Not allowing my anger to surge, I keep my tone easy.
“Yes, I chose her,” I say matter-of-factly. “I’m sorry that it doesn’t align with your wishes, but I don’t need your approval or your damn judgment.”
“Tristan,” Harper warns. “Easy.”
I look at my other sister. Now,herI’m not going to take it easy on. Harper has no reason to have any feelings about this. “Me? Lark is lying in a fucking coma right now—I won’t go easy.”
“She’s upset,” Harper defends. “You know why that is.”
It doesn’t mean that it’s okay. I don’t remember any of my sisters coming to me for approval for the idiots they’ve been with. I’m not sure why they think I need or want theirs.
I love Lark.
She’s the woman I want to be with. The woman who has shown me that hope can still exist, even when it doesn’t seem possible.
“I do know why. Now imagine how I feel, sitting here while the woman I love is in a fucking coma,” I bark back.
Fallon, Veronica, and Harper all stop moving and stare at me.
“No, you can’t, Tristan,” Fallon says, coming out of it first. “You can’t love her. No. Her brother killed my fiancé!”
“She did nothing to you, Fallon.” I wish I could help ease my sister’s pain, I really do, but Lark isn’t responsible. “I know you’re hurting, but taking it out on someone else isn’t going to bring Carrick back.”
Fallon shakes her head and then huffs. “What would Emmy Jo think of this? How do you think your wife, the woman you loved more than anything, would feel about you dating Lark Gatlin?”
The anger I was so tightly holding on to explodes. I’m on my feet in an instant, staring down at my youngest sister. “If you think for one second Emmy Jo wouldn’t be happy for me, then you didn’t know her at all. She wouldn’t want me to live my life in constant pain. She never wanted me to grieve her. I loved my wife. I buried my wife and have been raising Sadie alone. Don’t you dare bring Emmy Jo into this, because you know what? She’d be happy that I found someone. She’d be over the fucking moon to know that there’s a woman who cares about Sadie as well and who Sadie likes. And for you to sit there and spew your absolute garbage, knowing how I feel about her, is so fucked up, I can’t even put it into words.”
Fallon closes her eyes and then rubs her hand down her face. “I’m sorry.”
“You should be.”
Sure, I could be gracious and just accept it, but I’m not there. To bring up Emmy Jo and try to make me think that she’d disapprove was a step over the line.
I glance at Harper and Veronica to see whether they’re going to weigh in, but they stay silent.
“I am,” Fallon says, getting to her feet. “Truly, I shouldn’t have said that, and you’re right. Emmy Jo wouldn’t have judged you.”
“But you do,” I toss back.
She sighs, her shoulders drooping. “I don’t know. I just…I hate them. It’s so much easier to hate them because I need to hatesomeone!”
I understand that all too well. I move around to my sister and pull her into my arms. As much as I’d like to just stay mad at her, I can’t. “Hating them won’t bring him back.”
Fallon wraps her arms around me. “I know this. I do, but I miss him.”
“I know.”
She lets go, wiping at her face. “I was really mean to Lark a week or so ago.”
“She told me.”
“I was out of line.”
I nod. “When she wakes up, you can tell her that.”
Fallon sighs heavily. “Tristan, what if she doesn’t? I’m not saying that to be mean, I swear,” she says quickly. “I heard someone talking about the swelling around her brain. I don’t want to see you hurt.”
That ship has sailed, and there’s no turning it around. I can’t even entertain that possibility. I won’t put that out into theuniverse, because that can’t be an option for me. She has to wake up. She has to be okay.
