And I read.
And I read.
By the time I finished, I couldn’t breathe.
Maddie was Daniel’s daughter. It was messy, it was something Tanya didn’t know about, but he planned on leaving her and the newborn. I don’t even know what I could tell my daughter about her parents. It’s messy and complicated. But at the end she’s mine. Mine to raise, to protect, and to love the way I couldn’t love her mother. And yes, there are nights when I wonder what would’ve happened if I had been different. Mature enough to realize that life can be taken away from you at any moment.
We don’t have the luxury to wait until we’re old enough to live. Maybe that’s why I tried my best to be a good father to Maddie, because I feel like I owe her parents. Yes, I wasn’t driving, but . . . I was the only survivor and that’s hard to live with.
I finish my story and sip my wine, my hands gripping the glass like it’s the only thing keeping me in the now.
Across from me, Nysa hasn’t touched her drink.
She doesn’t say anything, but she doesn’t need to.
She listens.
She lets the silence settle, lets me have the space to sit in it.
I don’t know why I told her all of that.
Maybe because she understands what it’s like to carry ghosts.
Maybe because, for the first time in years, I don’t feel like I’m carrying them alone.
Chapter Ten
Nysa
The fire crackles low in the hearth, the soft glow casting long shadows across the living room. The weight of Hopper’s words hangs in the space between us, thick and unrelenting. None of what he said is what I expected to hear.
I study him, the way his fingers curl around his wine glass, the way his jaw is set like he’s bracing for something. He looks so put together from the outside—this man who runs a ranch rehabilitating horses, a life for his daughter that’s loving and safe. But inside? I can now see the cracks. How he’s barely holding everything together, including his soul.
I know what that feels like. Feeling like you failed those who left, that maybe you should’ve gone along with them.
“Did Cynthia have family?” I ask.
He nods but doesn’t look at me. “Yeah, but they’re not the best people to be around. I wouldn’t want my child to grow up with them.”
The way he says my child, like Maddie is one hundred percent his even when her origin story is complicated. Is this trauma? Is that why he’s holding onto her? I open my mouth to say something—to tell him that it’s not his decision to make—but he speaks before I can.
“She stopped speaking to them when she left home for college,” he pauses, “Cynthia. That’s the one thing we had in common, how we bonded. I didn’t want to come back ever again—fuck my parents.”
The anger in his words resonates through the room.
“I thought you had a good relationship with your mom.”
He shakes his head as he lets out a loud exhale. “It was . . . difficult at times.”
I watch the way he grips the glass a little tighter, his fingers white at the knuckles. “The thing you have to know about my mother is that she never stopped my father. She looked the other way when he beat the shit out of us.”
The words hit like a punch. Because of Atlas I knew the problems at home. How their father treated them almost like animals. All of them except Atlas, who for some reason had immunity. Probably because, like he said, he was the bastard. A kid born from one of their father’s affairs. His mother had died when he was very little and he dragged him to live with his wife and children.
They hated him, while his father ignored him. It’s like he didn’t exist.
These poor boys. I’ll never understand why people said they were terrible, when in fact, they were nice. I want to grab his hand. I want to say something, anything to make him feel better. But what the hell do you say to that?
This man who seems to have his life together is all broken on the inside.
