Chapter 36 - Gabe #2
I lay my head down on the bar, sucking in breath after ragged breath. Nothing has ever come close to making me feel this much fucking rage. Not the night I found Max with Ash or the night I took her home from the bar. This is a different level entirely.
A hand falls on my shoulder, and I lift my head ready to fight. When my gaze lands on JT, I say, “Get the fuck away from me.”
I yank my arm away. Fuck him too. He should have let me beat Shane to a pulp.
“No,” he says firmly, leaning closer and sitting in the stool next to mine. “You’re my best friend. I know this sucks. But you can let me help you and be there for you, or you can deal with it alone. Either way the situation is the same. You don’t have to push everyone away.”
I grind my teeth, letting his words sink in. Staring down at the bar, I try to get a handle on my emotions, but it doesn’t work.
“I don’t need help.”
He scoffs. “Yeah, you do. You’ve been drowning since the day she left, then your dad died, and now you find out you have a kid. That’d be a tough road for anyone. But you don’t have to do any of this alone, so stop being a dick and talk to me.”
I push my index finger and thumb into my eyes and exhale. The cracks in my walls are slowly widening and everything’s spilling over. Pressure builds in the middle of my chest.
My hands shake.
I can’t be here.
I can’t do this.
I fucking hate this place.
Standing, the stool knocks over, hitting the ground with a clatter.
I storm across the room and pick up a chair before tossing it at the glass door to the shop.
Fuck this place. I never even wanted it to begin with.
I rip a pool stick from the stand and head back to the bar.
My heaving breaths turn to screams as I smash it into the wall of liquor bottles.
Amber liquid splashes as glass explodes with each swing.
She should have been mine. But this goddamn club took her from me.
It’s taken everything from me.
I wouldn’t have had to send her away if it weren’t for it.
I could have—
Standing in front of the mess I made, the pool stick falls from my hand.
Ash couldn’t stay here.
I couldn’t let her.
But I stayed.
Damn near choking on my words, I mutter, “I chose this club over her.”
When he doesn’t say anything, I look back at him with tears pricking my eyes.
“I chose this fucking club over her,” I shout, slamming my hand down on the wet bar with a smack. My nostrils flare.
“I know.”
Shaking my head, I bite my top lip before saying, “And it cost me my kid.”
As a tear rolls down my cheek, the last of my control slips. Grabbing the bottle of whiskey in front of me, I chuck it at the wall of broken liquor bottles.
“I loved her!” I shout, pounding a hand on my chest. “I would have chosen her if I’d known! I wanted to choose her! I wanted her!”
I could have kept her safe without making a mess of everything in the process. I broke her heart. I ended us. I turned my back on her.
And she fucking survived.
My voice comes out smaller when I say, “I still love her.”
“I know.” JT’s somber this time.
It all hurts twice as much because she’s not just some girl I used to have feelings for. She’s the girl I’ve loved my entire adult life. The girl I’ve thought about every night before I fall asleep. And I left her out in the cold. I abandoned her when she needed me.
“She did it alone,” I say, sucking in a sharp breath. “She was alone because I wasn’t there!” My voice cracks, and I brace myself on the bar, letting my head fall forward. “I wasn’t fucking there for—”
I can’t even get the rest of my words out before I feel like I’m being squeezed to death. I’m burning from the inside out, and I want to climb out of my own skin. He nods.
Shrugging away tears with my shoulder, I regain a hair of my composure and clear my throat, resting one hand on my hip and wiping my upper lip with the other. “I fucking hate this club.”
And with that, the floodgates open. I slide to the floor and drop my head to the cool mahogany cabinets, completely losing myself. My shoulders shake with the weight of my own choices. I’ve never fallen apart like this before, but it’s like something’s detonated in my chest.
I don’t know why it took me this long to realize it. I made the wrong choice six years ago, and I’ll have to live with that for the rest of my life.
“Listen to me.” JT kneels beside me and places a hand on my shoulder.
“It’ll probably take time for you to figure out what to do from here.
It might take Ash some time too. But you have another chance.
It might not feel like it right now because it’s still fresh, but this is your opportunity.
Fuck the past six years. Fuck the mistakes.
You have a kid. I won’t pretend to be father of the year, but I wouldn’t give mine up for the world.
I know you just found out about her, but I think that’s what you’re saying.
So, don’t. Don’t give her up. Figure out your shit, man up, and be her fucking dad.
She’s five. There’s still plenty of time. ”
That feels like a punch straight to the gut.
I don’t know what I’m doing.
Feeling the weight of everything that happened today crash down on me, I let out a long breath.
How bad I wished I’d just died that night!
Her words keep ringing in my ears, making me feel like I might throw up.
In trying to protect her, I did more damage than that bullet did. I’m the reason she got to that place, not the club, not Tony.
Me.
“How the hell am I supposed to fix this?”
“Not running off every time someone tells you some shit you need to hear would be a good start.”
My eyes narrow.
He picks up a busted bottle from the ground and puts it on the bar. “All jokes aside, you should probably sober up and cool off before you fuck anything else up.”
I close my eyes and exhale. “I was a dick to her earlier.”
“Yeah… You’ve been a dick all day, bud.”
“I need to talk to her.”
“Is she still here?”
I shrug.
“Alright, go get cleaned up. You look like you got in a bar fight with Jack Daniels.” He holds out a hand to help me up and gestures toward the door. “Then, I’ll drive you over there and we’ll find out.”