Chapter 21
Parker
Weak.
Weak.
Weak.
You should be over this by now.
It shouldn’t be this hard. You shouldn’t be this sad.
By the time Anya found me in the barn, I’d already been through every single fucking thing someone might say to me. The worst things I could say to myself.
She stood quietly in the open doorway, one of the cats winding around her feet with a friendly meow. They’d ignored me, probably because I stomped in like a fucking thunderstorm.
The skin over my knuckles was white from how tightly I gripped the ledge in front of me, and that was nothing compared to what was happening under the surface.
My voice was hoarse when I spoke. “I don’t know how they can all just sit there and say things like, ‘I wish he could’ve met you.’ How does that not kill her? How can she physically make herself say those words?”
A great big snarling block of emotion lodged in my throat, and I couldn’t swallow it down, no matter what I did. Pinching my eyes closed didn’t help because there was no darkness there, no break from the constant battering of images that pummeled me with relentless fury.
My dad at the sideline of my games, the first face I always looked for when I scored.
My dad teaching me how to tie a tie in front of my bedroom mirror when I had my first homecoming date, and I wanted to impress her.
The way he laughed when one of us said something funny.
How he tried to sneak an extra piece of bacon when Sheila wasn’t looking.
“I think it’s supposed to hurt,” Anya said quietly. “Isn’t it?”
I let out a dry laugh. “That’s what they say.”
She let out a slow breath, and I desperately tried to pull myself together. Shame coated my fingers, my hands, my tongue. It was everywhere, sticky like an oil slick and impossible to rinse away.
My mind raced, pictures flipping so fast that I could hardly keep track.
Christmas mornings while he fought me for the last cinnamon roll, long before he’d lost all his strength.
My seventh birthday, when he gave me a new football and said he thought I’d be good.
Fuzzier memories, earlier than I could remember clearly. Him setting me on his shoulders so I could see Erik clearly at his football games.
Showing me how to properly hammer a nail when he’d take us to a jobsite.
Always teaching. Always helping us understand. Never, ever making us feel like he was too busy.
My heart was beating too hard. Too fast. The pictures changed, and I couldn’t stop them.
Leo in his car seat in front of my house.
The way he frowned when Anya stole his pacifier.
The tiny feet and toes that I’d only seen right before she slid them back inside his pajamas—the ones covered with little turtles.
It took every shred of my discipline to force them from my mind, to not allow them to drown me because I already felt like I was.
I turned my head, my eyes finally meeting hers. The pity was gone. So was the sympathy. Anya stared back, completely fearless. She wasn’t scared of my grief, and that unlocked something in my chest, giving it just enough air that the words escaped.
“Do you know how easy my life used to be?”
“Tell me.”
“Anything I wanted, I was able to achieve just by working hard enough. Get to the college I wanted, done. Full-ride football scholarship, done. Get drafted even though I was such a fucking longshot, done.” I pushed off the ledge and straightened, taking a few steps closer to where she stood, her blue eyes blazing with … something. I held my hand out, tightening it into a fist the next moment. “I wanted something? I knew exactly how to get it. I had my entire life under control, following some invisible checklist. And the one thing I didn’t expect, the one thing I couldn’t fix, couldn’t work for, was that man being here for all the big things. For the weddings and the babies. Watching him in that fucking chair for years and years, covered with grandchildren, because that is what he wanted.”
Her eyes reddened, but she didn’t cry.
“He chose not to fight for that,” I choked out, emotions welling up dangerously until it felt like my skin was on fire. “And I couldn’t do it for him. None of us could. And I was so fucking mad at him for giving up. I was so mad at him that I couldn’t even handle seeing him. How fucking selfish is that?”
A tear slid down her cheek, and she didn’t attempt to stop it. It disappeared down her cheek and dripped off her jaw. Even in her tears, she was so beautiful. I closed the space between us and slid both hands along the line of her jaw. “Don’t cry for me, golden girl,” I begged. “I don’t deserve it.”
Another tear spilled over the edge of her lashes, and it melted into the skin of my hand. “What would make you feel better?”
“Yell at me. Curse me out. Tell me to grow up. Something.”
She shook her head, and I kept my grip on her face, my fingers meeting behind her neck. “I won’t,” she said. “Because it won’t help.”
I rolled my forehead against hers and sighed. “You could slap me. Punch me. Do one of those sexy kicks that scared the shit out of me.”
Anya let out a watery laugh, her hands coming up to hold my wrists. “I’m not going to do that either.”
“Why not?”
“You’re scared,” she told me, her eyes holding mine steady. Anya was the only thing keeping me anchored, and that was even more terrifying than anything else. Asking someone to carry all the shit you kept locked inside was a tremendous responsibility, and it wasn’t one she had asked for. “You don’t want to lose anything else. It’s impossible to imagine burying both parents, Parker. No one is mad at you for struggling with that.”
I pinched my eyes shut and inhaled the scent of her skin. There was no speaking around the block in my throat. It was bigger than me. Bigger than her. Bigger than anything I could think of.
“But even if he’s not yours, it still might hurt to say goodbye to him,” she said quietly like she hadn’t just ripped my heart clean from my chest by putting words to something that I refused to poke at. “Keeping yourself away from him won’t change that. It’ll hurt for me when I have to say goodbye to him someday too.”
I tore my hands off of her and strode away, my chest heaving as I tried to catch my breath.
Temporary. This was temporary.
It wasn’t real, no matter how good it felt.
Another thing I’d lose.
Suddenly, I was exhausted down to my bones. A heaviness pulled on my joints, and all I wanted was to tip my head back and scream, but I wasn’t sure I had the energy to get everything out.
“So then what? I just keep pushing through and hope it goes away?”
“Yes.” I turned and gave her an incredulous look, but she wasn’t done. “What do you think your dad had to do after your mom died?”
Boom .
My knees almost fucking gave out, and my eyes stayed locked on hers while denial clawed its way up my throat.
“He lost his wife. His best friend, right?” Anya took another step, and I wanted to back away because I was too raw to have her hands on me. “He had three boys who needed him, who needed love and hugs and support, and he did that, just like my dad did because it’s what we needed from them. It was probably the hardest fucking thing he’s ever done in his life. Both of them. But they did it because if we don’t keep showing up in our own lives, then that life happens without us in it.” She swiped at her face, crying openly now. “Loss doesn’t ever go away, Parker. We build our lives around it, and eventually, it feels just a little bit smaller. You’re trying to get rid of it, and you can’t .”
My vision blurred, but I blinked until the hot press of tears disappeared. There was nothing I could say. There was nothing but an aching humility and a stunning truth that hadn’t occurred to me before. I was too wrapped up in my own pain, knots of grief that felt impossible to undo on my own.
But maybe that was my problem; trying to do it alone.
Anya carefully studied my face and took another step closer. Her hand was warm when it slid down my forearm, her fingers weaving between mine. My other hand slid over her cheek, tangling into the silk of her hair. My thumb brushed over her bottom lip, and she closed her eyes.
“You’re right,” I admitted in a rough voice. I let out a shuddering breath, my thumb still brushing back and forth along that impossibly soft mouth. It stopped, hovering for a moment.
Tap .
Her eyes opened, searching mine.
Tap, tap.
Her brow furrowed slightly, watching me to see what I’d do next.
“I just need a little time with that,” I told her. “Is that okay?”
After a brief pause, she nodded.
“Your family?” she asked.
“Tomorrow. I’ll talk to them tomorrow.”
Anya gave me a tiny smile, and when she pulled away, there was a ghostly tug on my ribs, like my entire body wanted to follow her. As she walked away, it was still there, and when she was out of view, it still felt like she had her grip on that invisible rope.
Instead of sinking down onto the ground with my back braced against a post, I tucked my hands into my pockets and walked out of the back door to the barn, squinting up into the sunlight. The light was golden coming through the trees, dust motes dancing in the air, and I breathed in the smell of the forest.
“Nothing clears your mind better than the woods, Parker. Nothing in the world.”
If I closed my eyes, I could hear him.
My dad loved going for walks. Loved telling me about the trees. The flowers and the animals. Countless memories about countless conversations over the years, all the things he’d taught me.
I thought about that grief Anya mentioned. It wasn’t a hole. That sounded small and easy to ignore.
Mine felt like a cannonball tore through my chest. And with the unhealed edges still hurting on every breath, I raised my chin and went for a walk.