Chapter 34
TYRELL
Her soft statement slams into me like a sledgehammer.
What the fuck did she just say?
I gape at her for a second, trying to process it.
She’s blaming herself for his death?
Nah, that ain’t right.
I was the one who should have been there to protect him. I’m Black Jack.
She shouldn’t be carrying this shit.
Unless she…
No way.
I shake my head, answering the question for her before I even ask it. “You gave him the drugs?”
“No, of course not!” She looks horrified that I’d even think it.
“Then why are you blaming yourself? You didn’t do anything wrong.”
Her chin bunches, tears lining her lashes as her face buckles with pain.
“I did, Ty. I…” She sniffs, and my stomach clenches into a ball so tight, it hurts.
“We got into a big fight, and I stormed off. I left him there. And he was drunk and not thinking straight. If I’d been by his side, I never would have let him take those pills. ”
They got in a fight?
I didn’t know about that part.
I sigh, hating that she’s holding herself responsible. Atlas could be an asshole when he’d had too much to drink.
I should have been there.
This wouldn’t have happened if I’d just fucking been there!
Dipping my chin, I softly murmur, “That’s not on you. I was the one who should have showed up. I told him I’d be there. And I wasn’t. I let him down.” My voice starts to shake, then break. “Dani, I let you down too. I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.”
“No, hey… don’t say that. I was his girlfriend. I shouldn’t have stormed off like that. I was the one who let him down.” Her voice cracks, and I look up in time to watch her slash a tear off her cheek—an angry, bitter swipe.
Shit, she hates herself for what she did, and I can’t… tolerate that. Because it’s not right. I’ll carry this burden. This guilt. But I don’t want her to bear an ounce of it, because…
She didn’t force those drugs down his throat.
Just like you didn’t.
Grady’s words swirl through my brain, and I suddenly get why he was trying to push so hard to make me see it.
Watching Dani wrestle with this remorse is killing me.
“Dani,” I whisper, shifting on the bed so I can reach her, touch her, rest my hand on her leg and beg her to understand.
“Don’t.” She shakes her head and holds up her hand. “I don’t deserve it. You weren’t there, Ty. You didn’t see. You didn’t hear what I said to him.” She whimpers, resting her forehead on her knees. “It was the last thing I said to him.”
I swallow, hating this, but wondering if she needs to confess before we’ll have any chance of moving on. Licking my lips, I reluctantly ask, “What did you say?”
She sniffs, her body shuddering, her voice muffled because she won’t look up.
“I told him to go to hell.” She shudders again, and this heartbreaking sob punches out of her.
“He was drunk and acting like an idiot. I was begging him to stop, but he was in one of his wild moods. You know how he could get sometimes.”
Yeah, I did. That’s why I was so good at playing bodyguard.
When his father just left like that… something inside him broke.
It sparked this wild recklessness within him.
He’d always been somebody who liked to push things, dance along that line and sometimes fling himself right over it.
But after his dad left, that line became a transparent blur, and I had to step into its place. I had to be his line.
Until I moved to Nolan.
Until I got caught up with football.
Until I let him down by not showing up when I said I would.
Cupping the back of my head, I dig my fingers into my scalp and mumble, “I should have been there. You should be blaming me.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong.” She looks up, her glassy eyes so haunted.
I stare her right in the eye and tell her with certainty, “Neither did you.”
“But…” She shakes her head, biting her bottom lip as her chest heaves.
With a soft sigh, I try to get a clearer picture of what went down that night. “He must have done something to make you say that to him and then feel like you had to leave.”
Her expression crumples, her head shake turning into a nod.
“He was really rude to me, in front of everybody. He told me I was a killjoy, then accused me of being a fucking princess, demanding too much of him, weighing him down.” She sniffs.
“Shit, Ty, I thought he was about to break up with me, in front of his band and all those stupid people who claimed to be his friend but didn’t give a flying fuck about him.
” Her words are sharp with bitterness. I stay quiet, letting her get them all out.
“So, I went on the defensive. I told him to stop acting like such a dick. Told him the drinking was making him crazy and I didn’t want to be around him. ”
I tense, waiting for the next part, not wanting to hear it but also desperate to know.
I’m so riled at Atlas for talking to her that way. She was his fucking sun! And he treated her like that?
My voice is a low rumble when I have to coax Dani to keep going. “How’d he respond?”
“He told me to fuck off.” Her eyebrows bunch as fresh tears stream down her face.
“I knew he didn’t mean it. Not really. He was drunk.
Not thinking straight. But I was so hurt and humiliated that I told him to go to hell, and then I stormed out of there.
” She punches out a dry, broken laugh. “I made it two whole blocks before I calmed down enough to start thinking logically, and then I ran back to make sure he was okay.” She sniffs, her voice turning into a soft squeak.
“I couldn’t find him. None of his friends would tell me anything.
Just vague not sures and maybe that ways.
I didn’t know what to think. I bounced from wondering if he’d chased after me and we’d missed each other to him screwing a groupie in the back room.
” She shudders. “I was a mess. And when I finally found him in that bathroom…” Fresh tears spill from her eyes.
“He wasn’t okay, Ty. I should have stayed.
I should have dragged him out of there. If I’d stayed, he—”
“He might have said more mean shit to you. He might have escalated to… who knows what,” I growl, so pissed off that he could treat her that way.
She was his champion. Stood by him through everything.
For him to treat her like that is making me see red.
If I’d been there, I would have hauled his ass outside and forced him home… into a fucking cold shower. That idiot!
My shoulders slump, my hold on Dani’s knee tightening as I listen to her cry.
Shit. So much blame. We’re both carrying so much blame.
But…
“We didn’t make him take those drugs, Dani.”
She sucks in a shuddering breath, then goes completely still.
She heard me, but she hasn’t acknowledged it yet, so I try again.
“We didn’t make him take those drugs.”
Looking up at me, I’m forced to soak in her wrecked expression, those haunted eyes filled with tears, the trembling of her lips.
“It’s okay to be pissed off with him about that. It’s okay to be angry at him for treating you that way.”
“I don’t want to hate him.”
“You never could. But…” I swallow. “You can still love someone and be mad at them. You have a right to be pissed over the way he treated you.”
She shakes her head. “I can’t turn him into the bad guy.”
“Yet you’re letting yourself be the villain?”
Her lips part.
“Dani, you were just protecting yourself that night. And you’re allowed to do that. He was being a dick, and if I’d been there, there’s no way I would have let him treat you like that.”
Guilt slams into me again.
I should have been there. I should have been there!
I don’t know what my face is doing, but when I blink, I notice a softening in her expression. She curls her fingers around mine, squeezing tight and whispering, “If I had a right to protect myself, then you had a right to celebrate your win.”
Her soft words curl around me. I drink them in like they mean everything. Because they do. She could have hated on me so hard for not being there, but she doesn’t seem to blame me at all. She blames herself, and… I can’t stand it.
“Dani…” I shuffle forward, cupping her cheek, scrambling for the right words to say. “I personally don’t think there’s anything to forgive, because you didn’t do anything wrong. But just in case you need to hear it… I forgive you.”
She bites her lips together, looking away from me as she obviously fights a fresh wave of tears.
After a soft, wispy breath, she rasps, “I forgive you too. Even though I’ve never once blamed you for getting there late.
I didn’t. He wasn’t paying you to be his bodyguard.
You weren’t dutybound to stay by his side. He knew that.”
“Just like he knew you were only trying to keep him safe. Just like he knew how much you loved him.”
“I love him.” She nods. “I’ll always love him, and I want to keep him perfect in my memory.”
My chest hurts as I rasp, “But he wasn’t perfect.”
“He has to be.”
“No, Dani. He doesn’t. He was a fuckup sometimes. You know this. That’s why we had to work so hard to keep an eye on him. And now we’re carrying all this guilt and shame when he’s the one who fucked up.”
“Don’t!” She whips a horrified look at me. “Don’t say that about him.”
“Dani.” My voice is a low rumble. “He fucked up. And we all paid a price for that.”
“But he wouldn’t overdose!” She pushes my hand off her knee and scrambles off the bed. “He wasn’t that reckless!”
“He could be sometimes.”
Snatching a sweater off the floor, she throws it over her naked body. “If I hadn’t stormed off all angry with him, I would have been there to stop him.”
“And I could have been there to stop him too, but he could have stopped himself. We don’t have to carry the entire blame for this. We didn’t force those pills down his throat. He took them by choice.”
I hate the thought that Atlas did that, and it’s always bothered me.
It’s eaten at me that no one else around him thought to check him.
Someone must have offered him those pills, and we’ve never found out who…
so I threw all the blame on myself. I took it all.
I have no idea why, but I’ve been carrying this ever since I heard Dani screaming for him to wake up.
Dani lets out another whimpering sob, slapping a hand over her mouth like she’s trying to hold it all in. But then she bends forward, her body buckling.
I leap off the bed, racing around to catch her before she hits the floor.
Gathering her into my arms, I hold her against me while she shrieks, “Why, Atlas! Why did you to this to me!”
Her screams are harrowing, reminding me of the night she found him dead.
It makes me wonder if she’s ever let herself say it before. If she’s ever let herself be angry with him for leaving her way too soon.
Thumping onto the floor, I rest my back against the wall and cradle her in my lap, letting her cry and yell at Atlas until she’s spent. Until all that’s left are puffy breaths and a heaving chest.