“I don’t need help.”
He scoffs. “Yeah, you do. You’ve been drowning since the day she left, then your dad died, and now you find out you have a kid. That’d be a toughroad for anyone. But you don’t have to do any of this alone, so stop being a dick and talk to me.”
I push my index finger and thumb into my eyes and exhale. The cracks in my walls are slowly widening and everything’s spilling over. Pressure builds in the middle of my chest.
My hands shake.
I can’t be here.
I can’t do this.
I fucking hate this place.
Standing, the stool knocks over, hitting the ground with a clatter. I storm across the room and pick up a chair before tossing it at the glass door to the shop. Fuck this place. I never even wanted it to begin with. I rip a pool stick from the stand and head back to the bar. My heaving breaths turn to screams as I smash it into the wall of liquor bottles. Amber liquid splashes as glass explodes with each swing. She should have been mine. But this goddamn club took her from me.
It’s taken everything from me.
I wouldn’t have had to send her away if it weren’t for it.
I could have?—
Standing in front of the mess I made, the pool stick falls from my hand.
Ash couldn’t stay here.
I couldn’t let her.
But I stayed.
Damn near choking on my words, I mutter, “I chose this club over her.”
When he doesn’t say anything, I look back at him with tears pricking my eyes.
“I chose this fucking club over her,” I shout, slammingmy hand down on the wet bar with a smack. My nostrils flare.
“I know.”
Shaking my head, I bite my top lip before saying, “And it cost me my kid.”
As a tear rolls down my cheek, the last of my control slips. Grabbing the bottle of whiskey in front of me, I chuck it at the wall of broken liquor bottles.
“I loved her!” I shout, pounding a hand on my chest. “I would have chosen her if I’d known! I wanted to choose her! I wanted her!”
I could have kept her safe without making a mess of everything in the process. I broke her heart. I ended us. I turned my back on her.
And she fucking survived.
My voice comes out smaller when I say, “I still love her.”
“I know.” JT’s somber this time.
It all hurts twice as much because she’s not just some girl I used to have feelings for. She’s the girl I’ve loved my entire adult life. The girl I’ve thought about every night before I fall asleep. And I left her out in the cold. I abandoned her when she needed me.
“She did it alone,” I say, sucking in a sharp breath. “She was alone because I wasn’t there!” My voice cracks, and I brace myself on the bar, letting my head fall forward. “I wasn’t fucking there for?—”
I can’t even get the rest of my words out before I feel like I’m being squeezed to death. I’m burning from the inside out, and I want to climb out of my own skin. He nods.
Shrugging away tears with my shoulder, I regain a hair of my composure and clear my throat, resting one hand onmy hip and wiping my upper lip with the other. “I fucking hate this club.”
