Page 103 of Before You Fell

Elise would put a plate in front of me without me having to ask. Graham would grumble about boys eating them out of house and home, then pass me more bread. Willow would kick me under the table and tell me not to act weird because her mom made the best pasta and I was ruining the experience by pretending I had manners.

I would grin at her and steal the garlic bread off her plate.

I loved that house. I loved being allowed to sit there and that no one expected me to perform to earn my place at the table.

Now Elise is watching me from across a hospital bed, her daughter lying between us, and I don’t know how to exist under the weight of what I have dragged back into their lives.

Graham turns from the window and his eyes lock onto me. “You should have seen it, Phoenix.”

Elise glances at him. “Graham.”

“No.” His eyes remain on me. “You saw her every day.”

His voice stays low, but there is nothing calm about it. “You were with her the whole time.”

Elise looks down.

I keep my hand around Willow’s because if Graham decides to tear me apart, I probably deserve to be holding the reason for it.

He steps closer. “I could see she was slipping and I wasn’t even in that life with her. I could see it in her face, in her voice, in the way she stopped sounding like my girl. So why the hell didn’t you see it?”

Because I am a selfish prick who has spent years turning away from anything that could make me vulnerable, and Willow was the only thing in my life big enough to make me feel that way.

I stare at her hand in mine.

“I should have,” I say, my voice rough from the night.

Graham’s nostrils flare. “That’s it?”

My thumb glides over Willow’s knuckles. The gesture seems pointless, but I keep doing it anyway.

Graham’s voice drops lower. “She loved you.”

The words hit harder because he says them with disgust. My grip tightens on Willow’s hand.

He keeps going. “I don’t forgive you.”

“I know.”

“I don’t want you here.”

“I know that too,” I say.

“But she might.”

I close my eyes. Hearing that almost breaks me. It’s not forgiveness. It’s a father standing beside his daughter’s hospital bed, hating that the asshole who hurt her might still matter to her.

I open my eyes and gaze at our joined hands because if I look at Graham while I say this, there is no way I will get through it.

“I didn’t know how not to fuck it up with Willow.” My voice comes out rough, scraped down to the bone. “Everything I ever saw called love was ugly. My parents loved with knives behind their teeth. They loved me by keeping score, by making sure every soft thing had a hook in it.”

My thumb drags across Willow’s knuckles. “So I thought that if I wanted her too much, I’d turn into them, or she’d leave, or I’d destroy her before she could.”

I swallow, but it does nothing to ease the burn in my throat. “Turns out I did it anyway.”

No one says anything.

A moment later, Elise stands and comes around to my side of the bed.