Page 82 of Quietly Falling
“Then why are you allowing it to be yours?”
“Fuck,” I bite out, my eyes welling with tears and my chest aching.
“You gotta let people love you, man. I let Lana love me.” When I don’t say anything, he keeps talking. “You asked how I do it—I let her love me. I let Beck love me and Holland and I love the hell out of them. Our makeshift family in Blackstone Falls and the one in Clementine Creek. I teach Beck what it means to be a man, the things you taught me about discipline, respect, and family. I show Holland the way a man should treat a woman and I show up for her. For them.”
“What happens if they leave?” I rasp, the question raw and honest and long overdue.
“Then you lean on your family. You mourn and you grieve them. Living or dead it’s all the same, but then you make the choice to live in that grief or make peace with it. I’ve made peace with it.”
“It’s not that easy for me.”
“And you think it was easy for me? You know what I came from. But if you think I’m gonna give my piece of shit father the satisfaction of thinking he killed me the same night he killed my mother you’re wrong. I survived. I survived and it was hard, and when I lost my aunt I survived that too. And Audrey.I survived losing you.”
“Mason—”
All of a sudden I’m sixteen again and the blood on my hands isn’t mine. The scene plays out on the back of my eyelids. Police are everywhere, the harsh lights in the hospital and the smell of antiseptic disorienting, and the only thing bringing me back to reality is the cold metal on my wrists as the handcuffs click into place.
“I didn’t have a choice.” It’s a choked sob, the pain radiating like a zap of electricity through my veins.
“You didn’t. You saved my life, sacrificed yourself, and I still mourned youevery single dayyou were gone. But you know what I did? I did everything I could to make you proud. I kept my head down and out of trouble. Did well in school and counted the fucking days until you were out.”
“I’m still proud of you.”
“And I’m proud of you—look how far we’ve come.Bad shit happened to us, brother, but I refuse to let that rule my life. Look where I am now—where we ended up. We’ve worked too hard for this. Bodhi,” he says, his voice serious, “you can’t be afraid to be happy.”
“I’m not…” I don’t finish the sentence because I can’t.
Because it’d be a lie.
“Come home, man. Come to Montana’s. The girls are with Ella and you need her, but you need this first.”
“I just?—”
“Trust me.”
“I do.”
“Be easy.”
“Easy and free.”
39
BODHI
Gravel crunches under my tires as the truck eases down the road. The flames from the fire dance along the night sky, and I can make out the guys all sitting in their chairs.
Waiting.
I don’t want to do this.
Putting the truck into park, I let my eyelids flutter closed, fatigue racking my body both from the drive and seeing Lauren. And this won’t be any easier.
God, I just wanther.
My house is so close I could walk home.
But Mason’s right.
