I tried to overpower them, but the screaming pain in my abdomen, the reminder of everything I’d lost in a single blink, halted any drive I had to fight. Frustrated tears leaked out of my eyes, the need to stay strong and silent more powerful than ever.
“My baby…”
I locked eyes with the headmistress, hovering above my face as the nurse pushed a tiny needle into the vein at my elbow, my muscles relaxing almost instantly before my eyelids grew heavy and I was gone.
The second time in my life I’d lost my everything.
TWENTY-THREE
Fallon
“I graduated a month later, still healing from the child they’d ripped from my body. I smiled, pretending like they hadn’t stolen the only thing precious to me.” Her eyes darted up, flooded with hopeless tears. “I never knew if he had your silky brown eyes or if she had a dusting of my freckles on the top of her nose.”
An ache, deep and dark, burrowed its way into my guts, bitterness rising up in my throat over all that’d happened without me. “I don’t even know what to say.”
She hesitated at my shoulder, eyes glued to mine as if waiting for my response.
I didn’t have one.
I was fucking dumbstruck.
I’d had a lot of punches thrown my way in life, but this one, I’d never seen coming.
“To be honest, Augusta Belle…” My tone was laced with more anger than I’d intended. “I’m having an issue understanding why you didn’t say anything before now.”
“Before now? You mean like, last week? When was I supposed to tell you?”
“I dunno. Woulda expected the mother of my child to track me the fuck down at her earliest convenience, of course.” The sneer hit its mark, her face twisting with a wince.
“You disappeared! Never came back to Chickasaw. How did I know where to find you?”
“Fucking really, Augusta? At that time, everyone knew where to find me. I had TMZ up my ass every goddamn day!”
She locked her lips, eyes flaring with unspeakable anger, a grown-up side to Augusta I hadn’t quite witnessed before that moment.
“If you wanted to find me, you would’ve.” I yanked open the door on the minibar, swiping every tiny bottle of whiskey I could find, uncapping the first and throwing back the numbing shot.
I uncapped the next and did the same, before dumping both empties in the garbage can. I opened the third and final, tossing the top in the garbage and readying to swallow the remainder. “You had my fucking baby”—searing tears stung my eyelids—“and you hid it from me.”
“It wasn’t like that. I was just waiting for the right time.”
“The right time?” I roared, finishing the last bottle of booze and hurling it across the room. It shattered into a thousand tiny shards against the window. Augusta’s own tears were fresh and flowing faster as she ran into the bathroom, slamming the door closed and locking it.
I stood in the silence, hearing her soft sobs on the other side of the door, wondering what the fuck I’d done to deserve all of this.
When Augusta brought the sunshine, it inevitably caused a burn.
My mouth watered as the tingly sensation in my body grew, whiskey workin’ its way through my tired bones.
I suddenly felt every single one of my thirty-three years like a ton of baggage weighing down my shoulders.
With the sound of her tears in the back of my head, I walked on long strides out of the door, down the hallway, and angled for the liquor store down the block I’d spotted on the way in.
I might have been a reformed alcoholic for the last few days, but that shit changed now.
Anticipation rocketed through my veins as I neared the neon, open-all-night signs, steps quickening as the sound of old, moody classic rock songs filtered into my ears.
A dive bar.
