Because I’m still watching.
And it gets better and worse—the confident way she hands Zach his ass, the agony I see on her face, hear in her voice as she discusses what Travis Hiller did to her, the fear I feel as I watch his son take a threatening step toward her.
But she keeps filming until she’s done talking, until the bastard leaves, tires squealing as he tears out of the parking lot.
“I need to go,” I whisper. Right fucking now.
Kylie nods. “You really do. But first—” She snags my hand, holding tight, keeping me in place. “Before you go after her, I need you to get your head together. You are not a perfect person?—”
A bolt of pain shoots through my chest and I barely hold back my wince.
She sees it anyway.
“Honey,” she whispers. “What Imeanis that you need to cut yourself some slack. You hold yourself to these impossible standards and in doing so, you hurt not just yourself, but also the people you love.”
“I know that, Ky.”
Except,doI?
Because all I can think is that I failed. Again.
“I think what she’s saying is that relationships aren’t easy.” I look up, see that Colt has finished with the tire and is leaning against the trunk, arms and ankles crossed. “Sometimes we hurt the people we love, but what we need to judge ourselves on is what we do to make it right.”
I shake my head. “I can’t take back the words I spoke to her.”
Can’t make it all just go away.
“But you can make sure they’re replaced with better ones.”
I thinkabout what Colt said the entire drive to Joey’s house.
And I still haven’t come up with the right words to replace the bullshit I spouted.
Because I’ve done anger management, and yeah, I’ve made a lot of progress, but the rage is still there, and tonight it lashed out and hurt her.
So, how do I protect her from the world if I can’t protect her from myself?
“I’ve tried to be perfect. Killed myself to do everything right—and bad things still happened to me.”
So many bad things, and I can never take away that pain from her.
Can never be good enough for her.
Can—
I’m not empty anymore.
I pull into her driveway, her words from weeks before slicing through me.
I did that,fixedthat.
It’s not enough. I need to do more,bebetter?—
Killed myself to do everything right—and bad things still happened.
Hell if she’s not speaking the truth.
Still, I’mnotenough. I might never feel like I’m enough, might never feel like I’ve made this right for her.
