I lean back against the steps. “I know that I should have, but by the time I understood and began to change what I was doing wrong, I wanted it to be perfect before I showed you. I truly am sorry for that, Tessa. I love you, and I’m sorry that you found out about it this way. My intentions were not to hurt or deceive you, and I’m so sorry that you felt that way. I’m not the same man that I was when you left me, Tessa. You know that I’m not.”

Her voice is barely a whisper when she replies, “I don’t know what to say.”

“Just read it. Will you please just read the entire book before making any decisions? That’s all I ask, please just read it.”

Her eyes close, and she shifts her body, making her knee lean into my shoulder. “Yes, I’ll read it.”

A fraction of air returns to my lungs, some of the weight is lifted off my chest, and I couldn’t put my relief into words even if I tried.

She stands up, brushing off her scratched knees.

“I’ll get something for you to put on those.”

“I’m fine.”

“When will you stop fighting me?” I try to lighten the mood.

It works, and she fights a smile. “Never.” She begins to walk up the steps, and I stand to follow her. I want to go into the apartment and sit next to her as she reads the entire novel, but I know that I shouldn’t. I use the small amount of judgment that I have and decide to take a walk around this dirty city.

“Wait!” I call after her when she reaches the top. I reach into my pocket and pull out a crumpled piece of paper. “Read this last, please. It’s the last page.”

She opens her hand and holds it out in front of her.

I take the steps quickly, two at a time, and place the wad of paper into her hand. “Please don’t peek,” I beg of her.

“I won’t.” Tessa turns away from me, and I study the way she turns her head to smile back at me.

One of my greatest wishes in life would be for her to understand, to truly understand, that she is rare. She’s one of the few people in this world who know forgiveness, and when many would call her weak, she is truly the opposite. She’s strong, strong for standing by someone who hated himself. Strong for showing me that I’m not damned, that I am worthy of love, too, despite growing up thinking the opposite. She was strong enough to walk away from me when she did, and she’s strong enough to love unconditionally. Tessa is stronger than most, and I hope she knows that.

Chapter seventy-five

TESSA

When I enter the apartment, I take a moment to gather my thoughts, which are shooting this way and that. When I reach the binder lying on the table, all of the pages are shoved inside, out of order.

I reach for the first page, holding my breath as I prepare myself to read. Will his words change my mind? Will they hurt me? I’m not even sure that I’m ready to find out, but I know that I need to do this for myself. I need to read his words and his emotions to see what was going through his mind all of those times when I couldn’t read him.

That’s when he knew. That moment was when he fucking knew that he wanted to spend his life with her, that his life would be meaningless and empty without the light that Tessa brings into it. She gave him hope. She made him feel as if maybe, just maybe, he could be more than his past.

I drop the page to the floor and start on another.

He lived his life for himself and then it shifted, it became much more than waking up and going to sleep. She gave him everything he never knew that he needed.

He couldn’t believe the shit that came from his mouth. He was disgusting. He hurt the people that loved him and he just couldn’t stop. “Why do they love me?” he constantly wondered. “Why would anyone love me? I’m not worthy of it.” Those thoughts filled his head, haunted him no matter how much he hid from them; they always returned.

He wanted to kiss away her tears, he wanted to tell her that he was sorry and that he was a ruined man, but he couldn’t. He was a coward, and he was damaged beyond repair, and treating her this way made him hate himself even more.

Her laugh, her laugh was the sound that brought him out of the darkness and into the light. Her laugh dragged him, by his damn collar, through the bullshit clouding his mind and infecting his thoughts. He wasn’t the same man that his father was, and he decided then, as she walked away from him, that he would never let the mistakes of his parents control his life again. He decided then that this woman was worth more than a broken man could offer, and so he did everything in his power to make it up to her.

Page after page, confession after dark confession, I continue to read. My tears have stained my cheeks, along with some of the pages of his beautiful yet twisted story.

He needed to tell her, he needed to tell her how fucking sorry he was for the nerve he had to throw children in her face. He was selfish, thinking only of the way he could hurt her, and he wasn’t ready to admit what he truly wanted out of life with her. He wasn’t ready to tell her that she would make the most amazing mother, that she would be nothing like the woman who raised her. He wasn’t ready to tell her that he would try his hardest to be good enough to help raise a child with her. He wasn’t ready to tell her that he was absolutely terrified of making the same mistakes that his father had made, and he wasn’t ready to admit that he was afraid of failing. He didn’t know the words to express that he didn’t want to come home drunk, and he didn’t want his children to run and hide from him, the way that he did his own father.

He wanted to marry her, to spend his life by her side, reveling in her kindness and her warmth. He couldn’t imagine a life without her, and he was trying to figure out a way to tell her this, to show her that he really could change, and that he could be worthy of her.