Her fingers started to curl and cramp as she hunched forward, gasping for air.
I threaded my fingers through hers and stretched them wide, kissing the backs of her hands. “It’s going to be okay. Focus on my touch, Avery.”
She looked so scared, so helpless, and I cursed myself for putting her in that kind of agony. I caught a glimpse of David’s journals on the bed and cursed them too.
“This pain isn’t going to stay, Av. It will go away real soon. You just have to get through this part,” I whispered.
I brought my lips to the top of her head and held her until her hiccups and tears began to lessen. When she was ready, I picked her up and sat her beside me on the bed.
Her striking gray eyes met mine and widened ever so slightly. Reaching up, she wiped a tear from the side of my face. My own tear. Then, grabbing one of the journals next to her, she flipped it open with shaky hands.
“Whatever it is, I don’t care.” I shook my head. “I don’t need to know if it’s going to put you through that again.”
“I want you to know. I need you to see,” Avery said, flipping through the pages. “You were trying to protect Danny from me all this time. And I was trying to protect Danny from this—the truth.”
My eyes flitted across the first journal entry. And then the next. David hadn’t been organized about his thoughts. His words were everywhere, like he didn’t have the time to try and find a fresh page when he sat down to write them; he just took a pencil and found a random spot. There were no dates stamped across the top, no reference of time. Some of his entries didn’t even make sense. Like he had his own language. He had written about his life like he constantly wanted to end it. I was used to seeing emotions put into words, being in the music industry. It could get pretty dark at times. But this…this was next level.
Jesus.
The crease between my brow deepened as I read his poems, songs, and random thoughts. I didn’t even finish half of the first one before I grabbed another from the pile. I flipped through three more, looking for something that resembled the man everyone had known and loved. These words didn’t sound like their father, but the messages and stories hidden inside werehislife.Hisfamily.Hishistory. The tortured words weren’t him. They couldn’t be.
When I opened the last journal, Avery sucked in a shaky breath. After a few pages in, I knew why.
My eyes burned when I saw his words—his plan—written in black ink, and I slammed it shut.
“When we ran off that bridge that night, it wasn’t an accident, Liam.”
Tears spilled over so fast that they barely touched my cheeks before they hit the bed.
“My dad tried to—” She shook her head clear of the images invading her thoughts and found my gaze again. “My dad tried to take my life that night, both our lives.”
I didn’t try to disguise the emotion in my voice. “Who else knows about this?”
She took the journal and set it behind me with the others. “My therapist.”
“Your mom doesn’t know? Nina?”
She shook her head. “Just you.”
“Wh-why?” I asked.
“Because I knew how much it would hurt to find out. I didn’t want them to experience that. My dad’s gone. Why ruin their memory of him?”
The strength in her words made my face crumble. It had to be suffocating, having that story, that truth, replay in your mind, knowing it would hurt anyone you told.
“At first, I thought I was crazy because what had happened didn’t make sense. You know, maybe I’d imagined the things he said before he swerved. I hit my head and was in a coma. It could’ve all been a terrible nightmare. I wasn’t sure. But then I found these hidden away in his desk, and it all pieced back together.”
A muscle in my jaw ticced at the thought of David trying to harm her.
“I’m not mad at him.” She stared up at me. “Not anymore.”
I swallowed back my anger. “It’s okay if you are.”
“He was sick, Liam. He wasn’t in the right mind. Everyone thought he was fine, but he needed help.” Her tears began to fall again. “If I had known, maybe I could’ve saved him.”
I frowned. “Avery, I already told you, you couldn’t save him from that water.”
Her head shook back and forth, over and over. “If I’d tried harder in my music lessons or done better in school or if I hadn’t been with my friends all the time…”
