Chapter Seven

My heart aches for Jasper as he says the words when she meant everything to me. "Jasper, I"m so sorry."

His bottom lip had trembled slightly, but as I give him sympathy, he flattens his mouth. "Don"t be. It doesn"t help anything to be sorry. The only thing that helps is to prove to him that he doesn"t make or break me. I don"t need his money for myself. What I need it for is the foundation, but I"m hoping at some point I can do all that myself."

I"m so confused at what he"s saying. He"s only told me bits and pieces of his past, of the life he had after his parents died. "Jasper, what do you mean?"

He puts his hands in his hair and grips the strands, pulling in a way that has to hurt. I reach up and try to stop him, but he fights against me.

"No. I need to feel the pain, Daisy. It"s the only fuckin" way I know I"m alive." His tortured voice slices into my chest like a knife. Death by a thousand cuts would kill either one of us, and I have no doubt that we"d each accept them.

"Jasper, you don"t need to feel pain to know you"re alive. You can feel other emotions." I reach out, grabbing hold of his hand, wishing I could give him what he needs.

"Not me. It"s never been easy for me. Not since my parents died. It"s like I became broken when they weren"t around anymore." His Adam"s apple bobs up and down as he swallows. "It"s not a trait I like to admit to others, but it is what it is. It"s one of the reasons I ruined us the last time we tried this together."

I"m stunned. Completely and totally stunned. "What do you mean you ruined us, Jasper?"

The look on his face says he didn"t want to say that out loud, but somehow, he wasn"t able to hold the words in. He sighs heavily. "This is why I shouldn"t have come here. If there were anyone I could be honest with, it would be you."

"You can be honest with me." I wrap my arms around his waist and hug him tightly. I want to keep him here, force him to feel the love I have for him. For a few moments, he leans into me, allowing me to take his weight, until he seems to think better of it.

"I"ve only been honest with one other person, Daisy. It was a therapist I was forced to go to when I was acting out in middle school. She said I was basically a sociopath." His voice is quiet as he spits those words out. "Because I couldn"t seem to feel anything after my parents died. But I tried to explain to her; all the happiness was gone. Nothing brought me joy anymore. I didn"t even know how to laugh for the first year. When I finally did, it scared me, because the sound was so foreign."

My heart breaks for the young kid who lost the only stability he knew, the teenager who needed someone to help him recognize his feelings and work through them. Instead, he was made to feel like a label. "You"re not. You"re capable of love. I"ve seen it before. I saw it when you used to look at me."

He shuts off. I see it in the deep set of his jaw, the way there"s a tick at the corner of his mouth. "You saw nothing. As the doctor said, I don"t know how to feel it. I hope you"re not expecting our marriage to be some sort of match where we end up being in love, Daisy. I"m not that kinda guy. I had hoped you"d figured that out by now."

This is what he did the last time. He pushed me away, and I left. I let him. This time, I hold on tight. Harden my heart against the hurt that"s slicing through it. Thick skin will allow me to not take what he says to heart. It"ll allow me to take what he says and reframe it in a way I can accept. "You"ll love me." I smile, gazing up at him. "You"re gonna love me, and we"re going to have the best love story you"ve ever witnessed. There will be days when you don"t want to go to work because you"ll wanna spend all your time with me."

His mouth is unmoving, eyes darken even further than they already are. "That"s the dumbest shit I"ve ever heard, Daisy."

"Just remember you said that, Jasper Hamilton. I"m going to make you eat those words."

"You can try, but one thing I can promise you is that I"ve given up on falling in love, on having a heart that cares for others, and having what others see as a normal life. I have my friends, I have my job, and that"s it. That"s all I need."

There"s a hand in my chest, squeezing my heart as I listen to his words. I vow that I will show him everything he doesn"t think he can have. I"ll prove to him he"s more than the sum of what others have told him he can be. I"ll be the one to open him up to the world, and let him see how beautiful it can be. "You have me, too," I remind him. "The person you need to stick it to your grandfather. Together we"ll make sure you get your foundation where it needs to be, and we"ll have a life. Whether it"s the life you thought you"d have or not, that"s for fate to decide. But I promise you - we"ll have something that neither one of us thought was possible."

He scoffs. "Don"t make promises you"re not gonna be able to keep, Daisy."

I don"t say anything, but to myself I make a vow. It"s the only promise I"ve ever intended to keep. He"ll know it. He"ll know it all.

* * *

Surprising me, he"s stayed. After I laid down the law, I figured he would leave, but he didn"t. Two hours later, he"s sitting at my kitchen table, and we"re eating the last package of Bagel Bites pizzas I had in my freezer, along with a salad mix that was going to go bad today. "Sorry it"s not better than what it is, but I don"t really wanna grocery shop until I move in with you."

He snorts. "I eat cereal for dinner every other day of the week. The days I don"t eat cereal, I typically have ramen. I"m not fancy, and this feels like a five-star meal."

"How do you make it? You have a physically demanding job. Aren"t you hungry all the time?" My mind is blown as I think about how many calories he must burn throughout the day.

"Nah, I do have a good lunch most of the time. I mean everybody has been going to the taco truck to see Abel flirt with Kara for over a year." He puts an entire bagel in his mouth.

"But you don"t work with him." I take a bite of my salad. "You"re taking lunch at the same time they do?"

"Oh yeah." He talks around the bite. "Everybody has been involved with this romance since the beginning. Even the guys on the road crew started taking our lunches at the same time as Abel and them so we could follow along. It even melted my cold, dead, heart for a while."

There"s the proof. Whether he wants to admit it or not. The proof that he does have feelings, that he is capable of love, and that he wants it as much as everyone else. "It"s sweet that they got engaged."

"It is," he agrees. "I want the best for my friends."

But he doesn"t want it for himself. "I think we all do. I know they all want the best for you, too."

A sigh works its way out of his mouth. "I"m sure they do. I just don"t know if I"ll ever feel like I deserve it."

Therein lies the problem, and what I hope I"ll be able to help him with in future. I"ve always seen him as being larger than life, definitely broody, but when we were together before, he didn"t seem to have a problem thinking he was good enough. What"s happened in the time since we were together?

That"s the million-dollar question, and what I"m going to have to figure out if I have true hopes of making this last a lifetime.