Page 67 of Under Pink Skies

“I’ve got you,” Connor said, pressing a kiss to the top of my head as he wrapped his arms around me. I cried against his chest. “I’ve got you, Abbie.”

I didn’t remember most of the drive. I only remember listening to Connor’s music and rubbing my thumb over the leather seat, staring out of the window.

Connor found us a parking spot in the middle of the visitor lot at Brighton Regional Hospital, throwing Lucy into park so we gently idled in the dusk light.

I leaned my head against the cool glass, grateful for the sensory distraction.

“We’ll sit here as long as you need.”

“Right,” I said, my warm breath fogging up the window. Rain began to fall in a gentle patter. My fingertip traced the path of one drop, and then another.

“When they called to tell me Ellis died, I laughed.”

I turned to face him, grateful for the distraction.

“The notion that this person—who had hated me, abused me, broken me down until there was nothing left—was no longer on this earth . . . it made me laugh. Because where was the justice in that?” Connor shook his head and crossed his arms, leaning back in the driver’s seat.

“For years, I dreamed for years of all the things I’d say to him if I ever came face-to-face with him. All the insults I’d scream, the demands I’d make. I had delusions of making him see what a good of man I’d become despite what he did to me. But with that phone call, all of those visions of revenge, of closure, vanished in an instant.”

Connor blew out a long breath, resting his head against the back of his seat.

“I realized in the coming weeks it wouldn’t have mattered,” Connor said quietly. “It took me a long time to come to terms with the fact that I would never get closure. I would never understand how he could do all the things he did to me; someone he was supposed to love and care for. I would never know his history. My therapist helped me see it wouldn’t have changed anything. The conversation I thought would give me closure . . . it wouldn’t have made a difference. Because Ellis was a sick man who did terrible things and never once apologized for anything. I would never make him see reason. He was who he was, and there was nothing I could ever say or do to change him.”

Tears pricked at my eyes, and my heart broke for Connor all over again. Connor, who had been my rock and my strength throughout high school. Connor, who had shown me love during my mom’s treatment, who had supported my family in the most personal ways. Connor, who was still with me now, even as my world unraveled once again.

“Do you wonder how life would have been if you had different circumstances?”

My voice trailed off as Connor shook his head suddenly.

“No,” he said with conviction. “I don’t wonder for a second if my life would have been different. I did that enough when I was younger. Now that I’ve been through my addiction and come out on the other side, I don’t imagine. I don’t wonder. Because I know how badly you have to want to change. Sobriety is a struggle some days. At the beginning of the journey, it feels damn near impossible. But the decision you make at the beginning . . . well, some people might struggle with it. I won’t speak for everyone.

“But for me, it was easy. When Kam came and practically scraped my disgusting, bloody, vomit-covered form from the sidewalk outside a bar in Okinawa, I’d been on a two-day binge. Kam dragged me back to the barracks, made sure I was safe, and stayed there the entire night so I wouldn’t choke to death on my vomit. The next morning, he gave me a choice. I could go talk to the SACO and start sorting my shit out, or he’d cut me from his life entirely.”

My mouth dropped open a bit. “He was going to leave you?”

“I realize that sounds juvenile, but rest assured, it was anything but. It wasn’t because he wanted to leave me, nor was it an idle threat,” Connor explained, sensing my hesitation. “It was because he loved me enough to stop enabling my self-destructive behaviors. He saw how bad my alcoholism had become, and he was willing to step out of my life entirely, if that was the push I needed to get straight. Needless to say, the choice was an easy one. I went to the SACO as soon as I was well enough to stand and started a never-ending journey of staying sober.”

I let Connor’s story float in the air between us. When Connor had first spoken, I’d been grateful for the distraction, but now I was grateful to have this last piece of his story. The rain fell harder, the familiarplink, plink, plinkfilling the truck cab with a comforting sound. I looked through the rivulets racing down the hazy windshield to the hospital beyond.

“And my father? Do you think he would change, given the chance?”

Connor looked up at me, eyes searching, and I held my breath, terrified at what his answer would be.

“Your fatherissick, and he needs help, but in a very different sense. Whatever happens next, it will be his choice. But I need you to know, Abbie, that his choices have always been his own. Nothing you did could have stopped him from tumbling down this path. Addiction is a nasty, angry beast, and once it has its claws in you . . . well, sometimes it takes an experience like this—” he gestured to the glowing light of the hospital in front of us “for an addict to realize just how bad it’s gotten. The choice they make next is theirs and theirs alone. To leave their old way of living behind and take a leap of faith. Or to turn away from the people that love them and continue spiraling into their own self destruction. I will be there for you, no matter what he chooses. But he will have to make a choice.”

It should have scared me, the knowledge that I could very well lose my father today. Not physically, but in every way that mattered. A distant part of me also knew that the way he and I had been existing these past several years was far from living. He would choose, and I would make my peace with his decision.

One way or another.

Chapter 26

Connor

Ireally,reallyhatedhospitals.

I’d been an inpatient more times than I cared to admit. I’d visited Tilly with Abbie in this very hospital dozens of times before her death. The clinical walls, the wallpaper colors, and strange, generic waiting room paintings designed to be soothing but really just reminded you that you were here because something awful happened—I hated all of it.

Abbie paused outside of the hospital doors, gazing into space.

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