Perfect Regret (Bad Rep #2)(43)
Author: A. Meredith Walters

But I had gone into autopilot. Just call me Robo-Riley, because my emotions had gone into hibernation. There was no room at the inn for feeling sad and sorry for myself. I had to pull up my big girl panties and help my family in the way only Riley Walker could.

Garrett had stayed for a few hours after we took my mom back to the house from the hospital. I had just gotten her to lie down and rest for a bit and had come out to find Garrett sitting on the back porch steps, looking out at the ocean. Gavin had gone home and Felicity had headed to a local hotel with her family to get settled and to try and take a nap.

Garrett looked up when the screen door slammed behind me and I gave him a shaky semblance of a smile as I joined him on the steps. It had been really cold and I tucked my hands under my legs to try and keep them warm.

Garrett’s hair had fallen in his face and I thought about tucking it behind his ear but I felt strange about touching him. I didn’t know what my problem was. All I knew was that everything had changed in the span of a few hours and I didn’t know how to fit this man into my new world order.

“I would ask how you were doing, but I know what a f**ked up question that is,” Garrett had said, his hands hanging limply between his knees.

“And I would have told you it’s a messed up question and to stop asking me shit that should be self-explanatory,” I lobbed back, smirking.

Garrett’s chuckle was soft and ended too soon. “It’s going to be hard. The next few months are going to be f**king miserable. But just try and take it one day at a time.”

“Seriously? That’s your sage advice? Take it one day at a time? What are you a walking, talking self-help book?” I asked him, my lips quirking into a tiny grin.

Garrett shrugged. “Sure, it’s cliché. But it’s the truth. Loss is loss and nothing will make it better but time.”

I had looked at Garrett while he spoke and had thought about his tattoo. Blessed are the hearts that can bend; for they shall never be broken.

I got it. I really did. Losing someone you love smashes you into smithereens. It alters you in a way that I couldn’t, in the deep throes of my grief, believe I’d ever move past. I understood why Garrett had shut himself off, tucked all those messy feelings away. And why being with me, a girl with a self-professed chip on her shoulder, probably scared him silly.

“Is that how you got by after your parents died?” I asked, not knowing whether I was treading on forbidden ground or not. But I figured given everything we had been through together in the last twenty-four hours I had earned the right to some personal information.

And there was something reassuring about talking to someone who had been through something equally painful. We were both card-carrying members of the dead parents club and it was a crappy club to belong to. But having him there, understanding on some level what I was experiencing, was oddly helpful.

Garrett glanced over at me before turning look out at the ocean again. “After my parents died I lost focus. I had planned to go to college, you know. I had been accepted to the University of Virginia. I wanted to be a doctor or some shit,” he revealed and I tried not to look as shocked as I was.

“Really?” I asked and cringed at how incredulous I sounded. Garrett picked up on it however and I saw his shoulders tense. Great, I had just insulted the guy who was being my biggest support right now. Way to go, Riley!

“Yeah, I wasn’t always a total waste of skin, Riley. I used to have the 4.0 GPA and full ride to school. I was Mr. Extracurricular Activities. But after my parents died none of it mattered anymore. I was too old to go to foster care; I had turned eighteen at the beginning of my senior year. So in the eyes of the state I was able to take care of myself, but I was still a f**king kid. I had no idea what the hell I was doing. Sure, I had a house to live in and money from their life insurance policies to keep me fed and clothed, but I was a mess. Total and complete freedom paired with a huge dose of grief, it was no wonder I fell off the freaking planet. I was out of control. I completely lost it.”

Garrett took a deep breath, his eyes never leaving the breaking waves on the beach. I felt like such an ass for judging him for so long. I had spent the last few months thinking I was too good for the likes of Garrett Bellows. But I couldn’t have been more wrong. I could live a thousand years and never be the girl this amazing guy deserved. And that made me feel very, very small.

“If it hadn’t been for Jordan, and Mitch and Cole and being in the band, I would have joined my parents in the ground. And even though my life went in a direction I hadn’t planned, I wouldn’t change a thing. I’m headed down the only road that I want to be on. And that works for me.” He pressed his lips together and turned his eyes to me and I could see a flinty resolve in them.

I didn’t know what to make of this. He was showing me a tiny piece of his life. Showing me something beyond the guy everyone else saw. Yet at the same time he seemed to be warning me that what you see is what you get. And it was up to me to accept it or not.

But I was in no condition to ponder that. I couldn’t think beyond getting through the next minute. The next hour. The next day. The pain that lived inside me was all consuming and made it hard to breathe.

“I still make mistakes. I’m still a huge f**k up in so many ways. I changed a lot the day I lost Mom and Dad. I’ll never be that guy I was before they died. Those goals, that future, it seems so insignificant now in the grand scheme of things. But it doesn’t change the fact that I lost myself and I don’t think I’ve yet to find him again,” Garrett said, looking sadder than I had ever seen him.

“Is that the deal with the parties and the girls and smoking pot? You’re trying to find yourself? Because to me, that seems like a poor way of going about it,” I snipped, realizing I sounded mean. But I felt irritated by his life choices.

Here was a guy who had the world at his feet. He clearly had a lot going for him once upon a time. But he allowed himself to be derailed. To lose his focus. He was still drifting at sea without a clue. It was frustrating to see his potential wasted in the way it was. I would never fall prey to my grief in a way that would make me lose sight of me. I owed it to my dad. I owed it to myself.

Garrett’s eyes flickered with anger. “Yeah, maybe it is. But it’s my life, Riley. And they’re my choices. And I’ll never be sorry for it,” he said defensively. I knew he was giving me a very strong warning.

I just wasn’t in the mood to hear it.