21.
Bear
W e had both been silent for some time. Both of us processing the past and the stories of horror. Now she knew all of me—both the boy I had been and the man that I had become.
I was a monster.
An animal.
A beast that deserved no love.
I was a violent man who dreamed of violent things.
Now she could say goodbye properly, now that she knew all of my story.
“Three months ago the doctors said they wanted to turn off Sebastion’s machines. They had been trying to do it for years, saying that there was nothing left of the man he had once been. I knew they were right, but I could never let go of him—I still blamed myself for what had happened, for being so stupid as to not realize what he had been risking just to give me a better life. But three months ago I decided the time was right—there was nothing left of him there anymore, and so I signed off on it.” A bubble of grief ran through me and a sob escaped, the memory of him lying on that bed, completely helpless, as they switched off each machine one by one. It had reminded me of that night so long ago, sitting outside that house, listening to them beating him to death while I cried outside, desperate to go in and protect him but too scared to move.
I put my head in my hands, trying to force the tears away. I didn’t want to cry. I didn’t deserve to cry. I had killed him twenty years ago and then I killed him all over again three months ago. I didn’t deserve anything. Not the relief of tears and certainly not anyone’s sympathy.
“Matt.” Dahlia said my name, and I felt it slice my skin like I had been stabbed. Her soft hand touched the top of my shoulder. “Matt, listen to me.”
I shook my head. I didn’t want to hear what she had said. What I had been hearing for twenty years and three months. Because it was always the same thing.
It wasn’t my fault.
There was nothing I could do.
I was just a scared kid.
It was always the same and none of it made it feel any better. None of it took the guilt away. And maybe I didn’t want it to. Maybe I was glad for the anguish and the guilt, because it gave me something physical to hold on to.
“Hey, it’s okay,” she said, her words at my ear, her breath against my neck. “It’s okay, I promise.”
But it wasn’t okay, it would neve r be okay.
“Let yourself feel it. You lived it, and you have to deal with it, but I want you to know that I’m here for you, okay? Know that I don’t blame you for what you did, even though you blame yourself. Because there was nothing you could have done. If you would have gone in there you would have been killed too, and I would have lost you anyway.” Her words stirred inside me, mixing with the gnawing pain that had grown like cancer over the years, suffocating me. “Know that I loved you, Matt. I never stopped loving you. And, despite everything, I still love you.”
The cancer had grown, a violent tumor filling me, exploring every dark part of my body and mind and shaping me into this shell of a man. It filled the bleak crevices of my mind until all that was left was self-pity.
“You don’t mean that,” I said. “You can’t. I’m an animal, Dahl, unworthy of anything—especially you.”
My eyes were squeezed closed, my heart hammering against my chest. I wanted her to go. I wanted to push her away and keep her safe from me, because if I could do that to six men, then what kind of man was I? How could I ever trust myself?
I felt her lips against the side of my face, the touch of them sparking something inside me, igniting something that had been dead and gone before now. I opened my eyes and lifted my head, turning to face her. She was crying; her cheeks flushed, her eyes wide, her pink lips parted. She really was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, even to this day.
Reaching out, I cupped my hand to her cheek. “I love you, Dahlia, and I have thought about you every single day of my wretched, rotten life. You deserve better than me.” I gritted my teeth, my jaw twitching as I ran my thumb over her bottom lip. “You deserved better than him too.”
She reached up, placing her small hand over the top of my large one, her eyes never leaving mine.
It was time to rip the Band-Aid off, even if it meant breaking her heart, because maybe this would be what she needed to get over him. Rocky was my friend, and he was hella funny, but he could be one hell of an asshole. How could he have had this woman waiting at home for him night after night and still have been looking elsewhere? What could he possibly have been searching for? What did he think he was going to find elsewhere that might be better than her?
He was an idiot.
A goddamned idiot.
“What do you mean?” she asked, and the small quake in her voice killed me.
She knew, deep down. How could she not? And yet she needed confirmation. She needed me to tell her, because without that it was all in her head. I shook my head, hating that she got to have an image of him inside her forever where he was perfect and I was not. Because there was still more to tell her. Still ways in which I could make her hate me forever, and yet Rocky got to live on guilt free.
I had never hated a dead man as much as I hated him. But in that moment, I hated him. How did he get to have everything he wanted?
God, I would have killed to have a drink now. I felt parched, like my body was drying up from the inside out. My hands had begun to shake, my kidneys hurting.
Standing up, I began to pace again; it was the only way to calm my nerves. The only way to control the urge and the desire to drink. Because this was what I did. This was what I had been doing for twenty years. It was only in the past three months that I had let it fully absorb me, because what the hell did I have to live for?
I looked at her. At her beautiful face. A face I had fallen in love with so long ago and had loved every day since. There were lines around her eyes that weren’t there before and the beginnings of creases where her smiles used to be, but she was every bit as beautiful as she had been at eighteen.
Dahlia frowned in confusion, and guilt burrowed deeper into my guts as she waited to see what else I had to say.
“It’s my fault,” I began, finding this even harder than telling her about why I had left. An age separated the young and the old versions of us, but this was only separated by days. I couldn’t look at her. I didn’t want to see the pain on her face when she realized.
“What’s your fault?” she asked, standing up. “Matt, you can blame yourself all you want, but it won’t ever be your fault. I can’t say I forgive you for all the pain you caused me, but I can understand why you did it. I think I can even move past it.”
I shook my head and let out a dry laugh. “You say that now.”
“I do, because it’s true.”
I looked up, catching her gaze in mine. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”
She let out a heavy breath. “Matt—”
“It’s my fault he’s dead,” I said.
Dahlia shook her head. “It’s not, it’s—”
“I’m not talking about my brother, babe. I’m talking about Rocky.”
I had said it. I had put it out into the universe and would let judgments fall where they had to. Because I couldn’t go through another lifetime of burden. Carrying the guilt of things was slowly eating away at me and I couldn’t do it anymore.
She opened and closed her mouth, momentarily speechless. Her frown deepened and she looked away from me like she was trying to solve some great math problem. When she looked back, she looked angry.
“What did you do?” she asked, her tone cold. So cold that I practically flinched from it.
I stalked to the window and looked outside. Night had settled over the small clearing, and I could barely make out my tent any longer.
“Matt,” she said, “what did you do to him?”
“I’ve been drinking heavily for years—ever since Sebastion, but after my brother…after what happened a few months ago, it just sort of got away from me. The Kings have been good to me. They’ve given me the space I needed to pull my shit together, but I didn’t pull my shit together. I went deeper into the bottle.”
I turned from the window and looked back at her, happy to see her standing there with anger on her face instead of pity. I smiled and nodded.
“That’s better. That’s more like what I deserve,” I said.
“Tell me!” she snapped.
“I should have been on the run with him, Dahl, the night he…the night they killed him. It was a two-man job, but he covered for me. He had been covering for me more and more. My brothers didn’t know what was going on, though they sure as shit do now. I should have been with Rocky, but instead I was face down in a bar, passed out after drinking for eight hours straight. I could have saved him.”
We stared at each other for long moments, and I thought maybe I had escaped her wrath, but then she surged forward, arms going wild as she beat at me and yelled, her words becoming a jumble of insults and anger.
I took every slap and kick, every punch she gave me, because I deserved it.
When she tired, she staggered back, shaking her arms out. “How could you?” she gasped. “How could you be so stupid, Matt? He needed you.”
“I know,” I replied, my shoulders sagging to take on the heavy burden.
“He needed you and what? You were out having a good time? How could you do that to him?”
I shrugged. “Because I’m a selfish asshole.”
She pointed at me, her teeth gritted. “Yes you are. You’re selfish and…and…” The steam seemed to go out of her as quickly as it arrived, and she stumbled away sobbing. “He’s dead because of you, Matt.”
“I know that.”
“He’s dead…he’s gone,” she sobbed. “He’s really gone. And you should have been there. You should have been there to protect him, Matt.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said, the words coming out choked.
“Sorry won’t bring my husband back!” she screamed at me, fury filling every inch of her small body.
There was a moment right then, as she reminded me that he was her husband, that I was glad he was dead. For just a brief moment, I didn’t care. If only she knew what a motherfucker of a husband he had been, then she wouldn’t be as angry at me. Maybe she would even find it in her to forgive me. Maybe she would look at me like she had an hour ago, because I would have given anything to have her look at me like that again.
It almost made the pain worth going through just to see it.
But I couldn’t tell her.
I couldn’t do it to her.
It would break her heart all over again, and then I would be the man that had broken her heart twice.
No matter what it cost me, I had to let her keep her memories of him. Even if they were bullshit, rose-tinted memories.
“I’m so fucking sorry, Dahlia,” I said.
“I hate you,” she sobbed, and another part of my heart cracked and fell away.