Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-Six
His house was empty. Like it had been every day before Addison had come to live with him, so it shouldn’t be strange at all.
He shouldn’t have gotten two plates out for dinner on accident. Shouldn’t feel like he couldn’t pick a goddamn movie without someone else’s input. The silence should feel comfortable. Normal. Not oppressive and alien.
He shouldn’t miss her.
He shouldn’t feel like laying down and dying in this luxury home that was supposed to be the pinnacle of his success. He shouldn’t feel like a failure.
Like he’d failed at the only thing that actually mattered.
There was no way he could justify asking Cody to cancel the fundraiser.
First of all, because none of this was Addison’s fault, and second of all because if it really didn’t mean anything to him, then there was no reason that he wouldn’t continue on with business as usual.
After all, wasn’t that the most important thing?
The resort and making money, and enhancing the image of his family and all of their pursuits?
Of course, it was a lie, and he knew it.
Of course, he had been sitting with that lie, turning it over inside of himself every minute of every day since he’d last seen her.
He’d mostly stayed out of the setup for it.
He had been responsible for some parts of it, but very few, and even fewer since his and Addison’s breakup.
He didn’t even want to call it a breakup, because to call it a breakup would acknowledge that it had been a relationship. And he would rather not get into that acknowledgement.
So of course, what he labeled it or didn’t label it didn’t matter at night when he tried to go to sleep, and couldn’t, because he was plagued by memories of her, memories of their time together, and the ache in his soul at not having her.
He kept thinking about what Cody had said.
That these were the kinds of choices their mother had made.
Their fathers had made. These choices to cut off love and keep themselves comfortable, and he had never wanted to be them, he had never wanted to be this.
That maybe that was the real, cruel truth of it all.
There was nothing you could do in the end to outrun your destiny.
If the seeds you grew from were fucked, then so were you, and there was nothing anyone could do to fix it.
He slept on his couch. Not in his bed because it smelled like her, and he didn’t want to wash the sheets because then it wouldn’t – perverse, he knew, but he wasn’t thinking straight.
So maybe that was why he found himself down here on the eve of the event. Surveying the progress. It was all set up, tables set up on the lawn with an aisle dividing them in half, so similar to the wedding.
This time, she would walk down the aisle by herself, give a speech.
Declare that she was the best candidate for mayor of the town.
And she was. It was supposed to be his job to introduce her, and of course he wouldn’t be doing that.
Anna had sent him a very terse email informing him that that was no longer his job.
He hadn’t bothered to respond to it.
He wouldn’t be around tomorrow.
Coward.
Yeah, maybe he was. Everything that he had shouted at Alan and more. Was he any different? Was he just running away when she needed him most?
No, she wouldn’t be humiliated standing up there without him. She didn’t really need him. Not for this.
“Hey.”
He turned around and saw his sister Lila standing behind him, arms crossed. “The motion cameras went off. I came out here to make sure you weren’t going to vandalize anything.”
“No,” he said. “I’m good.”
He turned away from his sister, and away from the venue, intending to walk back toward the parking lot of the resort and head back to his place.
“What are you doing exactly?” Lila asked.
“Just looking at this place,” he said.
“I don’t mean that. I mean with Addison. I mean with your life.”
“You better be kidding me,” he said. “You’re in your twenties, you don’t get to lecture me about what I’m doing with my—”
“I’m not stupid, Walker. I know that you were in a relationship with Addison, and I know that you’re running scared.
And I know that you might like to see me as somebody who’s too young to understand any of this, but I’m not.
I grew up in that same place that you did.
I understand life. I understand how brutal relationships are.
I understand that our mom made stupid decisions, and I... our dad...”
“He wasn’t my dad, Lila.”
“So?”
“What do you mean, so? Doesn’t that matter to you?”
“No. I don’t give a fuck about my dad, why would I give a fuck about yours”?
“Huh.”
He honestly didn’t know what to say to that. It was the most logical, rational thing anyone had ever said on the subject.
“They didn’t bother to raise any of us. They weren’t role models. I choose not to inherit anything from my dad, nothing that isn’t material anyway. I’ll take this. Everything else, that was just him giving us issues.”
“Yeah, well. I’m afraid that I have too many of them. She’s better off without me.”
“Oh, Walker. That is so tiresome. You don’t really think that, do you?”
“Yeah, I do think that. I think she’s better off without me.
Because... I’m... I’m just... I’m just still that kid.
I’m that kid that had to shoplift food. And I’ll lie about it, and I’m not going to ever be able to outrun that past. And I’m never...
I’m never really going to be good enough.
Because I’m always just going to feel like...
me... me. And I don’t like myself very much. ”
Then his little sister did about the most surprising thing she could have done.
She closed the distance between them and wrapped her arms around him.
“Walker, you’re the best. And if you tell anybody that I said that, I’m going to bite you.
But I love you, and I admire you so much.
Cody is amazing, and he made my life so much better, but you, you made it fun, Walker, you always have.
And I love you for it. To me, you’re not just good enough. To me, you’re the best.”
She stepped away from him, and he felt dumbfounded.
Emotion that he didn’t quite know what to do with built in his chest, and for the second time recently, he felt his eyes start to sting, his throat getting tight.
“Maybe she feels that way too, and if she does... then you need to go get her back. Because if you can’t see yourself, then you need someone who does.
I think she sees you. You see her now, don’t you? ”
“Yeah,” he said, his voice rusty. “I do.”
“Then you let her decide. You let her decide if you’re good enough. Because it’s not really you talking right now, is it? It’s our mom. It’s the dad you didn’t know. Those are the things that make you not feel good enough. But hell, idiot. We love you.”
She didn’t leave. She stood there, next to him.
And suddenly, he remembered his childhood just a little bit differently. The charm, the smiling. Some of it had been for Lila. To try and make it so she wasn’t scared. To try and make things seem normal. And just maybe everything hadn’t been all bad. So maybe neither was he.
“I love you, kid,” he said, wrapping his arm around her. “I’d really like to be the man that you and Cody seem to think I am.”
“Walker, everything you’ve ever set your mind to, you’ve done. So just do it.”
His chest burned with conviction. Desire. With the need to overcome all of his issues so that he could have her. Love her.
But if she didn’t want him now, it would be fair.
He’d been awful to her.
He’d broken her heart.
If she wanted to break his now she’d be well within his right to do it, and the idea of her saying no now…it almost destroyed him.
But she had risked it all to say she loved him.
He had to be willing to do it the same now.
Fear didn’t get to win.