I glanced over at Izzy who was clearly fighting her own war. Chin trembling and moisture glistening in those eyes.
“Yeah, Dillon. I’m really hoping she and I can be friends again.” I was looking at her when I said it, and her teeth clamped down on her bottom lip.
I sent her a look that I hoped would convey how fucking sorry I was. For ever hurting her. For doing her so wrong. Wishing I could go back in time and change it all.
“Then she can call you Mack instead of Maxon, like all your friends, right?” Dillon asked, breaking the connection.
“Well, thing is, your mom was a special friend, so she gets to call me Maxon,” I told him, words raw, filled up with all the need I was feeling right then.
I glanced back at her just in time to see the pink touch her cheeks, and I could only imagine what it’d be like to get to pink her up everywhere.
Watch heat rise to that silky flesh.
I pushed down the greed when I heard the swinging door creak that I knew led to the kitchen.
Or maybe it was just those final cracks working their way through my spirit.
Soul crashing.
Slowly, I straightened to standing, doing my best not to crumble to the ground as the door slowly opened.
Nothing but a pile of bones. Broken and brittle.
Emotion clotted off the air when the kid with my face struggled to make it through the door.
He did his best to maneuver with those crutches, his legs so goddamn skinny and the toes of his right foot dragging on the floor.
His ankles and knees were bent at an odd angle, his arms and shoulders a bit off, too, but not close to being as affected as his lower body.
And fuck, he had this crooked smile that melted a crater through the middle of me.
A fist of sorrow squeezed my being, and I felt every fucking thing I thought I’d known shatter.
Splinter into nothing.
Devotion rushed in to take its place while a slew of taunts and teases played out in my mind.
Picture after picture.
Izzy alone. Her belly round. A tiny baby in her arms. A lifetime I hadn’t known.
I didn’t know if it was helplessness or sheer determination that lined my body that had me going for him.
Fuck boundaries.
Izzy’s hand shot out. Her touch froze me to the spot, fire spreading up my arm. My attention whipped to her.
She was pleading with her eyes not to make this transition harder.
Not to go in blazing.
Reminding me I hadn’t earned the right.
“Izzy,” I all but choked, and I inhaled a jagged breath, fighting with all of me to keep standing still.
She squeezed my arm, the girl just getting it the way she always had.
She knew I was floored.
Staggered.
Slayed.
Benjamin started to hobble my direction.
My heart burst right there. Nothing but mangled bits crawling for the kid.
With each lumbering step he took, my chest tightened more.
Compressing and swelling.
Energy lashed in the middle of it.
Different but the same.
Could feel Izzy’s anxiety where she stood at my side, and Benjamin shot her a careful, searching glance before sliding his gaze back to me.
And I wondered if he could see it, too.
Feel it.
Bleeding and spilling out.
The way every cell in my body seized in awareness.
Did he recognize me the way I recognized him?
And I wondered if this was what it felt like when a man first held a newborn in his arms. What it felt like to hear his child’s first gurgling cry. Destroyed.
Knocked down so he could be rebuilt.
Become a better man.
Izzy moved to his side. Discretely, she swiped at the tear that had gotten loose and streaked down her cheek.
She cleared her throat, but it didn’t do anything to unclog the emotion that hung from her being, the pain riding out on her introduction.
“Maxon, this is my son, Benjamin.” She set her hand on his shoulder, her voice a song when she whispered near his ear, “Benjamin, this is my friend, Maxon.”
“Hiiii, Maxxxxon,” he said.
The words were elongated, like the letters were getting piled on top of each other. His mouth stretching open wide, jaw wrenching to the side to get the words out.
My lungs squeezed.
He let go of one crutch and awkwardly stretched out his hand, his arm a little disfigured, too.
In it, I saw his perfection.
“I’m glllllad you came,” he warbled.
And I knew right then, nothing else in the world mattered.
Nothing but them.
Sixteen
Mack
Dillon made a beeline for the kitchen, not even pausing as he threw open the swinging door. “Dinnertime!” he shouted.
Sweat beaded at the base of my neck, and I anxiously rubbed my hands together, nerves rattling as I thought about having to stand in front of Izzy’s parents.
People who’d been nothing but kind to me growing up. People who I’d stumbled into a few times over the years, but like a coward, I’d always turned my head, dropped my gaze in a shame that I didn’t want to face.