I didn’t answer, only focused on navigating up the mountain as fast as possible. The temperature was dropping quickly, and the tips of my fingers were starting to go numb.
“Ava wants to fix things with you,” Liam continued. “If you don’t, she won’t be around. I tried to explain this to you before, but you didn’t listen to me. After talking to my daughter, I have a clearer view of the situation and why you guys are having problems.”
“And what’s that?” I asked.
“That you’re hurting just as much as she is,” Liam said. “You can either accept my help or keep on hurting, because it won’t get better until you face the worst of your darkness.”
I shook my head. The further I climbed, the steeper the incline became, until I was using my hands to climb over the rock. “I wish it was that easy.”
“It’s not easy, but it’s simple. You have two choices. Either you work this out so you can raise this baby together, or you can go your separate ways and raise this child on your own.”
“I thought raising Casey by myself would be the best choice for everyone,” I replied.
“I don’t believe you. Can you live with never seeing her again?”
To even suggest it made me want to give up my entire existence. Even before I met her, I’d always felt Ava’s presence on this earth, an undeniable energy drawing me in and making me want to stick around for a future I had no guarantee would be there. There were so many times I thought I’d die from the unforgiving cold, or be taken out by a bullet, or bleed out from a knife wound during a drug deal gone bad. But I clung to life regardless, because whether I knew it or not, there was someone out there who wanted me to stay.
And hell, that hadn’t changed.
Even without the bond, Ava’s presence was a beacon tethering me to this very existence— not just this life, but every lifetime that came before it and every one that would come after. If Ava didn’t want me anymore, and she really meant it, our soul wouldn’t survive it. It couldn’t. What remained of our soul would shrivel up and die inside of me like a candle burning the last of its wick, leaving no trace behind.
And by the gods, the candle flame that sustained our connection was barely an ember as it was. Meanwhile, I was the brainless idiot who’d been blowing on that ember to speed up the process and make it die completely, thinking that’s what Ava wanted, when in reality, she wished for me to coax that flame back to life.
If that fire went out for good, and Ava was no longer in my life, then I was certain I would burn out with it. I couldn’t handle being divorced from Ava, and it seemed I was the last one to fucking figure that out.
I paused with my hand on the boulder I was climbing over. “How can I give her what she wants if she can’t tell me the truth about how she feels?”
“You have to understand her perspective. She’s being dishonest because she’s trying to protect herself, not because she’s trying to be deceptive,” Liam said.
“She wants to give Casey away. How can I forgive something like that?”
“Charlie, she just lost her magic, her Familiar, and her marriage. She is in the process of a divorce, and is in the throes of the worst postpartum depression that Sophia and I have ever seen, from a pregnancy she had no idea was happening. Give her some fucking grace.”
I continued pulling myself up the mountain as I digested his words. I hadn’t considered what Ava was going through was a mental health issue and not a reflection of her true desires. She had to be suffering terribly right now… and I wasn’t there to help her through it. If anything, I was making everything harder.
She was right. I wasn’t a good husband, because that’s not what a good husband did. If Ava was struggling with postpartum right now, I needed to be there for her, and let some of the things she said slide off my back like they didn’t mean anything, because in the grand scheme of things, they didn’t. “I just don’t know if I can get over the fact she doesn’t want our baby. How can she ask someone else to take him away?”
“Ava says a lot of things when she’s feeling lost. You have to learn to read between the lines with her. She’s afraid that neither of you can be the parents Casey needs. If anything, she’s trying to put your son first.”
I didn’t think of it that way. Ava always tried to do the right thing, even if it was in the most twisted way there was. If there was a choice between someone else suffering or Ava taking the blow, Ava would choose to put herself in harm’s way every time. In her eyes, she wasn’t giving up on our son. She was trying to protect him from us.
She was being wiser than I was at the moment. All I was considering was my pain at losing him. Ava was considering Casey’s pain if he had to grow up in a family that was broken, with two parents who couldn’t get along.
I had to work on understanding her. I’d been misreading what she really meant, because it had been masked behind what she said. “That’s true. But how can I trust her word if she's saying she wants to fix our marriage in one breath, then saying she wants to give up Casey in the next? How do I know what she really intends?”
“By trusting she’s always going to do the right thing by the both of you. She loves you. She doesn’t want to hurt anyone, especially not you, even still. Ava told me what she wants, and I’m repeating it to you because as much as I think you’re terrible for my daughter, I also think that you’re good for her, too.”
“How can we be good for each other? Look what we’ve done,” I pointed out. I was shivering at this point. The cold was starting to get deep down in my bones.
“You two are the same. I can’t say much about how you’ve treated her, because she’s dug a knife in your back just as deeply, and I don’t think either of you do well on your own. You both need each other.”
“I wish I d-didn’t need her,” I stuttered. I didn’t even try to say I could get by without her— I didn’t think I could, not really. But that wasn’t a great reason to stay together, either.
“I believe Ava deserves a chance at what she truly desires. Unfortunately, that means you. But you don’t get any more chances. Change your behavior, or I’m going to tell her to leave you behind.”
“I can’t help but wonder if that’s what’s best,” I insisted. I focused on putting one foot in front of the other. My fingers plunged into layers of fallen snow as I climbed the rocks, causing shooting pains to travel up my arms as the first stages of numbness began setting in. I moved quicker, trying to reach the summit before I could no longer feel my fingers at all. The only warm sensation I could feel was hot blood trickling down my fingers as I cut myself on the rock.
Liam commanded Julian to continue following me, and the dragon effortlessly scaled the mountain.
