Undersold(32)

“I want to be with you. That hasn’t changed,” he said.

“I want that too.” My heart was pounding.

“Amy, there are things about my past that you don’t know. Things that very few people know. And I will tell you all about it one day, I promise.”

What did he mean by that? A thousand questions ran through my mind. Why was he even mentioning some mysterious past if he didn’t plan on telling me? More secrets blossomed inside of him, and he felt like he was always just out of reach.

He must have read my confused look. “I’m saying that only because I trust you, and I want you to know how serious I am about this. I am trying to open myself to you, but it’s taking longer than I expected.”

I nodded. I understood that. I hadn’t told him every detail about my family yet, either. And the pressures of his life were still foreign to me, although, from having been around him the past few months, I was starting to see the immense burdens he carried, and the serious way he carried them. He asked everything of himself, and gave as freely as he could. It was part of what drew me to him so fully.

“I understand. I’m okay with that,” I said softly.

“I want to tell you at least one thing about me. You know I grew up here, in this city. What I never told you was that my dad was an alcoholic, an old school blue-collar kind of guy. Beer in hand as soon as he got home, and passed out drunk by midnight. Every single night, and sometimes during the day, too, he drank. Things got bad, toward the end. My brother hated him, more than even me and my mom did. My father hit him sometimes, and my brother would fight back.

“One day, he drank himself to death, and was gone. I was fifteen. It was hard on my mother, his death. She said he hadn’t always been that way, but all I remember is him, drunk out of his mind, yelling at my mother about the laundry. He never hit her, at least, but he never made her happy, either. We spent our days afraid of him, and I felt glad when he died. I’m ashamed of that, but I did.”

I had never heard any of this. I knew his father died when he was young; that was public knowledge. But I had no clue he was an abusive alcoholic, and I didn’t know he grew up poor, like me. I realized that nobody else but his family and me knew these details. He didn’t have anyone else close to him in his life, as far as I could tell.

I held his hand as he spoke, and didn’t interrupt him.

“I grew up poor. I’m not ashamed of that, but I don’t advertise it. I use it as a driving force, a desire to succeed. I want to give my mother the life she tried to give to us, which is why I worked so hard all my life. Success is a tool for me to provide for her. And that’s also why I stayed in Philly and made my company’s headquarters here. I wanted to give back to the city that gave me absolutely nothing. I want to make this place better for all the kids like me. That’s also why your app is so important to me personally. I want to improve the lives of low income families, particularly the kids.”

That explained a lot about everything. That’s why he wanted to spend so much time working on my app when he didn’t normally devote himself to new projects. It explained why he was so secretive and successful, and why he was a dominant force in everything he did. More than that, though, I realized how similar we were. He worked to make his mother’s life easier, while I worked to make my father’s illness as comfortable as possible.

“I guess that’s why you gave me so much attention,” I said.

He laughed. “No, that was entirely for your body.”

I blushed. “Thank you for telling me all that,” I said and squeezed his hand.

He squeezed mine back. “I want you to know me.”

I felt something inside of me break in that moment. I could feel the tears well up in my eyes, and Shane’s face dropped in surprise.

“What did I say?”

I wiped at my face and felt stupid. “Nothing, at all. It’s just, I haven’t been completely open with you, either.”

“You don’t have to tell me anything you’re not comfortable with.” He looked concerned, and he reached out to brush my cheek.

“I know. But I want you to hear this.” I took a deep breath. I hadn’t told anyone this story in a long time, but something about this moment compelled me to speak. He knew about my father’s cancer, of course, but I kept this from him. I don’t know why I did, maybe I was afraid of how he would react. But it was a defining moment for me, and a large part of who I was.

“When I was a kid, I got in a car accident. I know I told you that much already. What I didn’t tell you...what I couldn’t tell you...was that my mother was driving. It was late, and it was raining. I had been out at a friend’s house drinking, and she came to pick me up when I missed curfew. I was sixteen at the time, way too young, and she was pretty pissed. Well, I don’t remember how, but she lost control of the car. The police said she probably hit some water and aquaplaned. According to them, we hit a tree going pretty fast. Next thing I remember, I woke up in the hospital with my brothers and my Dad, and they told me she had died.”