How’d it go?
I started to type ‘Fine’ three times and deleted it each time. Nothing about this was fine. Nothing about me had ever been fine, apparently. Another buzz. This time Tally.
Tally
Thinking of you today.
Just four words, but they hit me like a punch to the solar plexus. When had someone thinking of me started to matter so much? When had her caring become the thing that kept me upright? I was falling apart in a prison parking lot, and all I wanted was to hear her voice tell me I wasn't as broken as I felt.
Her face flashed through my mind. Her barefoot on her back porch, hair tangled, laughing at something ridiculous I’d said. She didn’t ask me to be anything but exactly who I was, which somehow made me want to be more. No longer shaped by my dad and his slick words and hollow remorse.
I knew I didn’t say the things she probably needed to hear. Hell, I wasn’t sure I could. But when I thought about the things I didn’t want to lose, the things that mattered, she was one of them.
Not just in her bed. Not just fucking or chatting shit. It was her. Exactly as she was. And I had no idea what that meant.
Chapter 19
Safe and Sound – Capital Cities
Tally
I’d been watching the clock without meaning to. So, when the knock came, quiet and unsure, my heart was already racing ahead of me.
I almost missed it under the tones of Chris Stapleton’s ‘Think I’m in Love With You.’. When it became a little more insistent, I rushed to the door. My stomach flipped with anticipation and certainty that it would be him.
“Hey,” I gushed, my eyes desperately searching his for some sign of how his visit had gone. It didn’t take long for me to recognize the look ofsadness and defeat. “Come in, come in.”
I ushered him inside, watching as he ambled across the room, hands deep in his pockets. His chin was almost to his chest as he heaved a huge sigh.
“What happened?” Laying a hand on his back, I could practically feel the tension coming from him in waves. “Honey?”
The word was out of my mouth before I could stop it. I didn’t even want to take it back. It felt right. Natural. Wilder didn’t acknowledge it, so I ploughed on.
“Tell me what happened. Did you get what you needed from him?” I lowered my head to look up at him. “Shit, Wilder. What the hell happened?”
Silently he reached for me, pulling me against his chest, enveloping me in his despair. He rested his cheek on the top of my head and breathed me in. Slowly.
“I thought I was done, Brownie,” he whispered. “I thought I got what I needed from him and then he hit me with the sucker punch.”
“What?”
His arms tightened around me, like he couldn’t get close enough. Like he was drowning, and I was the only thing he could cling to in order to survive.
“He told me he wasn’t my dad.”
I inhaled sharply. “He’s lying.”
“You’re so certain,” he scoffed, a slight chuckle lightening the pain I had in my chest or him.
“Come on,” I retorted with humor. “You have the same ego I hear that he has.”
“Please, my ego is all mine, Brownie.”
His body relaxed and his hand made its way under my sweater. A palm, flat against my back, warming my skin like it was basked in sunlight.
“Are you sure he’s telling the truth?”
He shook his head. “Nope. I think I would feel it inside, you know.” A long ragged breath ghosted over my head, like a late summer breeze. “But he said it, so what does that mean? If it’s a lie why say it? Does he hate me that much? And if it’s the truth, why say it? Does he hate me that much?” He took a breath. “I kept hearing Nash in my head, telling me not to take on hisbullshit. But it still got in, somehow.”
