His eyes are remorseless.
They flick to mine, more bitter and cold than Casco Bay in January.
“Like hell, Hattie. Don’t pretend it isn’t my fault. I’m the bastard who knocked her up, the asshole who ignored her. I’m the chickenshit little worm who ran her off. She left blinded with pain, not in her right mind. She thought her life was fucked because ofme—and she wasn’t paying attention to the road. She lost her life and so did my kid.”
He inhales like he’s breathing needles, each breath tearing him apart.
And he turns away, his huge shoulders slowly rising and falling, sick and battered with the nightmare he’s lived.
I wipe a tear before I come closer, before I gingerly clench his shoulders, one with his pain—and oh my God, it’soverwhelming.
“You didn’tknow. You couldn’t,” I whisper, willing him to breathe, to look at me.
Eventually, he turns and his gaze settles on mine, but it cuts straight through me.
I don’t know how to ease heartbreak this savage.
I don’t even know if Ican.
But I hate feeling so useless, so lost in the face of something like—
Jesus, like this.
“I was too much of a selfish punk to care. To take this seriously.” There’s so much self-hatred in his voice I flinch. “When she found me on the docks and we had that blowout, you know what I thought about? Me. Number one. I thought about how much having a kid would shit up my life.”
“That makes sense, though,” I venture. “You were scared.”
“Scared or not, it’s a shitty thing to do when you’re talking to the girl you knocked up. She’d just finished high school and she was looking for a job. She didn’t have the family or money I do.Single motherhood would’ve wrecked her future far more than it would have scrambled mine—and I flaked out when it mattered. Couldn’t even tell her it would be okay.”
His face screws up, contorted like a man possessed.
He is.
Ethan’s been haunted for years, scorched from the inside out by more than a decade of emotional horror, beating himself up for a tragedy he couldn’t control and can’t take back.
“Ethan, please. That’s not fair.” I can’t bear to see him hurting like this. “You didn’t want to be tied down and you panicked a little. You’re allowed to. What young man wouldn’t? Taking on a baby, a family, that’s heavy stuff.”
“But I wasn’t going to be with Taylor. I could have left whenever I wanted and just paid child support. I could’ve flown in and supported her however I could. There are a thousand things I could have done instead of brushing her off like a goddamned mosquito.”
“But you were so inexperienced. You didn’t know.” My voice breaks as I lay a hand on his arm. He glances down at the contact, muscles flexing. “And it’s a lot to take in. You had no idea until she told you, and you just reacted.”
He shakes his head again.
“It only took you one night to be brave,” I continue. “One night to decide to stand up and be a dad. That’s hardly the worst thing. It’s courageous and mature to admit you made a mistake and—”
“No. No damn excuses, Hattie. The time for that was the second she told me.”
I swallow thickly, stepping closer, pressing my body against his, wishing he could see inside my head just for a second.
It’s not fair.
It’s notrightfor him to keep immolating himself for years over this, even if dreadful mistakes were made.
“Ethan,” I whisper again. Everything in my body feels like it’s breaking apart, my heart cracking like ceramic. “Ethan, you’re dead set on thinking the worst about yourself.”
“I should be, dammit. I’m a horrible man. Don’t you see it?” he snarls.
“I think you tried to be kind.”
