Fucking coward.
“Unless… do you need me to stay?”
Need isn’t the word for it.
She must sense it, that I’m on the edge, about to topple over, guilt-ridden and broken. Ready to fucking beg because for the first time in years, I don’t want my bed to be empty. I don’t know how I can keep living like this. Lonely, pissed off, stuck on an endless loop, reliving that day over and over again.
A shaky breath escapes me. “She, uh, she was pregnant. Emily was. I didn’t know until after she died. Her mom let it slip a few days after I got out of the hospital. It fucked me up a little. A lot, actually. It, uh?—”
My voice cracks. It’s been so damn long since I said the words out loud. Since I let myself think about it. It’s been easier to pretend I didn’t lose more than just her that day. But just like the dreams, it nags at me, keeps me up at night. Reminds me that when I crashed Em’s car into that rock face, I took two lives.
“God, Linc.” Grace closes the distance between us and loops her arms around my waist, pulling me in tight. I rest my chin onher head, leaning into her embrace, the warmth of her skin, the smell of her hair.
Wrapped up in Gracie.
“I’m so fucking sorry,” she murmurs.
An emotion I haven’t felt for a long time crawls its way up into my throat. I have to swallow it down to stop the sob rolling through me from escaping. And that familiar anger that always comes with it. Blood-boiling, pulse-throttling, need-to-kill-something kind of rage.
Maybe she feels that too—my muscles tensing, my heart rate kicking up a few notches—because she suddenly tightens her grip, tugging me closer. Her hold quells the torrent storming in my chest. Stress and agitation leak from my body, and I sigh out a long, deep breath.
“You can go. You don’t have to stay here.”
We’re quiet for a long while, swaying slightly, me clutching her like she’s a goddamn lifeline.
Eventually, she sighs. “Why don’t we get back into bed?”
Not leaving, then. Thank fuck.
It’s more of that quiet as I settle beneath my sheets, and she’s on my chest, those fingers of hers back to tracing over my skin as she rises and falls with the rhythm of my breath.
“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” she says finally. “You don’t have to tell me anything.”
I release a shaky breath. “Maybe I want to.”
She gives me an encouraging squeeze.
That’s all it takes for the words to flow out after almost ten fucking years.
“Before she died, Em and I… we were in this weird place. I wanted to settle in South Bay. Focus on our careers, save some money, get out of our shitty apartment. The family stuff was supposed to happen later. We’d obviously talked about the whole kid thing. We’d been together for so long at that point, itwas one of the next logical steps, you know? Buy the house, get married, have kids.” I let out a deep sigh. “She changed the plan. Or maybe I did, I don’t know. I couldn’t picture this life we’d decided on. Didn’t see how I’d be happy with it, and she couldn’t figure out how to be happy in South Bay. So we were… in a sort of limbo. Maybe just waiting for the other to say it. That it was over.”
I stare up at the ceiling, willing the usual images of her dying out of my head. I hate thinking of her, because this is what I get. The blank stare, dead eyes, all that blood. Or the other version of her. The sad smile, the hand I should have squeezed, the stretches of silence, the fight we both kept trying to win. A reminder that at some point, we let our love slip away, that we decided what we had wasn’t good enough.
“For a couple of weeks before the accident, she was really pushing to leave. We’d agreed to wait, to talk about it down the road. But she wanted the hell out of South Bay, and I was hell-bent on sticking it out in the heart of biker territory. To clean up our town, to make a name for myself.”
Those last words come out bitter. I didn’t really want all the small-town glory my dad had hoped for me, but I wanted to make him proud. Take down the Sinners like he’d been gunning to do for half his career.
“I guess now I know why she was so adamant about leaving this place behind. She knew the danger of staying here. Of what my badge meant in this town. Of what it could mean to raise a kid here.” I swallow, and Grace squeezes tighter. “I don’t know how far along she was. It must have been early, though. Early enough that I didn’t notice. Or maybe I wasn’t paying attention.” I swallow past the lump growing in my throat. “We should have left. She practically begged me to. If I hadn’t been so stubborn, if I’d have listened to what she was trying to tell me, she’d still be alive. And I’d have a ten-year-old kid running around.”
Heat stings at the backs of my eyes. I can barely get out those last words. Me. A father.
It’s almost a joke at this point. The man I was back then? Sure. He could have stepped up. Showed up for our kid. But now? I’m not sure I could stomach it. The man I’ve become has no business being a father.
Grace says nothing. She doesn’t tell me it’s not my fault, that my anger and guilt are misplaced. Because that’s not what I need. There’s nothing she can say to lessen the burden of this weight I carry with me, the grief I can’t let go of.
Eventually, she asks, “What ever happened to him? Do you know? The other guy driving.”
Yeah. I know. All too intimately.
