Chapter 49
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
Beckett
As soon as I board the flight to New York, I cover my ears with noise-canceling headphones. No music. Just silence. My version of a Do Not Disturb sign.
In the past couple of weeks, I came to a few disturbing realizations:
1. I’m more like my father than I’d ever care to admit.
Like him, I’m selfish. And like him, I’m a real asshole who can hold a grudge for decades.
As a young boy, I often felt neglected, so I became closer with my father, and like Daisy, I basked in his attention.
When he betrayed my mother, I was angry on her behalf, but even angrier that he sent me away when I’d done nothing wrong. So I turned my back on my father and refused to speak to him again.
Do I forgive him? Hell, no. But I don’t hate him as much as I used to.
2. Love is not what ultimately destroyed my mother.
She was sick and, like my father, I too had become frustrated when I couldn’t “fix” her.
My grandmother used to tell me that my mother’s love for me would be enough to “save” her. When that proved incorrect, I got it into my head that loving someone was a one-way street to heartbreak.
Why set yourself up for pain when you can just as easily avoid it by not falling in love?
3. Astrid is a heartless gold digger—that’s not news to me, I’ve always known that—but if I had to do it all over again and choose between getting my revenge and keeping Daisy, I would choose Daisy.
4. Revenge was never my endgame. Daisy was.