I glance up when I notice Vanessa standing outside the dining room, not wanting to interrupt this moment with my father.
Silence again.Then, “I was too hard on you.”
Everything inside me stops as I shift my eyes toward him.My father still won’t look at me.He just keeps staring into his glass like maybe the amber liquid inside it will somehow erase thirty years of regret.
“You were only ten years old,” he speaks again.“And I spent too many years acting like you could’ve done something to save her.”
My chest physically constricts.Because in an instant I’m ten again.Snow falling hard outside.Emily laughing while building a snowman on the lawn, right beside the sidewalk.
Me turning away for one second because I heard dad fighting in the kitchen with my mother so loudly it scared me.
Then headlights, so bright as they careened onto the sidewalk.Tires screeching and then the loud thud before the sound of shattering glass.My mother screaming as she ran out of the house.Red, red blood on the white snow.
I grip the edge of the table so hard my fingers ache.“I should’ve been watching her.”
The words leave me automatically.The same way they always have when he told me I should have been paying better attention.
My father looks at me from his glass then.And for the first time in my entire life, I see grief there instead of blame.
“No,” his voice breaks as he shakes his head.“You were just a little boy.And the driver was drunk.There was nothing you could have done.”
Emotion slams into my chest so hard I can’t breathe around it.Because never, not once in over twenty years, has he ever said that to me before.Not once.My father drags one hand down his face.
“Your mother and I…” His voice falters.“We lost her and didn’t know how to survive it.”
Something inside me cracks wide open.Twenty-three years.Twenty-three years of carrying guilt that never should have belonged to me.
“Why, Dad?Why now?”My voice cracks, and I cover my mouth with my hand to keep myself from screaming the rage I’m feeling.“What happened after all this time that you’re saying this to me now?”
He purses his mouth tight, tears streaming down his cheeks when he responds.“Somewhere in all that grief, we didn’t see what we had done to you.Didn’t realize we lost pieces of you too.I’m sorry for that.”
Vanessa is beside me before I can react, her arms surrounding me in a tight hug as years of guilt, grief and anger leave me in hard sobs.
And suddenly I understand why I asked Vanessa to come with me tonight.It wasn’t to share this piece of me.It was because I knew she would understand my pain better than anyone, and that she would be there to hold me when I could finally let it go and forgive myself.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Vanessa
Baby Now That I Found You
Ella Bright
Christmas morning feels different this year.Not because of the snow falling outside Hayden’s apartment windows, though that helps.And not because of the tree glowing in the middle of his living room, even though I take full credit for dragging light into this beautiful, emotionally repressed penthouse.
It feels different because Hayden looks changed beneath all the white light.He’s quieter.Softer around the edges.Like something inside him was finally freed yesterday, even if the breaking hurt.
He’s sitting on the floor beneath the tree when I walk back from the kitchen with two coffees.He’s wearing dark sweatpants and a long-sleeved black shirt, one knee bent, hair still damp from the shower.Vinny is already inside an empty gift bag.Because of course he is.
“This cat has no survival instincts,” Hayden mutters while watching him try to find his way out of the bag.
“He’s thriving.”
“He’s an idiot.”
“He’s festive.”
Hayden’s mouth curves before his eyes lift to mine.And there it is; that look.The one that makes my chest go all soft and stupid.“Come sit with me.”
