Page 210 of Push

“I—I d-don’t know.”

That was honest. Life was full of coincidences, but it wasn’t high on the probability scale that another person living in that building had mob connections, was it? My chest heaved under the strain of all the feelings being shoved into me. I was like an overstuffed teddy bear ripping at the seams.

“Gwen, I—”

Unable to choke out another word, I glanced up to see her eyes skimming the television.

Her eyebrows pinched together. “Is that—?” Her lips clamped shut. What did Liam call her—clever Gwen?She was. She’d already slotted the puzzle pieces together. Her arms flew around me, and she squeezed me so tight against her I couldn’t breathe. It was perfect.

“We’re going to get through this,” Gwen whispered. “Just like every other curveball the universe has thrown at us, you hear me? We’re going to be okay.”

I pressed my face into her neck, my tears leaving a wet splotch on her crispy white blouse. “Ye–yeah.” I pulled back, scrubbed my face, and forced down a deep breath. “Yeah.”

“Da?” A tiny voice said.

I peered over Gwen’s shoulder. Big eyes blinked up at me from the highchair. A chubby fist stuck out with a mangled bit of pancake squashed in it. Taking another swipe over my eyes, I bent forward and pretended to gobble up the soggy bit of pancake. Noah’s belly laugh filled the room.

Gwen was right.

We were going to be okay.

A couple of hours later, calls and messages were blowing up my phone.

One call was from the police. Ian was gone. The man I’d grown up with had just—poof—disappeared off the face of the earth.The investigation was in the early days, but the police officer explained that his death was a homicide. I dropped my phone, and Gwen took over from there.

Had I caused this? Had me wishing, even for a second, that Ian was dead, somehow tricked the universe into taking action?

I spent the next twenty minutes on the bathroom floor, heaving my guts up.

The only other call I answered was from Zach.

“Yeah, everything’s cool,” I lied.

Zach didn’t buy my crap for a second. He offered the usual help and condolences, but after he hung up, he sent in the big guns. John Rawles landed on my doorstep less than an hour later.

“Uh, I thought it might be time to look at those hedges of yours.” John rubbed the back of his neck, and his eyes didn’t quite meet mine. He was lying through his teeth. He was checking up on me, and I didn’t mind a damn bit.

John lumbered after me through the house, waving to the group of women buzzing in the kitchen but not stopping to say hello before following me through the back door. We exchanged small talk about the yard. Even the high praise of him complimenting my lawn couldn’t wrestle much of a smile out of me. I was barely holding myself together.

Correction.

I wasn’t holding myself together at all. I crumpled in the corner of my backyard, and John sank to his haunches beside me.

His hand landed on my shaking shoulder. “You’re going to be alright, mate.”

“I just—if I’d done more to—to—help Ian, he’d still be here. I could’ve given him the money. I would’ve if it meant he hadn’t…” I gulped. “It’s not worth it.” That squeezy feeling tightened around my chest again. I dropped my head down to my knees. “None of this is worth it.”

“Mate, there’s nothing you could’ve done to help him. Your brother chose his path in this world—”

“My father chose this stupid fucking path! He started all of this! If he’d told my mother to fuck right off and made Ian part of our family, none of this would’ve happened!”

John didn’t react to the anger spewing out in my words. He hummed a soft sort of sound and sat on the grass beside me. The sway of trees and the rustle of leaves skipping across the lawn filled the silence until he spoke again.

“I lost my brother when I wasn’t much older than you,” he said.

My head shot up off my knees. “Y–you did?”

He dipped his chin. “Not quite the same, but not so different. He’d been lost on the drink for a while. Maree and I—bloody hell—we fought all the time about how much time I wasted trying to help him…all the money I was giving him…until…” His sigh was long. “He lashed out at Maree one day when Zach was only little. I didn’t think twice about throwing my brother out of my house, but it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I couldn’t fix him, and his addiction wasn’t worth tearing down my marriage any more than I already had. Cutting contact was the right thing to do.”

---