“I think I know you better than anyone ever has,” she retorts, viciously swiping at her cheeks where tears have begun to stream down. “But maybe you don’t know that you’re starting to succeed. You keep pushing me away, and it’s working. So, congrats, I guess.”
She stumbles backward.
The sight of it—
Panic surges through me, grabbing me by the throat and wringing it. I gasp for a breath that won’t come.Fuck.
“Don’t go,” I manage, my eyes burning.
“What reason is there for me to say? You don’t want me to. You only do until you don’t, and then you toss me aside. I’m nothing to you. Maybe that’s the message I need to get.”
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I grab her shoulders and wrench her back to me. “I’m fucking sorry,” bursts out of me, from the bottom of my lungs. “You’re right. Fuck, I know you’re right. Iamfucking terrified. What the fuck do I do about it? You’re probably the best friend I’ve ever had. And you need me less every day. I need you more.”
She’s still shaking.
Again, she shakes her head. “I don’t think sorry is enough anymore, Iosif. I’m tired of you doing this.”
There are still tears rolling down her cheeks. I don’t even have the right to wipe them away this time. I’ve done this to her.
“Then what would be?” I plead with her, sick to my stomach. She won’t even look at me. It isn’t like any of the other times before. “I’ll do anything. Tell me what would be enough. Ask me for anything.”
It’s she who looks terrified. She flinches when I try to reach for her again—but I suspect that it isn’t about me. Is it about Cillian Driscoll?
Hellfire can’t burn more furiously than my loathing for him.
I try to soften my voice for her, to be a balm when she doesn’t need to be burned again, ever. “I’m not your father. This isn’t a game. No games anymore. I mean it. Nell, I—”
She finally looks at me. There are tears in her eyes and trepidation in her stance. She’s still fucking brave. I’d been right—my little lion girl.
Somehow, she finds it within herself to study my face. It’s like she’s searching for something. I try to meet it head-on, to match her courage.
She lets out a full, quivering exhale. And with it, the words, “I want to visit my mother’s grave.”
I don’t know what I thought she’d asked for, but this hadn’t been anywhere near the lift. Maybe a private jet. But that isn’t her speed, is it? This is. Janella’s unexpected and heartfelt.
Fresh tears spill from her and gut me. “My dad never let me go. He called it a waste of time. I—I haven’t been since her funeral. She didn’t have anyone else. I want to take her flowers. I want to talk to my mom.”
Twelve years. That funeral was twelve fucking years ago.
“Let’s go,” I say, already nodding. “You don’t have to wait another second. I’m ready now, if you are.”
She looks so small. It has nothing to do with her height.
“Really?”
I fucking suck.
“I’ll have Otto bring the car around right now.”
***
The cemetery is only a 20-minute drive away.
Janella says nothing for any of them, and I can’t fucking blame her.
The late afternoon sun floods in through the windshield and paints her golden. Especially with the luscious bouquet of carnations and calla lilies in her lap, she looks like an angel, a heartbroken one.
