11. Maddox Creed #2
That was it, because there wasn’t anything else to say.
Still, I knew Luciana well enough to know she’d probably read too much into it. She’d wonder if I was irritated. Wonder if I didn’t want to ride with her. Wonder if I was only agreeing because it made sense logistically. The truth was, I didn’t even know why I said yes.
Maybe because riding separately felt like giving up.
Maybe because sitting in the same truck forced us to at least acknowledge we were still married.
Maybe because I wasn’t ready to start acting like strangers, even if some days it already felt like we were halfway there.
I locked my phone and sat here for another minute before heading back home.
When I walked through the door, the house was quiet again. Luciana was in the living room folding clothes, but the second she saw me, her hands paused around one of Michael’s shirts. She tried to recover quickly, but I noticed.
“Everything okay?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
The answer came out short, but not cold.
At least I didn’t think it did.
Her eyes moved over my face like she was trying to figure out if she believed me.
A week ago, maybe that would’ve irritated me.
Today, I couldn’t even blame her. Neither one of us trusted peace anymore.
We were both waiting on the next hit, the next argument, the next truth to come sliding out from under the bed like something we should’ve found years ago.
I sat down on the other end of the couch and leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees. For a minute, neither one of us spoke. The folded clothes sat between us like some kind of weak ass barrier, and I found myself staring at them just to avoid looking at her.
Finally, she asked, “Are you nervous?”
I almost lied.
Almost told her no because that was the easier answer. The Maddox answer. The man answer. The answer that made it sound like I had control over shit I didn’t have control over at all.
Instead, I rubbed my hands together and kept my eyes on the floor.
“Yeah…”
The room got quiet.
Luciana’s voice softened when she asked, “About therapy?”
I nodded slowly. “About what might come out in there today.”
I didn’t look at her when I said it, but I felt the shift between us. I felt the way her body went still and the silence that settled over the truck before either one of us acknowledged what was sitting there.
After a few seconds, she finally whispered, “Me too.”
That should’ve made me feel better, but it didn’t.
If we were both scared of what might come out in therapy, that meant there was still more truth waiting to be uncovered. We were walking into that office carrying secrets, and something told me we weren’t walking back out with all of them.
The rest of the afternoon dragged by. Neither one of us had much to say after that conversation, not because we were angry, but because we were both trapped inside our own heads.
Luciana stayed busy around the house while I tried convincing myself I could focus on something productive. I answered a few emails, returned a couple of calls, and even looked over paperwork that had been sitting on my desk for days.
By the time one-thirty rolled around, I was more than ready to get the appointment over with.
A few minutes later, Luciana appeared in the doorway. She’d changed into a pair of jeans and a sweater, nothing fancy, but I could tell she’d taken a little extra time getting ready.
It wasn’t about impressing me.
People reached for the things they could control when everything else felt like it was falling apart, and today there wasn’t much either one of us had any control over.
“You ready?” she asked.
I grabbed my keys and pushed away from the desk.
“As I’m gonna be.”
The drive over was every bit as uncomfortable as I expected. The radio stayed off while traffic moved around us, and the silence inside the truck somehow felt louder than everything happening outside.
A couple of times, it looked like Luciana wanted to say something. I’d catch her glance in my direction, then she’d think better of it and look back out the window.
Honestly, I appreciated it.
Small talk would’ve gotten on my nerves, and pretending everything was normal would’ve been even worse.
By the time we pulled into the parking lot, my mood had somehow managed to get worse.
Neither one of us rushed to get out.
The truck sat there idling while we stared through the windshield. After a long moment, Luciana let out a slow breath and finally broke the silence.
“I almost canceled…”
I turned and looked at her.
“Why didn’t you?”
She kept her eyes on the building in front of us.
“Because I knew I’d regret it.”
Her answer lingered between us for a few seconds before I gave a slow nod.
A few minutes later, we walked through the front doors together.
After checking in, we took our seats across from each other in the waiting room. A couple sat on the opposite side, and judging by the expressions on their faces, they weren’t any happier to be there than we were.
I understood exactly how they felt.
The silence stretched across the waiting room while people flipped through old magazines and a clock ticked somewhere in the background. The whole place smelled like coffee and expensive candles, and for some reason, that combination irritated the hell out of me.
Eventually, the therapist appeared in the doorway with the same calm expression she’d worn the first time we met. Looking at her, you’d think she’d never lost her temper a day in her life.
“Good afternoon.”
I gave her a small nod while Luciana offered a polite smile. A second later, we followed her down the hallway and back into the same office we’d sat in before.
The therapist waited until we were both seated before settling into her chair. She glanced between us for a moment, then folded her hands together.
“I appreciate both of you coming back.” Neither one of us responded, but she didn’t seem bothered by the silence. “I know therapy isn’t easy.”
That almost made me laugh.
No shit…
Instead, I kept my mouth shut while she glanced down at her notes.
“When we ended our last session, we talked about grief.”
My jaw tightened before I could stop it.
Of course that’s where we were starting.
Apparently, there wasn’t going to be any easing into this shit.
The therapist noticed the shift immediately. Hell, she seemed to notice everything, which I guessed was part of being good at her job.
“Maddox, has anything changed since our last meeting?”
Instead of thinking about therapy, my mind went straight to Nylah. I thought about our FaceTime call, the way she’d asked if I was coming back, and the look of relief that spread across her face when I told her I was.
A muscle jumped in my jaw.
“Yeah…”
The therapist nodded.
“Tell me.”
I leaned back against the couch, debating whether I wanted to give her some safe, watered-down answer that didn’t require me to dig around inside my own head. For a second, it was tempting.
Then I remembered why I’d agreed to come back.
“I talked to my daughter.”
The words still felt strange coming out of my mouth.
My daughter...
The therapist caught the change in my expression immediately.
“How did that feel?”
A quiet laugh escaped me as I rubbed my hand across my jaw.
“Good,” I admitted before letting out a slow breath. “Bad too.”
“Why bad?”
My eyes drifted to the floor, and the image of Nylah’s face came rushing back. The hesitation in her voice. The uncertainty in her eyes. The question. You coming back?
The knot in my stomach returned all over again.
“Because I realized she wasn’t sure if she’d ever see me again.”
The room fell quiet, but it wasn’t an uncomfortable silence. The therapist nodded slowly, like she understood exactly what I meant.
Maybe she did.
Maybe anybody would’ve.
Sometimes the hardest part about losing time isn’t the years themselves. It’s realizing the people who lost those years with you are still carrying the hurt too.
I rubbed a hand across my jaw and looked away. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Luciana had gone completely still.
I noticed but pretended I didn’t.
Right now, I had enough shit of my own to sort through without trying to figure out what was going on inside her head.
The therapist leaned forward slightly.
“What did you tell her?”
My eyes lifted to meet hers.
“I told her I was coming back.”
The words left my mouth without hesitation, and hearing myself say them made me realize just how much I meant them.
The therapist let that sit for a moment before asking, “What did making that promise feel like?”
I leaned back against the couch and thought about it.
Honestly, I hadn’t looked at it that way before. At the time, all I’d cared about was making Nylah feel safe and letting her know I wasn’t disappearing again.
Now… I realized it had meant something to me too.
“It felt necessary.”
The therapist didn’t say a word. She just waited. Apparently, she wanted more.
I should’ve known.
Nothing about therapy was ever as simple as answering the question.
“She shouldn’t have had to ask me that shit in the first place.”
The words came out rougher than I intended. I looked down at my hands before letting out a slow breath.
“A little girl shouldn’t have to wonder if her father coming back.”
The room grew quiet.
Across from me, Luciana lowered her eyes to her lap, but the therapist never took her attention off me.
“Do you blame yourself for that?”
I let out a laugh.
“Partly.” The answer came easier than it would’ve a month ago.
“I wasn’t the one who kept her from me. I know that.
But I still disappeared after finding out the truth.
I still stopped calling. I still got caught up in my own bullshit.
” I rubbed my hands together before shaking my head.
“For weeks, I was so busy thinking about everything that had been taken from me, I never stopped to think about what my silence looked like from her side.”
The honesty sat heavy in my chest.
Pain didn’t excuse disappearing.
Grief didn’t either.
The therapist gave a slow nod.