Page 67 of Fly Boy
A crash has my feet moving quickly, nervous as to what I’ll find when I step through the threshold and into the kitchen. Wyatt’s hands grasp the edge of the counter, his fingers holding it in a death grip, so much so that I’m surprised he doesn’t peel the granite from the cabinets below. His head is slumped down, his shoulders rising and falling as he breathes hard.
I edge closer, my hand outstretched until I touch his back. He flinches, the muscles so tight under my palm, that they’re trembling. Raking my gaze over him, I inhale sharply when I notice blood smeared across the counter beside shards ofporcelain. HisWorld’s Greatest Pilotmug lies there, broken into three pieces, the handle still inside the sink.
Wrapping my arms around his waist, I place my cheek on his back, breathing in his scent. “What happened?”
He’s quiet, so quiet that I don’t think he’s heard me when he lets out a ragged breath. “She’s sick.”
I tense. “Who?”
“Mymom,”he sneers, and I flinch at his tone.
I think back to his mom, frowning as I try to remember what she looked like. “I didn’t realize Sadie was ill.”
He shakes his head. “Sadie’s my stepmom. Fiona, my biological mother, has brain cancer.”
My arms tighten around him, and my head buries between his shoulder blades. “I am so sorry.”
“Don’t be,” he says tersely, extracting himself from my hold and resuming pacing. “I’m not.”
I gasp, rearing back. “Wyatt!”
He whirls around, his blue eyes blazing with an intensity that makes my skin prickle uncomfortably.
“Why should I be sorry she’s dying?” he snaps, throwing his arms wide. “I haven’t seen her for thirty-four years, Pippa, and now she’s sick, she thinks she can come back into my life. For what? To make amends for abandoning me?”
“Wy—” I step forward, trying to touch him, but he brushes me off.
“No, Pippa.” He lifts the hand that’s still bleeding, wincing when he goes to run it through his hair.
I snatch a hand towel from the counter and grab his wrist. This time, he doesn’t recoil, letting me inspect the cut before wrapping the terry cloth around his hand.
“She didn’t even bother naming me.” It’s said in a whisper that I almost miss it. My gaze darts up to his, torn in two at the look of anguish I’m met with. “I was days old when she left meon my grandparents' porch, still wrapped up in the blanket from the hospital, the little tags they put on around a baby's wrist and ankle on, too.” Rubbing his temple with his free hand, his eyes fall shut as he continues. “Apparently, there was a note, but…she couldn’t be bothered to name me.”
I struggle to swallow, struggle to breathe as I stare up at the man far more complex than I initially thought, hiding scars that run much deeper than I could have imagined.
Silently, I lead him into his living room, and he flops down on the floor, his back resting against the couch. I scramble behind him, tucking myself closer to his body, my fingers kneading into his neck and shoulders as he picks at the towel around his hand.
“My dad named me, raised me, took care of me for three years until she decided to come back. Out of the blue. Just appeared at the small apartment we rented, wanting a second chance.” I can feel him grimacing more than see it, beneath my fingertips, as I wait for him to continue. “I was five when she left again. For good.”
“That’s awful,” I whisper, my chest tight as each of his words are little knives in my heart. How can someone do that to a child? I lick my dry lips, gathering the nerves to ask, “Why did she leave?”
His sigh is full of derision, his shoulders jerking upward in answer. “I don’t know for sure, but I think she couldn’t handle being a mom. They were just kids. Dad was seventeen when I was born, my…Fionawas eighteen. Dad doesn’t say much about the time she was pregnant, only that I’m the best thing to ever happen to him.” His head twitches like he’s rolling his eyes at his father’s sentiments, but warmth floods my veins at the words I know my own Dad would say if it were him. “I don’t remember much before she left, but I can picture the day she drove away like it was last week. I can still hear her shouting at my dad thatshe should have done what her parents wanted and terminated the pregnancy.”
My breath hitches, my blood turning cold as I keep listening.
“At the time, I didn’t understand what she meant, just that my dad’s reaction was so devastated that it couldn’t have been anything good. As I got older, though, I realized that she must have meant that she’d still have her dreams…the life she always wanted. Not a five-year old kid at twenty-three, living paycheck to paycheck in a shitty apartment in bumfuck nowhere.
“He doesn’t know I heard that. I haven’t told a soul apart from the child therapist he took me to for a couple of years…and now you. Therapy helped; it made me understand thatIwasn’t the problem, that it wasn’tmyfault she left, but there was always this seed of doubt”—he touches his temple—“up here. And now I find out she’s sick, and that’s the only reason she’s reached out...”
His head falls forward, and I ache for him.
“Will you?” I ask hesitantly. “Go see her?”
He shrugs. “I think my dad wants me to. He thinks it would be good for me to get closure.”
“And what do you think? Will that help you if you see her?”
“I don’t know,” he whispers, sounding so broken it makes my heart split in two.
