It touched him that she cared so much. That she’d not only told him she loved him, but showed she truly did.

Guilt rushed through him.

“I appreciate all this. I do. But it doesn’t change things between us.” He stood and gathered her things. “You need to go. I meant it when I broke things off. I have too much to deal with right now. My dad is the reason I came back here to Petal. I need to work to pay the bills, yes, but all my time needs to be spent on him. It’s not fair to him, or to you, to try to have a girlfriend on top of that. Maybe later…after this is settled. I don’t know.”

He opened his door. “Thank you for dinner. I should invite you to stay to eat it, but I don’t want to confuse things any more than they’re already confused.”

“Confused? Bullshit. This isn’t confusion. I’m not confused. Neither are you, for that matter. Don’t do this, Joe. I can help you with all of this. Support you. I don’t need you to be with me twenty-four hours a day. But damn it, you need someone to take care of you when you get run-down. You need to be able to turn to someone when things get rough. That’s what I’m here for.”

“I have to, Beth. And if you care about me like you say you do, you’ll get the f**k out of here and leave me be. I need to put my energy and focus on my dad. I can’t be with you. Don’t make it harder than it is already.”

“It’s not either/or. I can help you. I want to help you. You can lean on me, trust me. I love you, dumbass.”

“I am a dumbass.” He snorted. “But I can’t divide my attention. It’s not right. I was a shitty son. A horrible, selfish jerk and I need to not be that guy.”

She bent to scratch Buck’s ears. “See you around, Buck.” She took the bags at the door. “You know where I am when you realize you’re being stupid.”

He shook his head. “We don’t have a future. You need to move on. Don’t wait around for me.” He gently pushed her out and closed the door, watching through the peephole as she went to her car and drove away.

Buck growled at him, turned and walked off.

“I know. Okay? I know. But you heard her story. She doesn’t need any more f**ked-up stuff in her life. She deserves a guy with a normal life. I can’t be that. Even if and when my dad gets himself straight, it’ll always be there. I can’t saddle her with any more crap. I’m doing it for her. And for me and my parents too. I have to do the right thing, Buck.”

“So how goes it?” It was her lunch hour and she’d escaped to the Honey Bear. Apparently William was still around, as he was the one who’d brought her lunch out to her.

He slid into a seat across from hers.

“What do you mean?”

He rolled his eyes. “Baby girl, I’m your big brother. You’re nursing a broken heart. How are things on the Joe front?”

It had been two weeks since that day when Joe had kicked her out of his apartment after she’d told him the story of her childhood. She hadn’t told anyone that part. It had felt like a rejection of her and of that story for a while. She wasn’t so sure now, but it still hurt.

“He wanted some space, I’m trying to give it to him. You know more than I do. He doesn’t talk to me.”

“He loves you.” William stole one of her potato chips. “I shouldn’t tell you any of this because, to be honest, I’m not sure if Joe is right for you. I got a problem with a man who can’t see what’s right in front of his face. But you love him and I love you and I want you to be happy. He’s drowning in all the stuff with his father. Court stuff for that night at the Sands. More mental-health evaluations. His dad is resisting. His mom has checked out of the process.”

She sipped her tea. “I hate that he’s doing this on his own. I’ve gone by the shop but he won’t talk to me. I stopped by his place but he won’t open the door. I sent food over a few times. I know he took it. Jacob told me. I can’t do it on my own.”

“He doesn’t want you to have to get tied up in any of this stuff.”

“I told him.” She blurted it.

“What?”

“I told him about our childhood. About the drinking and the beating. I wanted him to understand that I got it. You know? I wanted him to see that I understood what it was to be ashamed of what people did, even when it wasn’t your fault. And he shoved me out of his house and hasn’t spoken to me since.”

William moved to sit next to her, putting an arm around her shoulder. “Sweetheart, what Joe is doing is stupid, yes. But it’s not about you. Not about you telling him about what happened in that trailer. Is that what you think?”

“I don’t know what to think. I want to fix things. But he won’t let me. He keeps pushing me away. I love him. I want to help him but he won’t let me. He won’t even just be with me at all. It’s hard not to feel like he’s rejected me because of that story.”

“Have you never told it before?”

“What we went through? Some, here and there. It’s been years since I’ve stayed silent. We all told Matt and the Chases some. And here and there it comes up. I’ve never hidden it from someone I dated, but I’ve never gone into the detail I did with Joe. None of them have been important enough for me to expose that part of my life that way. I wanted him to understand what it meant that I was sharing. I wanted it to make a difference and it didn’t.”