AllFreeNovel
Share Us
It took every bit of strength in me to walk away.
The only reason I could do it wasforher.
Because as much as my old man was a real fuck-up, the biggest sonofabitch in my life, he was right about one thing.
Girls like Ama didn’t end up with guys like me.
Hell, she’d even proven his words true each time she encouraged me to come with her, to get an education, to become something else.
Me, as I was, was not the kind of man she wanted in her life, was not the type of man she saw herself settling down with.
I was the boy from the wrong side of the tracks.
She was the girl about to make big things happen.
Having me hitched to her star was only going to drag her down.
So I had to let her go.
Even if it hurt her.
Even if it damn near killed me.
And, honestly, it almost did.
All that followed her driving out of town, out of my life, was drowning in alcohol, was getting into fights, was taking unnecessary risks with jobs, damn near getting myself killed half a dozen times over the course of a year.
If it weren’t for Cato and Levee, there to drag me out of those situations, I was sure I wouldn’t have made it.
I’d been acting too reckless, too careless.
Of course, it was through that recklessness that I managed to build a reputation for myself, that I built a lot of my connections that would serve me well moving forward.
But it didn’t make that time period any easier.
And the worst was, I just had to internalize all that shit, shove it down. Because the only person I ever felt comfortable confiding in was the one I’d fucked over, the one I’d pushed away.
Covering hurt with hard was not easy. But it was necessary. After a year or so, I even got good at it.
A little while after that, I could function normally again.
It wasn’t that I ever forgot Ama. In fact, I was pretty sure I could trace back every night of heavy drinking or useless fighting to a memory of her that popped up.
But, eventually, I got busy enough that she wasn’t the only thought on my mind anymore.
I had myself.
I was almost over it.
Then she did it.
The thing I believed she wouldn’t do, not once she got free, got a taste of a world outside of our upbringing.
She came back.
She took over the clinic.
And she set up shop in my damn mind. Rent fucking free. Day and night.
