Chapter 2 #2
But now, as I looked in the mirror at the twins, my girls, arms hugging their little plush unicorns, I felt a tidal wave of emotions. Protectiveness. Responsibility. And love.
These two little humans who I didn’t even know existed until I got an email a week ago were now the only people that mattered. No promises I’d made to Genesis. No retirement plans. Just them.
I couldn’t move them to London. We were moving to San Francisco. Into the home where I grew up.
The highway snaked tighter as we descended into fog.
The headlights carved out a tunnel of white, and all I could think of was how fucking unprepared I was for this.
Every single fatherly instinct I had was cobbled together from military training, witnessing my friends, sitcom reruns, and what I remembered from my own childhood before my mother left and my father became a man who only cared about finding the next Mrs. Knight.
This was going to be on-the-job learning.
I didn’t understand how to do the little braids in their hair or what flavor of juice they liked.
Joey spoke a mile a minute and could fit about a hundred questions in sixty seconds, whereas Andi could go entire hours without saying a word.
And yet, they’d both looked at me with an expectation that I would just figure it out.
That I was the adult. I was their Luke Skywalker, their only hope.
God help them.
The opening chords of “To Make You Feel My Love” started, and it cut through the chaos of thoughts in my head.
Some version of it had been playing on loop in my life for the past twenty years, like a sick joke from the universe or a poorly programmed jukebox determined to ruin me. It haunted me. Just like the girl had.
Billie Bliss. That name alone was enough to start the spiral.
She’d been my shadow since we were kids, an echo to every decision I made, good or bad.
She was the only person who knew what my laugh sounded like when I was actually happy or just covering up being sad, the only one who could tell when my silences meant “fuck you” or “I really want to talk.” There was a time—most of the time, actually—when I believed I would die without her.
But not in the sappy, soul-mate sense. More like she was my air supply, and I couldn’t breathe unless she was somewhere close.
I don’t care how weak that sounds. It wasn’t romantic.
It was my reality. She was the best thing in my life, and I destroyed it.
One minute we were sitting drinking. I felt lower than I’d ever felt.
Then that fucking song came on. She looked at me, and it was like my brain short-circuited.
I stood up and asked her to dance because I wanted her in my arms. I was a selfish asshole.
I wanted to smell her hair. Feel her against me. And I did.
Then she looked up at me with her big green eyes and kissed me.
I should have stopped it. She’d been drinking.
But I didn’t. I kissed her back. I didn’t think about consequences or our friendship or how she always trusted me to be the one guy who never tried anything with her like every other guy had.
I just kissed her back like it was the only thing that made sense.
We would have gone further—maybe all the way—if that crash hadn’t happened. It gave me just enough time to realize what I was doing.
I’d known she was a virgin. Not because she told me, but because I knew everything about her, the way you know the side of your bed or the cracks in your ceiling.
I knew what books she liked, the way she took her coffee, the pink bra she wore on Wednesdays because, secretly, Mean Girls was her favorite movie and she said, “on Wednesdays, we wear pink.” I knew the sound she made when she stubbed her toe and the one she made when she was about to cry but didn’t want anyone to know.
I knew her. I knew what that kiss meant. Which was why I ran away.
I could have handled it like an adult. I could have said, “Hey, let’s talk about this.” I could have been honest. Instead, I was a coward. I fucking left without saying a word to her.
The day before the wedding, right after finding out I no longer had access to my trust, I enlisted in the Navy because I had no way to pay for college.
It was why I was so fucked up that day because I didn’t know how to tell her I was leaving or what I’d done, I felt guilty.
It was probably why I kissed her, because I knew I wasn’t going to be seeing her again for a long time.
I didn’t see her before I left for boot camp because I was scared that if I did, I wouldn’t be able to go. I wouldn’t be able to make myself get on that bus for basic training, and I knew I had to. Legally and just for myself. That was how weak I was when it came to her.
When I was in basic, I missed her so much I actually felt like I couldn’t breathe some nights. I’d have panic attacks. She texted and called, but I didn’t respond. I thought it would be easier for both of us, it would hurt less in the long run if we just cut all contact.
Sometimes I tried to convince myself I did her a favor.
That I was sparing her from whatever disease ran through the Knight bloodline.
That she’d be happier if I was just a memory.
But the truth was, I was just a chickenshit who didn’t want to face up to what I’d done.
And I was scared it would be too painful to hear her voice.
But now I was going home and I had a feeling I was going to have to face up to my past and just how badly I’d fucked up.
I glanced at the console as the final notes of the song played. It all started with that fucking song. That fucking dress. Those fucking eyes. Those fucking lips. That fucking girl.
Sometimes, I wondered how I’d fucked up that bad, but if I were really being honest with myself, mostly I wondered how I lasted that long without kissing her in the first place.