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But he’d given them hard times that would be more than a blip. They were a huge, ugly rancid scar on a life that they’d made sure was mostly good for them. He’d made the decision to ruin his family. He’d known they’d hold it together, because that’s what he’d had to tell himself in order to live with himself.
Pathetic.
He couldn’t entertain the thought that his parents might divorce because the pain of losing a child might fracture their marriage in a way that pain and loss could distance some people. He didn’t imagine his sister struggling with the loss of her brother, the loss of her happy life.
He definitely didn’t think about Caroline’s grief putting her in danger, tearing at her the way it did. He barely survived the knowledge, the truth of what he’d done to her.
How in the fuck was he meant to do it with his mom, dad, and sister?
He couldn’t. That was how.
It was the truth. The ugly, unvarnished and cowardly truth. He didn’t have it in him. He could run into a battle knowing that he might not come out. He could kill a man in cold blood. See things other people would seek a bullet to the brain to stop haunting them.
All of that wasn’t a product of bravery. It was a product of cowardice. Because seeing that, doing that, it was all so he didn’t have to stand here, right fucking here, on the stone walk leading to the two-story restored Victorian with blue window shutters, and a lifetime full of memories.
Memories that had once smelled like fresh baked cookies, his father’s cigars—ones he sneaked from his mom while she pretended she didn’t know—his sister’s perfume that she wore too much of until their mother righted her ways.
All of it had mixed together in his mind, one of the sweetest smells, aside from Caroline.
Memories were nice that way, preserving things not even the way they were, but the way they had to be in your mind.
But now they were rancid, rotted, because he was faced with the truth.
Jagger turned his back, intending on getting on his bike and riding back to the club. Finding someone to kill. Then finding a bottle.
Not coming out for a long time.
If ever.
Because he didn’t know if he’d be able to face himself sober with the knowledge of what he’d thrown away because he was a fucking coward.
He turned and faced himself with another memory.
But this one was more beautiful than even his mind could preserve.
And she was scowling at him, arms folded.
“You’re not turning your back on them, Liam Hargrave,” she snapped, snatching his hand and yanking him back around.
He let himself be led up the walk because her hand was warm in his and her smell chased away whatever bitter scent he’d been so sure he’d be breathing in forever.
As a man known to react to deadly situations faster than most highly trained soldiers, he didn’t even find his faculties until they were standing in front of a door.
Blue, to match the shutters.
The paint was vibrant, fresh, because his father touched it up every year. It was nice to know that he kept doing that. That even if everything else had changed, fallen apart, been ruined, his father still made sure the paint on the door was fresh.
It was a simple thing that gave him hope. And unfamiliar emotion.
It wasn’t that that gave him strength or bravery. It was the small hand gripping his.
She didn’t say anything as he stared at the door. She knew him enough to know he needed the silence. She knew what he needed better than he did.
Because he didn’t know who the fuck he was. Who was going to knock on that door? Liam? No. It would be Jagger.
Because whatever he’d done, he’d killed Liam. It wasn’t a complete lie to let his parents believe they’d buried their son. They had. The most important parts of him. The parts that would’ve made his father proud, his mother smile and his sister tease him.
The man who’d been worthy of the woman standing beside him.
Or so he’d thought.
She saw Jagger. Every single ugly and rancid part of the man he’d created out of the ruined skeletons of the man named Liam.
She’d seen it all.
And she was still here, holding his fucking hand. Gripping it so hard that it might even bruise him.
She was still fucking here.
“You can do this,” she whispered.
He tore his eyes away from that blue door into the crystal blue eyes of something that hadn’t stayed the same over the years. Something that had changed more than he could’ve imagined. Something magnificent.
“How do you know that?” he asked, his voice breaking at the end. He couldn’t even control his fucking voice.
She smiled at him instead of shrinking away from his weakness. His cowardice. She squeezed his hand. “Because if you couldn’t, you wouldn’t have been standing in front of the house in the first place.”
