Page 76 of The Holiday Heartbreaker

“But not... Not like this. We both usually get some time on Christmas. And you don’t get all of Christmas break. You’ve never wanted that.”

“It’s not going to be realistic for us to do every weekend when you live so far away. So I think we’re going to have to work something out with school holidays.”

“I’m three hours away,” she said. “Three hours. Not three days. You act like it’s insurmountable.” And the anger she usually held back started to bubble up, spill out. “But then, you did that when we lived twenty-five minutes away. You don’t always take your weekends. Why are you acting bitter about it now?”

“Because it bothers me now,” he bit out. “Because... I was young and really stupid when we split up, Elizabeth. And I didn’t know how to manage a blended family. But it’s not two different families, or my real family and Benny. Benny is my family. I didn’t know how to handle that, because it was inconsistent. And because I was still learning how to be a husband and father.” He sighed. Heavy and tortured in a way she’d never heard him, and it forced her to acknowledge that she just didn’t know Carter anymore. “Which I admit I didn’t know how to do when I was with you. But I’ve been sitting with this, and how I want to change, and for a long time I just didn’t think I could. And then when you moved... I realized I was really going to have to make an effort. I wasn’t just going to slip into doing better with Benny, I was going to have...to do something.”

“Did your mom put you up to this?” She felt crispy and raw, all at the same time, her heart beating too hard. Like it might burst out of her chest.

“No,” he said. “I’ve realized how much of his childhood I’ve missed because I didn’t want things to be...”

“Admit it. You didn’t want to have a fractured, weird family like the one that I came from. You didn’t want anything less than traditional, but that’s what you got yourself into.”

“Yes,” he said, his tone hard. “It was snobbery. Over something that I created. Like I didn’t want to acknowledge that I had an ex-wife and a kid somewhere else. I admit that. Because it is...my biggest failure, Elizabeth. The way I treated you. I was a bad husband. I was a bad person. Everything about what I did...it was wrong. So yeah, seeing you reminded me. Custody arrangements reminded me of it. I wanted to put it behind me, and I couldn’t. I’ve realized I have to accept it. That I have the ability to fail someone, to fail myself, this badly. And the only way to begin to fix it is to fix my relationship with Benny.”

And she couldn’t hate him. That was the problem. It was hard, and she didn’t like it, but he wasn’t trying to push the blame off onto her. He never had, and it was almost worse. Because it made it impossible for her to just write him off, to tell herself that Benny would be better off if he didn’t have him in his life.

Benny loved him. That was the bottom line. Benny loved his dad.

And even though Carter didn’t take care of Benny or love him in the same way that Elizabeth did, he did. She knew that Benny needed him. That he wanted him around.

“Please don’t take him from me for Christmas, Carter,” she whispered. “We just got a Christmas tree.”

“School doesn’t get out for another week. You can do a Christmas thing.”

“Carter...”

“You know we’re going to have to do something. I’m going to have to have him for summer, or at least part of it...”

“I hate this. I hate that you still get to hurt me even though I don’t love you anymore.”

I hate that I still have to have you in my life.

I hate that I just can’t be over it.

They weren’t different. That was what hurt right now. She actually wanted the same thing he did. Not to escape a failure on her part, but to escape him. She didn’t want their failed marriage lingering in her rearview mirror any more than he did, but it had to because they’d made a child together.

A child they both loved.

A child she wanted all to herself. But she couldn’t have him all to herself.

Right now, she understood Carter better than she ever had. But she hated him a little bit too.

“I’m going to oppose it,” she said.

“I thought that you probably would. But I wanted to call and explain myself. I’ll send you details for a conference call. Should be Monday.”

“You didn’t even check on my work schedule.”

“Sorry. Is your work more important than this?”

It wasn’t. And she knew that Gus would help her rearrange her schedule however she needed to. It was just not fair at all that she was expected to. It outraged her. Like the rest of this.

“You know nothing is more important than this.”

“Great. Well, I’ll send you the details. I’ll talk to you later, Elizabeth.”

And when she hung up the phone, she let out an unholy, angry growl that reverberated inside the cab. And both Benny and Brody looked her direction.

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