“They blamed everyone,” I said. “The police. The judge. The system. Said it was harassment. That it wasn’t fair. Never once did they say, I could’ve killed someone. Never once did they apologize. And the really messed-up part? They convinced me—me, an eleven-year-old kid, that I should become a lawyer. That Icould help them fix things. That I could help people like my dad, so I spent the next decade taking the classes to get me into the college that would get me into law school, and here I am.”
Tears stung the corners of my eyes, but I didn’t let them fall.
She held my hand tighter.
“I can’t even imagine,” she said softly.
“The only thing that helped my dad,” I said quietly, “was the grave. That was the only thing that stopped his drinking.”
She drew in a slow, shaky breath.
“I’d been the one to take care of them, pick up the pieces, work several jobs as a teen to help pay their legal bills. My brother inherited the genetics of self-preservation, and I was born with the guilt gene. I’d always been there…but my dad had one last accident, and I didn’t make it to the hospital in time.” I shook my head and cleared my throat. “I didn’t show up when it counted, when the guardrails mangled his vehicle or the other way around.”
“That is horrific.”
I nodded. “But I thank God every single day that no one else was hurt.”
She squeezed my hand harder. “That’s not your fault. You were there when it mattered, when he was alive. You tried your best, Ben. You were handed something no child should have to deal with, no teenager should have to worry about, and no college student should have to try to fix.”
My eyes met hers, and I smiled slowly. “Where were you when I was fifteen? I could have used your wisdom.”
“Maybe up in Wisconsin, waiting for my person to experience life in a way I hadn’t.”
Her words sank into my bones, and I nodded slowly. “Maybe, it’s as simple as that.”
“What happened to your mom?”
“She followed about six years later. But emotionally? She was gone the second he was buried. She floated through the rest of her life like it didn’t matter anymore. Her liver could only take so much.”
“Wow.”
“I kept trying,” I continued. “Law school. Clerkships. Long hours. Promotions. Failed Marriage. But they had a disease, and I was a kid who didn’t understand that when I’d made all my life choices, but I was still playing pretend, and the money was enticing.”
Regret, shame, and grief filled my veins as I steadied my gaze on her.
“I never even wanted to be a lawyer. I just didn’t know how to want anything else.”
Something inside me broke and stitched itself back together all at once, just by the look in her eyes.
“I don’t know what to say, except I’m sorry. I’m sorry you went through that. That you carried all of that for so long alone.”
“I didn’t want to bring it here. I didn’t want to bring it toyou.”
She shook her head. “That’s not how this works. You don’t get to decide what part of yourself is acceptable. If we’re going to do this, if we’re going to mean something, then I get all of it. Even the hard stuff.”
Something flickered in her expression. Not quite relief. Not quite fear.
Maybe both.
She leaned her head on my shoulder again, and we sat there, wrapped in silence and fireflies and the unspoken agreement that maybe, for the first time, I wasn’t alone in the wreckage.
And for the first time ever, I realized Fifi was the person who helped me figure out what Ididwant, and that love wasn’t about fixing someone.
It was about standing beside one another while rebuilding.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Ben
