Page 101 of Overkill

Not until I had to. Not yet.

She just said, “Okay.”

She sounded as defeated as I did.

I hated that her tears weren’t wiped away. They stained her cheeks like two rivers joining under her chin before falling and darkening her jeans.

“Okay,” I echoed.

This was it. I had to get up, put on the boots I’d left by her front door, and clean all evidence of my existence. Load up my truck and leave.

One step at a time. I could do it.

“Alright, then,” I mumbled.

“Alright,” she whispered back.

She clenched her hands together, wringing her fingers until her knuckles turned white. My instinct was to reach out and twine her fingers with mine, forbidding her from hurting herself, but I knew it wasn’t my place. That she wasn’t mine.

“Have a good day.” I pushed myself up to a stand, feeling more pain and stiffness in my body than my old bones merited.

“I’ll pay you back for all the work you’ve done.”

Of all the things she could have said, of all the ways she could have dismissed me, this hurt the worst. Like this was a transaction. A thing to be paid back. Something purchased. Not something given because I cared.

It was the most effective way to reject me, though. A well-aimed sabot round to the chest, whether it was intentional or not.

“No need,” I told her, getting the message loud and fucking clear.

I turned, stopping dead in my tracks when a figure popped out from behind the door.

“You said we were going to start on the siding tomorrow.” Marcus leaned into the doorjamb, fingers playing with the strike plate.

“I don’t have practice this weekend,” he added. “You said that we could work on it, and that you’d let me help after school.

“Son…” I couldn’t finish.

Because damn it, I never thought I wanted kids, but he was a pretty good one, even if I was too hard on him.

They said you shouldn’t date a single mom unless you were ready to take on the kids, too. Breaking up with them would be just as hard as breaking up with her. Melody wasn’t a mother in the full sense of the word, but in many ways, she was.

I cleared my throat, and in the surest voice I could muster, I started, “Son, I don’t—”

“You promised,” he interrupted me.

I had. If I could have latched onto that as an excuse to stay, as flimsy as it was, I would have. But I knew better.

This was a whole life. A family. A unit. I was on the outside. I belonged outside. In the barn. Away from all of this.

“We’re having pizza. Venezia’s.” His voice turned to whining, and my eyes watered.

“You all enjoy it,” I said through the lump in my throat. I’d ordered from there half the nights Melody had been in the hospital. It was just as good fresh as it was reheated. “I know that’s your favorite, kid. Have a good one.”

“But we always have too much,” he said, his voice high.

God, I was a fucking asshole. I wiped my face with my hands, trying to push away the tears that wanted to break through.

I had to hold it together. I could blubber like a bitch when I was a mile down the road.