Two occupants in the car. Caucasian male driver and a woman.
“Where were they? Tell me where they were.” I feel like I’m cracking apart. One minute I can’t move and the next I can’t stay still. She hasn’t said anything, but I don’t need her to. I know. I fucking know, but I need to hear it, too, even though I don’t want to hear it.
She nods. Tears stream down her reddened cheeks. Her ghosts have multiplied, reflecting in each and every one of those tears. “I’m sorry, Adrian. I’m so very sorry.”
I fall back against the wall. It holds me up. The room blurs. “Say it. I need you to say it.” I don’t know where the words came from. How I got them the hell out.
“Adrian.”
“Say it!” I yell.
“My dad… it was him. He was going too fast. He’d been drinking. His girlfriend distracted him.”
I’m shaking. Rocking back and forth. “And?” “What are we going to do tonight? I need out of the house.” I lean against the door while I stand on the porch. I look over at Ash as he walks around the front yard.
“They were messing around. They weren’t paying attention around the curve. They drove into the yard. And…” A cry breaks free. I can hardly understand her as she speaks. “And he hit him. He hit Ashton.”
A scream jerks out of me. I yell until my throat burns. My legs collapse from under me. My head drops back against the wall as I sit there, legs out in front of me. There’s nothing left. I’m gone…
All this time, Delaney knew.
“Chase! Let’s play chase!”
I look over at Ashton and he smiles. It hits me in the chest, the way he looks at me. It always does. Like I’m the king of the fucking world or something. “I gotta go,” I say into the phone.
“Yay! Let’s play, Daddy!”
Tires wail. A car flies toward the yard. Ash’s smile. His big fucking smile and his big brown eyes that I see every time I look in the mirror, looking at me like I can do anything. So fucking happy just because I’m going to play with him. His whole future ahead of him. Happy. He’s so fucking happy as I see the car come at him.
Happy because he thinks we’re about to play. Happy because he loves me even though I don’t deserve it. Happy because he’s perfect, and I didn’t protect that perfect. Because he doesn’t know what’s coming.
“Noooo!” I don’t even make it to the porch stairs by the time the car hits him. His tiny body flies through the air, lands in front of me. Blood… so much blood.
“Nooo!” I fall. Pick his little body up. Broken… he’s so broken. He’s not smiling. He’s gone. That quickly, he’s gone.
I push to my feet as the driver stumbles around my yard. My fist connects with his face over and over. Wanting him to bleed like Ash. People come out of their houses. Rip us apart. Neighbors scream.
“Ash! Ashton! No. Fuck no! It’s not right. He’s okay.” I get out of my neighbor’s hold and run to him. “Let’s play. I’ll find you. Wake up. I’ll find you if you wake up.”
“Adrian?” Delaney’s voice is quiet next to me. She’s kneeling beside me, her hand on my shoulder. “Adrian? Are you okay?”
“She got pregnant when I turned sixteen. Just some girl I met. Tina. Another fucked-up decision by me.” I hear my voice, but it’s like I’m not controlling it. It feels like someone else is speaking my truth.
“Who? What are you talking about?”
“I didn’t know until she was about to have him. I was sixteen fucking years old and she comes to me nine months pregnant and says he’s mine.”
“Oh God…”
“He was always mine… I knew just by looking at him. And then she fucking gave him to me.” My eyes are still forward. I don’t move. Don’t look at her. I’m not even sure I’m here. Nothing but words. Words I’ve never told anyone. “Angel had to save me like she always did. When we were kids, she took beatings for me. Then she took me to live with her. And then she took care of my son. Just like Tina gave him to me, I fucking gave custody of my son to my sister. Who does that?”
“Adrian. No. I didn’t know! But you were there. You didn’t leave him. You tried to do what was best for him.” She’s sobbing so hard it’s difficult to make out what she’s saying.
“I let him die.” Fire laces my words. It all comes back to me. Her coming here to find me. Knowing who I was. Knowing what happened. Lying. Making me love her. Knowing what I lost. “Your dad killed him.”
I push away from her and to my feet. “I let my little boy die! The only fucking person in the world to ever look at me and not see all the things I did wrong. All he ever, ever wanted was love from me!”
My hands fly out as I shove the few things off my dresser, then knock it to the ground. Delaney jumps back.
“Don’t. Adrian. Let me help you. I’m so sorry. Let’s just—”
“Fucking help me!” I kick over the bedside table. The lamp crashes to the floor, but somehow the light doesn’t go out.
I rip the blankets from the bed. Throw the pillow. And grab his shirt. His little shirt that belonged on his two-year-old body. I clutch it to my chest.
And cry. Fucking cry. Wail. Scream.
“I killed him. I let him die. I want him back. I just want him back.”
Delaney tries to come toward me. “Get out,” I say, and then I’m in a ball on the floor holding Ash’s shirt.
“Adrian. I’m sorry, so, so sorry.”
I can’t look at her. I’m seeing his smile. Still crying. So many tears. I haven’t cried since the day I let him die and now I can’t stop it. Her dad did it. He was laughing and drunk and screwing around with some woman as he took a corner and killed my son. My son. My boy, Ashton.
* * *
“Adrian… you all right, man?” Colt’s voice.
The light’s gone out now. I have no idea how long I’ve been lying here. I lift my head. Colt is crouched next to me. The light from the hallway shines down on Cheyenne, who’s waiting there.
“You okay? Delaney called us.”
“Her dad killed my son,” tumbles out.
Cheyenne gasps, then covers her mouth.
“Fuck,” Colt curses. “Son?”
I see the pity in his eyes and I fucking hate it.
“Come on, man. Let’s go. Come with us. We’ll figure this out.” He grabs my arm and tries to help me up, but I jerk away and sit up, still clutching Ash’s shirt.
“I gotta get the fuck out of here.” As soon as I’m on my feet, Colt is too.
“Then I’ll go with you. We’ll take off. However long you want. Chey doesn’t care, right, baby?”
“No,” she says. “Whatever you guys need, do it.”
I’ve said before how real he is, how real they both are, but I didn’t realize how much until this second. He would leave his girl to take off with me if I need it. She would let him. “You’re a good guy, man. Real. Stay with your girl. You need each other. Don’t worry about me.” I just want out. I need to breathe and get away from everyone so I can try and lose myself again. It hurts too fucking much to get close.
I walk away from him. “Don’t do this. Don’t fucking bail like this, Adrian,” he says, but I know he won’t try to stop me. Colt doesn’t work that way.
“Please?” Cheyenne reaches for me as I hit the hallway. She grabs my arm, tears in her eyes. “I wouldn’t have made it through Colt’s accident without you.”
“Now you have him, so you don’t need me.” I kiss her forehead and walk out. Walk away to get lost again, Ash’s shirt still tight in my grip.
Chapter Twenty-Two
~Delaney~
His son, his son, his son. How could Ashton have been his son? But then… he’d been sixteen when Ashton was born. He’d given legal custody to Angel. According to the law, she was his. It’s not like Mom talked about it. Or that Maddox or I had gone to court with Dad—or if they would have even mentioned something like that there.
His son. My father killed his son. Adrian saw his little boy die. And he has the guilt of thinking he should have been able to protect him like he thought he should his mom.
I jump out of my bed and hardly make it to the bathroom before I’m vomiting. Everything purges out of my stomach until it cramps. Until I’m gagging and dry-heaving and there’s nothing left in me.
Flushing the toilet, I lie right there on the cold bathroom floor. Somehow I still have tears left and I let them fall. Couldn’t stop them if I wanted to and the whole time I see Adrian.
His son, his son, his son.
* * *
It’s been two days and I haven’t left the house. Work calls, but I don’t answer. I can hardly make myself leave the bed. My brother hasn’t come home. I’ve called him a million times, but he doesn’t pick up. He’s never stayed gone like this before. Never just left me like he did. Maddox always answers when I call. He’s always there when I need him.
But now he’s not…
Just like Adrian… he’s gone.
* * *
“Cheyenne?” I ask when she answers the phone one day later. “Hi… it’s Laney. Delaney.” She called me Laney when we hung out at her apartment that night, but I don’t know if she’ll want to anymore.
“I know who it is.” Her voice is clipped. “Well, I thought I knew who you were. I definitely didn’t know you were tied to Adrian’s past somehow. Definitely didn’t know you’d wreck him like you did.”
I know I deserve the anger in her voice. I deserve more than that and I’m glad she’s doing it. Glad Adrian has her.
There’s a part of me that wants to cry, but God, I’m so tired of crying, of folding, but I don’t know if I can do anything else.
“Hurting Adrian is the last thing I wanted. I know it doesn’t seem that way, but it’s true. I love him.”
She sighs on the other end of the phone. “What happened? I’ve… I’ve never seen him like that. It’s like he was gone. His eyes were empty. Adrian doesn’t say much, but you can always tell he has so much going on inside him.”
I play those words over and over in my head. Let them echo and penetrate each layer, no matter how much it hurts. “I know…” I curl up in the corner of my bed, like it will somehow protect me from the truth. “I did that. I know it, and my intentions don’t matter. I just wanted… I wanted to try and find a way we could all make it out of this without so much pain. But I took too long to tell him. How is he?”
“I don’t know. He’s gone. What do you expect? It’s not like Adrian’s going to tell us. We didn’t even know… he really had a son?”
My mouth opens and I start to talk. I tell her about my family, my dad and what he did. About my mom. Even about seeing Angel. I admit that I came here to find him and that I basically lied… but then I tell her how much I love him. And how he makes me feel and how incredible he is. When I stop, she’s crying.
“We never knew… How could he not have told Colt at least?”
Then we cry together. Cry for the broken man we both care about. For the demons he lets haunt him. And for the little boy we’ll never meet, who would have grown up to be just as special as Adrian.
* * *
I sit outside my mom’s apartment complex. It’s been a week since Adrian left. Since I’ve seen my brother, who’s texted me a couple times to let me know he’s okay.
I didn’t tell him I was coming here because I know he would come for me. And as much as I want him by my side before I step into that apartment, I have to do it on my own. It’s not Maddox’s job to protect me. It’s not his job to follow me, regardless of whether he believes in what I’m doing or not.