Caught by Love by Melissa Foster

Author:Melissa Foster
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Romance
Publisher: World Literary Press
Published: 2022-01-05T00:00:00+00:00

ARCHER SCRUBBED A hand down his face, trying to wipe away the vulnerability clinging to him like a second skin, but it was inescapable. He’d asked for it, had sought Indi out and had sat on her steps for nearly two hours waiting to apologize and open up to her. “That’s part of it. I’m drowning in guilt, Indi, and nobody deserves to be taken down with me.”

Indi stepped closer, holding his gaze. “Then why are you here, telling me all of this?”

“Because when I’m not screwing things up by saying the wrong things, I think we’re pretty great together. I’m hoping that now that I’ve laid all my shit on the table, you might see beyond my mistakes and want to help me figure out how to get past the guilt, how to stop being the closed-off asshole who says the wrong thing and move forward instead of telling me to fuck off.”

A small smile appeared on her beautiful face, giving him hope that she wasn’t sick of his shit yet. “You’ve held a lot in for a very long time. It’s not going to be easy to move past.”

“Nothing in my life has ever been easy.”

“Do you want to know what I think about the things you just told me?”

“Have at it.” He drew his shoulders back, readying himself for an onslaught of more guilt, which he’d surely deserve.

“It makes me sad that you blame yourself for everything, but I can see how you would twist it that way in your head. You’re the guy who thought he should be able to save his sister from cancer, so it makes sense that you believe if you’d have gone to see Kayla, you could have saved her, too. And from what I’ve seen and heard, your family has already forgiven you for everything that happened.”

“They have, but I have no idea how they did, so it makes it hard to trust it.”

“Maybe that’s because you haven’t forgiven yourself.”

His muscles tensed. “I can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“Because I caused too many people too much pain.”

“That might be true, but you’ve been paying the price for years, and you’re no longer causing them grief, so why continue to carry the burden? I think you need to forgive yourself in order to let it go, and maybe the way to do that is to own up to the things that you feel you’ve done.”

“I just did.”

“Not to me. To them. Tell Jock about the texts.”

“And give him a reason to hate me?” No fucking way.

“Archer, he just got you back. I doubt he’s looking for a reason to push you away again.”

He swallowed hard, thinking it over.

“It might be a difficult conversation, but nothing is as hard as secretly carrying that big of a burden. You feel guilty about not going to the city when Kayla asked you to. Have you ever thought about apologizing to her? Or explaining your reasons?”

“How can I do that? She’s gone.”

“I don’t know, exactly. But I think you have to get the guilt out or you’ll never be able to move past it.

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