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Maybe I was. No, I definitely was. I had no right to be sad. Dakota was the injured party, not me.

“What should I do?” I asked, hating how desperate I sounded. “I can’t change what happened.”

“You can’t hide from it,” Hollywood said. “You have to face it.”

He’d said something similar right after we left the rehab center. But I couldn’t imagine barging into Dakota’s life.

“Hollywood’s right,” Aiden said. “All this guilt serves no one. The more you try to push it down, the more it will eat you up. You’ve got to purge it.”

“How do I do that?” I asked, pretty sure there was no fucking way to shed my guilt if it’d clung to me for over five years. Sometimes I could push it down and pretend for a while. It always rose back up to tear at me and swallow my joy, reminding me I couldn’t hold on to it. That it wasn’t real and never would be.

“Express it,” Ghost said, having drifted over from the grill. “Tell that woman how deeply sorry you are.”

“And what if she doesn’t want to see me?”

“Write a letter,” Knight suggested.

Huh. I hadn’t considered that.

“The important thing is to get your feelings out there,” Aiden said. “Even if you decide not to send it, you can write down your apology, your regret, and how you wish you’d handled it differently. You’d be surprised how healing it is to finally put those feelings into words.”

I gnawed on my lip. “I guess I could try. It won’t heal Dakota, though.”

“There are some mistakes you can’t take back,” Hollywood said gently. “But it was an accident. You didn’t set out to hurt Dakota. Try to hold on to that.”

“It just doesn’t seem like enough.”

“Maybe it isn’t,” Knight said. “But you’ve got to start somewhere. If you let it, this kind of guilt will poison you.”

I wasn’t sure a letter could fully convey my regret, but it’d allow me to apologize without intruding into Dakota’s personal space. Without making her feel obligated to accept it or forgive me.

Apologizing for my sake, so I could feel better, felt wrong, but maybe…maybe she’d appreciate knowing that I cared. That I was deeply sorry. That I’d take it back, trade places with her, do just about anything to make it up to her if it were possible.

Maybe that was the best I could do.

CHAPTER 4

KIT

The house smelled amazing when I stepped through the front door. Pogo greeted me—big grin, tongue lolling out—before turning tail and darting back into the kitchen.

“Kit!” Dakota called. “Come get this fella out of my way!”

I followed our golden retriever across the living room, our orange couch—Dakota’s favorite color—set back from the television to allow a wide path for a wheelchair. Dakota was in front of the wall oven, Pogo sitting by her wheels, eagerly eyeballing the food.

She fumbled her oven mitt and Pogo instantly snatched it off the floor with his jaws and dumped it back into her lap.

“Are you sure you don’t need his help?” I teased. “Pogo’s a good assistant.”

“Aw, what a good boy,” she crooned to Pogo. “That earns you a treat. Kit’s going to get you one. Right, Kit?”

“On it.” The treats sat on a high shelf in the pantry. Dakota wanted them there so Pogo wouldn’t pester her for them. He was a smart dog and knew she couldn’t reach.

The box rattled as I withdrew it. Pogo’s nails clicked over tile as he trotted my way.

“Good boy, Pogo. You’re always taking care of Auntie Dakota, aren’t you?”

Dakota and I decided that referring to us as Mommy and Daddy would be too weird. So we were auntie and uncle to Pogo.