Sweet Ache

They’d use her up and spit her out to get dirt on me without a second thought to collateral damage. If that happened, I would have failed her twice in my lifetime, and that’s something I can’t let happen.

You can’t remove the scars of your childhood. They stay with you forever, an indelible mark to remind you time and again what you should or shouldn’t do differently next time. And fuck if my scars aren’t so deep my bones are grooved by their presence. Even in my own death they will remain.

So I’ve had Ben ensure that it appears that she’s fallen off the face of the earth, so far buried in this Google era and HIPPA privacy laws that no one can bribe a facility nurse to repeat the insults and accusations my mom hurls at me as a means for tabloid fodder. Keeping her condition private, using her mother’s maiden name on her patient history, means I no longer worry about someone manipulating her to get to me.

So why am I suddenly feeling like I need to tell Quinlan about her? Letting her in my private world is like unzipping my soul and letting her climb inside to the deep, dark recesses I choose not to delve into. I’m not the only one in life who has gone through this and yet the one thing in my very public life I’ve fought fiercely to keep private, I want to tell someone about.

Quinlan sitting here terrifies me and frees me simultaneously. My thoughts are running a thousand miles an hour, scattered in so many directions I can’t keep them straight. Years of obligation, hours of self-doubt, a lifelong inability to accept someone’s love, all boil down to this … letting someone in when I’m so used to shutting everyone out.

Will she think less of me when she realizes I can’t even take care of my own mother? That I have her in a facility to not only protect her but to protect my own image? I mean how fucking selfish does that make me? And what if my mom is having one of her sundowning moments and hurls vile things at me? What will she think of me then? Will Quin understand that underneath it all—my continual protection of Hunter, staying true to my word—all of it is some fruitless attempt to redeem myself and not be weak like my dad was? Ever again.

I suck in a breath when I realize my thoughts have transitioned so drastically in the past five hours that a damn sprinter wouldn’t even be able to keep up with them.

I’m letting Quinlan in. I want to let her in.

I try to shut all of the noise out for a moment, quiet my head, and let the warmth of the sun against the car’s window warm the cold parts of my soul. This is all too much too fast. The truths I’ve always believed to be true are now pouring down around me like the acid rain in this Los Angeles smog.

I don’t know what all of this means for me or for the way I live my life. Shit, if throwing a single punch can cause all of these revelations, what the hell would happen if I actually allowed myself to let someone in? If I actually let myself love?

The thought staggers me, for the good and the bad. Blows apart preconceived notions in my world that I’ve tried so hard to make as predictable as possible.

My past has written the path of my future and made me who I am. For the longest time I thought it would be impossible to rewrite what’s laid before me. But as I pull into the parking lot at Westbrook and glance over at Quin with her soft smile and blond curls floating from the breeze, I realize I don’t want to accept that anymore. I have a pencil in my unsteady hand and when I step foot from this car, I’m attempting to write on a new page.

I just hope the lead sticks.

If not, I might be erased.

Chapter 26

QUINLAN

I don’t know who I thought Helen was, but I sure didn’t expect to be entering this upscale assisted living facility to find out.

Even though I’m walking beside Hawkin, I feel so incredibly far away from him with each step we take into the depths of this bright and peaceful building. To think I’ve let the conversation between Vince and Hawke gnaw at my sanity over the past few days until I was convinced whoever Helen was would tear me apart. And then of course when he showed up earlier, I toyed with him by using Luke, and tried to push his buttons to get an answer to a question I should have just flat-out asked days ago.

As we approach a nurses’ station, Hawke glances over to me; the uncertainty in his expression and the defeat of his shoulders break my heart over the internal battle he’s waging right now. I have so much to say and nothing at all, all at the same time.

With my hand in his, I can feel his body tense up as the nurse behind the desk greets Hawke by name. Her eyes flicker over to me and I can see the startled surprise at my presence.

“Hi, Beth. She doing okay today?”

Beth’s eyes hold compassion as she studies him and nods. “Better than some days, worse than others. She hasn’t been sleeping well so we’re trying to play with some new ways to prevent her triggers.”

Hawkin glances at a door on our left before smiling tightly at her. “Thank you,” he says, his voice barely audible.

“I’ll let her know you’re here.”

We follow Beth and within moments of her entering the room, she comes back out with a smile, and holds the door open for us.

Hawke hangs his head for a beat and takes a fortifying breath before he enters the room. I hesitate, suddenly uncomfortable, feeling like I’m invading his privacy, and hating myself for forcing him into a situation with my stupid accusation.

I walk warily into the room and take a position against the wall where he motions for me to stand. My heart is in my throat and for some reason I’m nervous of the unknown here. Our gazes meet momentarily and the look in Hawke’s eyes tears at everything in my soul. He looks lost, scared, apologetic, and resigned and it takes everything I have not to reach out and pull him into me to assuage his pain.