The Thousand Words We Spoke (A Novella)

Chapter Eighteen

At breakfast, Holden charmed the hell out of her parents. He was kind, funny and polite and everything a parent would want in a man dating their only daughter. He'd transitioned from serious to casual in no time flat, and Mia only hoped she could remain as true to her word as he could do. It wasn't even all for show. He was holding her free hand beneath the table, squeezing it gently every now and again.

Once everyone had finished, Holden collected all the plates on the table, scraped the remaining food into the garbage and washed all the dishes, despite everyone's protests. Mia wrapped her arms around his stomach as he washed the final egg covered skillet. "I was thinking after you're done being the perfect houseguest, you and I could go for a walk. Show you around the neighborhood."

"Adam, what are you doing here?" she heard her father's voice ask from somewhere near the front door.

Holden's body stiffened at her father's words, as did Mia's.

She only heard Adam speak, but his tone was too quiet to make out the words. But she could guess what they were when she turned at the sound of footsteps and saw Adam and her father walk into the kitchen.

Adam's eyes fell on Holden, who was wiping his hands on a dish towel, and gave him a curt nod. "Holden, good to see you again."

She could see Holden had to force himself to nod back, his hands gripping the counter behind him as if would crumble beneath his tight grasp. "Likewise. I only wish it was under better circumstances. You have my condolences. I'm sure your father was a great man."

"You two know each other?" Her father asked in disbelief; the same disbelief Mia felt when she'd found out about their connection.

"He used one of my photos for a book cover two years back."

"Damn small world we live in," her father said as he gave Adam a small smack on the back. "Well, I'll leave you to it."

Her father left the room, and Adam's eyes remained on Holden. "I was hoping to speak to Mia for a minute."

Holden looked over at her only for a moment before returning his gaze to Adam. "If it's apologizing, that's fine. But my sympathy for your situation only runs so deep, so if you lay a hand on her, I promise you I can and will break it."

He didn't spare her a second look when he walked past Adam, but spared him plenty of looks before walking out of the room.

"I assume he knows," Adam said before he leaned against the other side of the counter.

"Not the details, but he knows I was in love with you."

Adam's head dropped, and hands clasped together against the countertop. "Past tense."

Mia saw him catch that and hoped like hell it would sink in. "The guy I loved is past tense. Who you are now is a stranger and not a very likable one."

He'd told her only a few hours earlier that he would rather she dump salt on an empty wound than to open up a fresh one, and as much as it pained her to do so, and as shitty as the timing was, he asked for it.

"You see hate when you look at me, Mia, and you're right," he whispered as he kept a distance between them. "It's been there for half your life, but it isn't hate for you. The only thing I've ever felt for you is love, and it's the only thing I'll ever feel for you. The person I hate is myself. Whenever I'm around you, I wish I could not want you. I wish I could see something other than this future I can never have. To look at you and only feel the sort of love I felt for you when you were a child, but you're right. I can't have that back and I hate myself for it.

"And that hate becomes so strong and unbearable that I push you away because it's the only thing I can do to force it into the background and push myself forward. Pushing you away is the only way I know to survive through this. I promise you, though, when I'm an old man, I will beg for your forgiveness because I know how much this hurts you and I know that keeping you at arm's length will be the biggest regret of my life. But it's a regret I have to keep making, because every time I see you, I love you more than I thought possible and it kills me because I know I'm not the man who can give you the life you deserve. Your parents can't accept me, I can't give you a child without being a senior citizen before they hit the fourth grade, and I can't build a life with you just so you can watch me turn into an old man while you still have all this time ahead of you."