Page 82 of This Wild Heart

My voice was hoarse when I spoke. “I don’t know how they can all just sit there and say things like, ‘I wish he could’ve met you.’ How does that not kill her? How can she physically make herself say those words?”

A great big snarling block of emotion lodged in my throat, and I couldn’t swallow it down, no matter what I did. Pinching my eyes closed didn’t help because there was no darkness there, no break from the constant battering of images that pummeled me with relentless fury.

My dad at the sideline of my games, the first face I always looked for when I scored.

My dad teaching me how to tie a tie in front of my bedroom mirror when I had my first homecoming date, and I wanted to impress her.

The way he laughed when one of us said something funny.

How he tried to sneak an extra piece of bacon when Sheila wasn’t looking.

“I think it’s supposed to hurt,” Anya said quietly. “Isn’t it?”

I let out a dry laugh. “That’s what they say.”

She let out a slow breath, and I desperately tried to pull myself together. Shame coated my fingers, my hands, my tongue. It was everywhere, sticky like an oil slick and impossible to rinse away.

My mind raced, pictures flipping so fast that I could hardly keep track.

Christmas mornings while he fought me for the last cinnamon roll, long before he’d lost all his strength.

My seventh birthday, when he gave me a new football and said he thought I’d be good.

Fuzzier memories, earlier than I could remember clearly. Him setting me on his shoulders so I could see Erik clearly at his football games.

Showing me how to properly hammer a nail when he’d take us to a jobsite.

Always teaching. Always helping us understand. Never, ever making us feel like he was too busy.

My heart was beating too hard. Too fast. The pictures changed, and I couldn’t stop them.

Leo in his car seat in front of my house.

The way he frowned when Anya stole his pacifier.

The tiny feet and toes that I’d only seen right before she slid them back inside his pajamas—the ones covered with little turtles.

It took every shred of my discipline to force them from my mind, to not allow them to drown me because I already felt like I was.

I turned my head, my eyes finally meeting hers. The pity was gone. So was the sympathy. Anya stared back, completely fearless. She wasn’t scared of my grief, and that unlocked something in my chest, giving it just enough air that the words escaped.

“Do you know how easy my life used to be?”

“Tell me.”

“Anything I wanted, I was able to achieve just by working hard enough. Get to the college I wanted, done. Full-ride football scholarship, done. Get drafted even though I was such a fucking longshot, done.” I pushed off the ledge and straightened, taking a few steps closer to where she stood, her blue eyes blazing with … something. I held my hand out, tightening it into a fist the next moment. “I wanted something? I knew exactly how to get it. I had my entire life under control, following some invisible checklist. And the one thing I didn’t expect, the one thing I couldn’t fix, couldn’t work for, was that man being here for all the big things. For the weddings and the babies. Watching him in that fucking chair for years and years, covered with grandchildren, because that is what he wanted.”

Her eyes reddened, but she didn’t cry.

“He chose not to fight for that,” I choked out, emotions welling up dangerously until it felt like my skin was on fire. “And I couldn’t do it for him. None of us could. And I was so fucking mad at him for giving up. I was somadat him that I couldn’t even handle seeing him. How fucking selfish is that?”

A tear slid down her cheek, and she didn’t attempt to stop it. It disappeared down her cheek and dripped off her jaw. Even in her tears, she was so beautiful. I closed the space between us and slid both hands along the line of her jaw. “Don’t cry for me, golden girl,” I begged. “I don’t deserve it.”

Another tear spilled over the edge of her lashes, and it melted into the skin of my hand. “What would make you feel better?”

“Yell at me. Curse me out. Tell me to grow up. Something.”

She shook her head, and I kept my grip on her face, my fingers meeting behind her neck. “I won’t,” she said. “Because it won’t help.”

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