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When the door cracks open, I expect to see Olivia. Instead, there’s an older woman there. She looks impossibly frail, but there’s a strength in her eyes I recognize.
This can only be Olivia’s mother.
I step back. I hold her gaze and I know immediately that she recognizes me not just as Reese Dalton, hockey player, but as Reese Dalton, the man her daughter is—was?—is involved with.
“Hi, ma’am,” I croak. “Is Olivia in?”
She gives me a weary, cautious look. “She doesn’t want to talk to anyone right now,” she says carefully. “And I don’t believe talking to you will do her any good, either.”
For a frail woman, her voice has spice. “I just need to talk to her. Just for a minute. This doesn’t have to be the end of things. I can fix this?—”
“Can you?” her mother asks sharply. “My daughter has been fired, and I’m not sure how she’s going to come back from this.”
“She can come back to me. I didn’t fire her. She didn’t have to go?—”
Her mother holds up her hand. “I’m sure you mean well, and I’m sure you’re very nice, but I’m asking you politely: please leave. Olivia needs me right now.”
I want to scream and yell that Olivia needs me, too. That's why I’m here—so she’s not so alone. But the fuck kind of person would I be if yelled at her mother to give me what I wanted? If I just barged in there, knocked a sick old woman out of my way, and yelled in her face that she’s gotten this all wrong?
The temptation is there, but if I do that, I know it’ll break something infinite between Olivia and me. And we’ve lost enough already.
So I back away, even when it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my whole fucking life.
“Just… just… fuck, just tell her I’m sorry.”
55
REESE
The best part about getting blackout drunk is the sleep that follows. It's a complete and total shutdown. All systems going dark. All the bullshit that pushed you to bring that bottle to your lips fades into the background, creating a shadowy cocoon to shield you from the fact that your life is a disaster.
The worst part is the hangover.
I wake up and feel like someone spent the whole night beating me with a shovel. A thick, nasty film blankets my teeth and the back of my throat tastes like battery acid and regrets. Every muscle groans in complaint.
I don’t want to get up. But the faint trail of Violet’s cries penetrate my eardrums like a jackhammer, and I have no choice but to force myself back to vertical. The world tilts left, then right, then spins in front of me like some fucked-up gyroscope.
Eventually, I find my feet. Tripping over clothes and bottles, I head to my bathroom. A splash of frigid water shocks enough life into my nervous system to allow me to stumble my way to Violet’s room without falling down the stairs on the way and dying.
I go through the motions, forcing down nausea and gritting my teeth against this beast of a migraine to get Violet changed, washed, and fed. She is subdued today. Can she tell that I’m lost without Olivia? Maybe this is her way of throwing her old man a bone.
“It’s just you and me, Vi,” I murmur at her, spooning a mushy concoction of bananas and strawberries into her pouty mouth. “How’s that sound to you?”
She gurgles, spattering her bib in a viscous mix of baby spit and mashed fruit.
It’s the closest I’ve come to laughing since this nightmare began.
I look for the baby wipes to clean her up. Somewhere in the living room, I hear the faint chime of my phone. Where the fuck has it gotten to? I scour, the sound low. When I stoop, hands and knees on the floor, I find that it apparently ended up under my couch somehow.
Grabbing it, I answer without looking at the caller ID. “What?”
“Dude. What the fuck? Have you seen the news?”
It’s Marcus. I squint. “Nah, why? The ice caps finish melting or something?”
“Bro, don’t joke like that. You’re a dad? You weren’t gonna fuckin’ tell us?”
I blink. Slowly. Stupidly. I don’t think I heard him right. There’s no possible way I heard him right. “What are you talking about?”
