Page 63 of Worth the Fight

“Wait,” she breathes against my mouth. “Wait…”

I pull back, lowering my hand until it’s back on her knee. “Sorry, I just…”

“No…” She smiles. “I mean, yes. Yes, to that.” She briefly looks down to where she’s still exposed but covers herself with the T-shirt. “You said that Holly helped you after everything blew up in your face. You mentioned something like that in one of your first calls to me, too, but never elaborated. Maybe it’s not the right time, but…” She purses her lips together, worrying them back and forth. “I want to know everything, Lukas, and that includes knowing how bad it got.”

I sigh, turning to sit on the edge of the bed next to her. That night isn’t something I like to think about. It’s the night I almost gave up, almost called it quits on life. It’s a night that seems like it was years ago, but the wounds are still fresh.

“I’ll tell you anything you want to hear, baby, but it isn’t going to be fun.”

She scootches forward, her arm sliding underneath mine. Her hand glides up my forearm until she can lace her fingers with mine and rests her chin atop my shoulder. “I want to hear it, anyway.”

I squeeze her hand, opting to stare at the floorboards instead of her face. “The first six months or so after I got back home from the military were … bad. There’s really no other way to put it. I was angry, drunk, high most of the time. I was working on the family farm, but usually too hungover to make it there most days. I’d text Theo and tell him I couldn’t make it in, then be so angry with myself for ditching my family I’d crack a beer before it hit eight in the morning.”

I can feel her tense at that, and I hold her hand tighter, knowing that the rest of the story won’t be as easy to tell. “I told you that Candi and I were only together for a few weeks. Well, I was drinking more during that time. When she broke up with me, it felt like a relief. I was thankful I wasn’t dragging anyone else into my mess, and then one day when I got home from the farm, she was waiting at my apartment stairs and told me that she was pregnant.”

I said some awful things to her. I think I accused her of lying and asked if it was mine, even though Candi isn’t the type of person who would betray someone like that. “I said some things I shouldn’t have, and she basically told me I need to man up, or I wouldn’t get the chance to be in my baby’s life.”

“Oh my gosh, Lukas,” she murmurs, turning her head to rest her cheek on my shoulder.

“I didn’t deserve to be a father, not the way I was back then, Mags. That fight with her sent me into a spiral. I went on a bender, drinking for a few days straight, only stopping to pass out. It was gross.”

“But you aren’t that guy anymore, you realize that, right? When you talk about what happened in the past, you get this tone to you, this look.” When I don’t answer, she loosens her grip from mine and uses her free hand to turn my face toward her. “From what I can see, from what I know, that version of you is gone forever. Look at the relationship you have with Candi now. Look at the type of dad you are. Look what we’re building again.”

I pull away from her grip and push to stand, needing to pace the room. My hands dig into my hair, and I exhale roughly, spinning to face her with my hands crossed over my chest.

“I was at the bar one night with Theo, Grayson, and Holly. God, I was so fucking mean to Holly. Did I ever tell you that the first time I saw her, I thought she was you?”

Magnolia’s brows twist together. “What?”

“She showed up at the farm one evening, and there she was, standing in the entry way of my parents’ dining room. All I saw was a tall, thin woman. Her face was turned away from me, and I saw her blonde hair and my heart soared, Mags. I thought it was you. I thought maybe you were in town, at my house, standing right in front of me, and it was my chance. Then she turned, and I realized I didn’t recognize her, and my whole world shattered. I was mean, so mean to her. We were at the bar one night, and she was sitting on Grayson’s lap, and by the look on his face, I knew he had fallen in love with her. And I knew she loved him back. They’re perfect together, and I hated it. Hated that he had the relationship I had, that I ruined.”

She stands, coming over to me, her arms raised, but I reach for them, gently holding her wrists together and pressing them to my chest. “Grayson and Theo tried to have a come to Jesus talk with me, but I wasn’t hearing it. I went home that night and…” My throat thickens, and I let out a rough exhale, feeling my eyes start to water. “I drank myself stupid. I drank until I couldn’t think, couldn’t see. I was at my lowest, but I wanted to go lower. PTSD is a monster, Mags. A monster that will haunt someone and ruin the sunniest days when it wants to. It was after me, and I wanted to fucking feed it. So, you know what I did?”

Her glossy eyes dart back and forth across my face. “What did you do?” she whispers.

“I wanted to call you, to fight, but I think I was too drunk to figure out how to. So, I played all your old voicemails. I have a dozen or so on my phone. Some where you still loved me, but those I skipped over. I wanted the sad ones, the ones where you were begging me to call back, and I was too stupid to. I figured hearing how sad you were and how much I hurt you would make me hate myself, and it worked.”

The first tear falls, splashing against her cheek, and I let go of her wrist so I can wipe her face, but for each tear that I swipe away, another one falls. “I wanted to die, Mags. Well, maybe, I didn’t want to die, but I sure as hell didn’t want to live. I lost it. I trashed my entire apartment, broke every piece of furniture with my bare hands until I was cut up and bleeding, and it still didn’t stop me. It didn’t register until I put my fist through a window. And when the pain registered, I took a step back and realized what I had become. Just the piece of shit who had let everyone down. I was ignoring my family, downright mean to you, to Holly, to Candi. I was nothing but a drunk, and I think if I had the means to an end, I would have ended it right then and there.”

“Don’t say that,” she cries, her hands circling my waist to pull me to her. She grips me tighter than she ever has, so tight it’s hard to breathe, and my arms wrap around her just as tightly.

“It was the middle of the night, and I called Grayson sobbing, begging him to come help me.”

“And did he?” she whimpers, her face buried against my chest. I can feel her tears falling against my skin, tickling as they trail down.

“He sure did,” I say softly. “He and Holly drove to town at four in the morning to get me. It was shameful, really, having my older brother literally pick me off the ground, but he did. They did. Holly knelt by me and took care of me even though I was nothing but an ass to her hours earlier. They took me back to my parents’ house, and Holly sat with me that morning. We talked about you, about what happened between us. She was the first person I told that Candi was pregnant, and her kindness that day stuck with me.”

I could go on about the rest of the day, about having to tell my parents what I had become, the quiet drive when my dad and Grayson went to my apartment to salvage what I had left. How my siblings banded together to clean up the mess, to finalize things with the landlord so I never had to set foot in that place again. “I was so far gone, it was like they had to treat me like a child, to hold my hand as I took each step, and I’m fucking ashamed of it.”

“Why?” she croaks, and she finally lifts her head to face me. “That’s what people do when they love each other, Lukas. In a relationship of any kind, someone has to be strong when the other is suffering. It’s a give and take. They wanted to do that for you, because life without you in it?” She pauses, her mouth quivering so badly she can barely speak. “I’ve lived without you, Lukas, and I won’t ever do it again. I need you to look at me, look at me and tell me that you know how many of us love you, and how many lives would forever be changed if you weren’t in it.” Her hands grip my face, and she forces my head down, so we’re nearly eye level.

“I know, baby,” I whisper before leaning in to kiss her. “I know now that there is so much to live for, so much I have yet to do, so much waiting for me.”

“You know it, but have you forgiven yourself?”

I pull back, my lips still nearly pressed against hers. It wasn’t until I saw Mags that day at the rehab center that I started to feel like she could forgive me, or that I could forgive myself for what I had done to her, but I hadn’t thought about forgiveness in any other way.

“You need to be able to let it go,” she says, kissing me again, then moving to brush her lips against my cheek. “You need to be able to forgive yourself for the things you did when you were sad. It’s okay, you know? Forgiving yourself doesn’t mean acting like it didn’t happen, but there’s a part of me that feels like you’re still holding on to the tail of it. Still holding that dark cloud over your own head. Continually reminding yourself of how bad you got, and I don’t think you can be truly happy until you let it all go. You made mistakes, Lukas, but we all do.”