Gorgeous Misery (Creeping Beautiful)

I am ashamed to say that I don’t even remember. That’s how far away that day is for me.

But this look on her face right now, as those words came out of my mouth—she is not far away from that hotel room in Rock Springs.

She’s still there.

I could stop. Right now. I could stop, and apologize, and own up to what I did, but I’m not going to. She needs to hear this today just as much as she did two decades ago. Because I did not fucking lie to her.

“I want you to go to school, Sasha.”

“Stop.” She puts up a hand. “I don’t want to hear it.”

“And live in a house,” I continue. “And never pick up a gun again. I want you to wear dresses and go to dances. And have dates with boys who take you to eat hamburgers. I want you to study dinosaurs”—she lets out a sob, but I keep going—“and travel the fucking world looking for stupid clues about the past that no one else cares about. And once you’ve done all that without me—” She is full-on crying now. Tears are streaming down her face. “Once you’ve done all that without me, Sasha, you’re gonna realize that you can love more than once in a lifetime.”

“You’re an asshole. You’re a dick. I hate you, Nick Tate. I fucking hate your guts. I will never forgive you for leaving me in that hotel room. Ever.”

“Now who’s the liar?”

She just stares at me. “You think.” It comes out as a whisper, “that I forgave you?”

“You begged me that night.”

“I was thirteen. We were a promise.”

“We didn’t make that promise, Sasha. It was a filthy fucking blood bond between two men who trade and sell children like they’re animals.”

“It was different for us.” Her words are low. Tears are still pouring out of her eyes, but her sobbing is over.

“It sure was,” I agree. “It was very different for us because we got to choose who we made our promises with. Are you unhappy?”

“No.”

“No,” I agree. My voice is low now too. “You went to school, Sash. You lived in an amazing house across the street from City Park. You have two brothers, two sisters, real parents, and a pack of dogs, for fuck’s sake. You got a kitten for Christmas the day James dropped you off. You got straight A’s, went to private high school, dug up dinosaur bones in Peru, and then you met the love of your life. None of this sucked. James, and Ford, and Merc, and Jax—they gave you a helluva lot more than I ever could’ve.”

She looks down and wipes her face. Then she sucks in a long breath and meets my gaze again. “You lied to me. You made me think that I killed you.”

“It was my brother.”

“It was sick.”

“It had to be done. He needed to die. Hell, he told you himself, Sasha. He wanted to die.”

“And he needed me to do that?” Her words come out as a sob again.

“Of course he needed you to do it. The FBI was all over you back then. And when I say FBI, you and I both know that I don’t mean FBI. Those guys were Company. And when you killed Santos, you brought that whole fucking corrupt system down and you. Became. The good guy.”

“The good guy?” She shakes her head as she sniffles like crazy. “That’s hilarious. I had nightmares. I cried for months.”

“Months,” I say, “are nothing. Your life is a fucking fairy tale right now. You have the house, the kids, the husband. And tell me, Sash—tell me you hate it, tell me you would give it all up to go on the fucking run with me for the next twenty years, and I’ll apologize.”

She hesitates.

“Tell me. Tell me you’d give them all up for me. That’s the only way I’ll feel sorry for what I did.” I pause, giving her a moment to actually say that, knowing she won’t. And then I continue. “I did what was best for you, Sasha. Because I owed your dad that much.”

Her face crumples again. And it occurs to me that maybe she hasn’t thought about this in a very long time. Maybe she pushed it all away, the same way I did, and just moved forward out of instinct.

So I walk towards her, tip her chin up and look her in the eyes. “I owed him, ya know. He helped me a lot when I was a kid. You know he never wanted us to be together. And can you blame him? He did everything in his power to save you. He never wanted you to be my promise. He died protecting you from them. No fucking way was I gonna steal your life. And yeah, it sucks. What happened to you at thirteen sucks, but you saw romance and that’s not what it was. That’s not what we had.”