

“I don’t have it in me to do the college thing, or the online stuff. I’ve tried, and it doesn’t suit me.” She gritted her teeth as she stared at him.

He looked so disappointed.

Neither of them spoke for several minutes, and she wondered what he was thinking, so she asked him.

“What am I thinking?”

“Yeah, I want to know.”

“I don’t know right now. I’m just in a weird place. I don’t understand why you would quit a course that you enjoyed. It was English, right?”

“Yes, it was. You don’t understand.”

“Then explain it to me.”

“It was too hard, okay? I’m not a natural at something like this. I just … I don’t want to waste my time. Yeah, it was fun doing something different, but it didn’t hold my attention. I didn’t see the point in wasting anyone else’s time. There were students there with real passion, and I just didn’t have that.”

“So you’re giving up instead of fighting for it.”

She paused.

There was no argument left. She was giving up, but why?

No sound came from her lips as she looked at him. She didn’t know what to say, or what to think.

Edward parked up outside of their home.

“I’m not giving up, not really. I didn’t enjoy it, Edward. That’s not giving up. I made this decision.”

“When did you quit?” he asked.

“A couple of months ago. Erm, after I talked with Sophie.” She had listened as Sophie talked about her classes, explaining the different topics she was learning and how excited she was. For Isabel, it had just reminded her over and over again of everything that she couldn’t have, and it was all just a dream. “I’m not a jealous person.”

“In that moment you felt it?” he asked.

“I love my sister more than anything. I can’t do what she does. She doesn’t even know about anything else. It just made me not want to set myself up for failure. I gave up my chance of a higher education. I finally realized it’s not what I want to do.”

Edward reached out, cupping her cheek. “I think your problem is you always expect to fail, and you never will.”

“How can you say that?” She pointed at her arms and then her thighs. “Look what I do.”

“That has nothing to do with failing, babe. Nothing at all. Sophie is a strong, funny, independent woman. She is going to drive someone crazy to falling in love with her. You should be proud. You did that. No one else. You helped her. You went and worked crazy hours in a diner to keep her clothed, fed, and you made sure she got the education she deserved.” He covered her hand as she was scratching her thigh.