Page 2 of Making Choices

“Get. The. Fuck. Outta. Here.”

My president’s daughter tilts her head to one side and pouts. “Nope.”

“I don’t need a pep talk from an eleven-year-old.”

“Actually, I’m twelve now,” Cherub remarks. With a snort, I fling myself onto my other side so all she can see is my back. Her warm fingertips tap dance along my arm. “For a supposed math-whizz, you’re sure bad with numbers.”

“Eleven, twelve, it don’t matter,” I mutter. “You still needa fuck off.”

Rather than do as she’s told, Cherub flops down behind me. The mattress sways. She sighs. It’s a heavy sound that mirrors my own lament at the unfairness of the world. Lilianna Mayberry might still be a pre-teen, but she’s felt the universe’s wrath just as hard as I have. Only difference is that she’s still standing while I’ve taken to my bed like a Victorian debutante with a bad case of vapours.

“I hate to tell you, Carter, but I read that book you gave me and it was horrible. Like, some of it was okay, but mostly it made me feel shitty.” When I don’t answer, her slender, pianist fingers wind their way into my knotted hair and she starts to gently work out the tangles. “‘The death of a beloved is an amputation.’ Now that made sense… but the whole ‘no one ever told me that grief felt so like fear’ thing is dumb as hell. What I’m feeling is nothing like fear. I’m mad. I’m filled with this anger that I can’t seem to shake… like, I want to smash someone’s face to a pulp, even though I know it won’t fix anything. That’s nothing like fear… because, let me tell you, mister, when I’m afraid, I’m not seeking out things to destroy… I’m gonna hide from that shit.”

“Language, Cherub.”

“Oh, fuck off,” she counters, dragging her fingers through a knot with more force than necessary. “My mum’s dead. My Dad’s lost his marbles. And one of my favourite people in the world won’t get out of bed… cursing is the least of my problems. Plus, you know I’m right, the whole grief feels like fear thing is fucking bullshit.”

In the wake of Cherub’s passionate declaration, my own rage surges again. She’s right. My grief doesn’t feel like fear. Unlike C.S. Lewis in the wake of his greatest tragedy, I’m not restless. I’m not yawning. I’m not swallowing uselessly or left feeling mildly concussed. The only fluttering in my stomach is the kind that energises me before I inflict pain.

The sole reason I don’t give into the urge to wreak destruction is because I know it’s futile.

Beating someone half to death or peeling back their fingernails until they spill all their secrets won’t fix a thing.

Jenna will still be dead.

By her choice.

Our baby boy will still be gone.

Again… by her choice.

“My anger is eclipsed by the need to blame her,” Cherub confesses in a choked whisper. “Mum’s decision to drive that night pisses me off. Why that road? Her car. A tree. One random hailstorm. If she’d just stayed here with me like I begged…”

When she trails off, her fingers tense, then flex in my hair. I reach up to take hold of her wrist, pulling her hand straight and linking my fingers with hers. Cherub snuggles into my back with her arm looped over my neck, and we both pretend not to notice how her body shakes while she silently sobs.

Despite its noiselessness, Cherub’s pain is visceral.

It lives. It breathes. It claws at her while it taunts me with my vicious reality.

Scarlett Mayberry is dead, but she would still be here if she could be. She loved her kids, her husband, and the Shamrocks more than life itself.

My farce of a fiancée killed our baby so I couldn’t have him.

Fuck me, Jenna even went so far as to leave me a letter to drive that point home.

Our loss is not the same.

Our pain is incompatible.

Cherub is caught between anger and blame.

I’m trapped within a manufactured web of rage and guilt… and another emotion I’m too chicken to name.

“I hate that you’re hurting like this, Carter. You didn’t deserve Jenna’s cruelty, not after you tried so hard to love her the way she wanted. You’re a good man… and this whole situation is just wrong. What she did is wrong. If she wasn’t already dead, I’d kill her for what she’s done to you!”

As her heartfelt declaration pierces my psyche with shards of innocent mistruth and the kernel of knowledge that she’s planted takes root, I screw my eyes shut and try to keep breathing. The words bubble in my throat, and I swallow them down, over and over, so I don’t scream my true thoughts at Cherub.

In.

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