Rightfully so.
I’m trying, goddammit, but it feels like everything I touch turns to ashes. I’m lost, drowning, not knowing how to make things right anymore.
What the fuck am I supposed to do?
The silence in the car is thick and suffocating, each of us lost in our thoughts as I start the engine and drive out of the parkinglot. Nash breaks the stagnant atmosphere with a sigh, his voice filled with frustration as he watches how we drive past our house. “Where’re we going?” he asks, his tone edged with defeat.
“Getting Hunt and Lio,” I reply tersely, my grip tightening on the steering wheel.
She opened my eyes.
Again.
I shouldn’t have been chasing Sloan when my son was alone and scared in the hospital, even if I know he’s safe there with Hunter. “She’s right, we need to bring him home.”
I can’t help but feel like the worst father on the planet, desperation gnawing at me with each passing mile.
Using the car’s hands-free, a wave of anxiety washes over me as I prepare to call Hunter, telling him how we fucked upagain. I take a deep breath and press the button. “Hunt,” I greet when the call connects, my voice shaky with a mix of frustration and desperation.
There’s a moment of silence, and then Hunter’s voice crackles through the speakers. “North? What’s wrong?”
The concern in his voice is audible, and it only adds to the weight of the situation. “We found her,” I reply, trying to keep my voice steady. “But we’ve messed up, and we need to bring Lio home.”
There’s a pause on the other end, and I can almost picture Hunter processing the information. “What do you mean you found her?” he finally asks, sounding exasperated. “I need more of your words, North.”
“We were on our way home when we saw the Chevy in its usual spot at Shannon’s,” I mutter through clenched teeth.
“So she’s back?” Hunter asks, hope in his voice that I need to shatter.
“Seems like it. She was working, but she basically told us to fuck off.”
“Because we pushed her into a corner like she was prey,” Nash accuses, seemingly pissed with both of us.
Which is understandable because I am too.
“What? Why would you do that?” Hunter asks, frustration evident.
“Because we’re fucking idiots,” Nash mutters, turning to look out of the window.
Hunter can’t contain his frustration any longer and says what all of us are thinking. “We should have never let it come to this.”
Nash glances at me, his voice laced with self-blame. “True, and we shouldn’t have crowded her like that. Two against one. What the fuck were we thinking? That wasn’t an apology. It was an ambush.”
I shoot him a glare, but they’re both right. It’s all my fault, and we fucked up even more just now. We’ve made one mistake after another, and it’s costing us Sloan.
She’s like water, slipping through my fingers the harder I grip her, unwilling to let go.
After a few more moments, I break the silence that’s been suffocating us once more. “Look, we can’t change what happened, but we can try to make things right now,” I announce, my voice heavy with regret. “We fucked up big time, and we hurt hera lot.”
“She looked like she didn’t care. I never saw her face that void of emotions,” Nash adds.
“Idiot, she’s shutting them out. She doesn’t want us to see how much we hurt her,” Hunter mutters.
“Exactly. Each of us hurt her in a certain way, and each of us needs to apologize and try to win her back, and that would work best on our own,” I agree.
Frustration is evident in Hunter’s voice as he asks, “Why the hell would we have to do this alone? We all screwed up, didn’t we? So why should we apologize separately?”
I grip the steering wheel tighter, feeling the tension in the car ratchet up another notch. Hunter has a point, and I know it. I also understand Sloan’s need for space, that all of us together can be too much for all that has already been going down.
