No Damaged Goods

Christ, we can’t even afford this stupid trip. Abby spent every last bit of money I brought home, every last bit of her own check, all on this online shopping stuff. Pure impulse spending.

Next thing I know, Andrea’s fully funded college account is half empty but there are two shiny cars in the garage, one sitting there waiting until she’s old enough to drive it to a university she now can’t afford to attend.

Maybe we could’ve found a way to work through that.

Through the fights, the way she’d dismiss how I felt about everything, telling me to man up and stop bothering her when she had shit to do.

But there was no working through the day I came home to Holt in our house, his arms around my wife, and Abby looking up at him with her lips parted and red, breathless, her lashes fluttering.

We hadn’t even drawn up the fucking divorce papers yet.

Still looking at stuff like legal separation, maybe a trial thing.

And she couldn’t even wait to move on.

With my own fucking brother.

That’s all I see now, every time I look at her.

That lost, dazed, starry-eyed way she was looking at Holt.

Used to be how she looked at me.

But I don’t quit.

If anything, we can stick it out a little while longer for our kid, and at least figure out how to do this separation without any collateral damage.

Even if everything went sour with me and Abby too quick…

One thing I know, whatever else she is, she loves Andrea just as much as I do.

So I’m loading up the car. I’m packing up all the camping supplies we shouldn’t have spent money on because we’re going to use them once and never again. It takes two to try, and we’re way past trying, not even for the love of our daughter.

I’m trying not to break something with how hard I’m slinging things into the back of the trunk.

And I’m bolting upright, nearly banging my head on the frame of the car. That’s when a high, tinny scream comes shrilling from inside the house.

Andrea.

I’d know the sound of my daughter in serious distress anywhere.

Before I can even blink, I’m rocketing into the house, slamming my way inside hard enough to make the front door bounce on its hinges. “Andrea? Andrea!”

She’s there. Standing in the open-plan living room and kitchen, next to the kitchen island.

Just staring.

Stone-still, trembling, little hand shaking in front of her face, staring at something I can’t see, her face white as a sheet.

Whatever it is, it’s on the floor, and my stomach sinks with dread as she lets out a shaky whisper. “M-mom…?”

I feel like I’m walking through a nightmare, crossing the room numbly.

I don’t want to see it.

What I fear is already there.

But it’s too late. I can’t avoid it.

I stare down at my wife’s dead, empty face, her skin already rigid, her eyes milky and pale and completely devoid of everything that once made her the woman I loved and hated.

* * *

Present

I snap back into my own skin with a sharp gasp, sucking in a breath that makes my entire body heave.

Shit.

It’s like waking up from a bad dream by being plunged into a frigid ocean, and I sit up sharply, ignoring the twinge in my leg.

Peace jerks back from me, stumbling, looking at me with wide eyes. “Blake?”

I stare at her.

It’s…

Right.

I’m not there, not then.

My pounding, frantic heart doesn’t quite seem to believe it, but I gotta remember.

That’s in the past. This is the present.

Pressing a hand over my chest, I suck in several shuddering breaths, telling myself to calm the fuck down.

“Sorry,” I manage. “Guess I fell half asleep or something. I just…fuck, I remembered some shit I didn’t want to.”

Her expression clears, soft with sympathy, understanding. “That’s normal when you start relaxing under treatment,” she soothes. “It can almost put you in a trance state. Releasing physical pain often opens up emotional scars. It helps a lot to just let it happen and work through it.”

“Don’t want to work through it,” I bite off.

I can’t take this.

This shitty feeling bottoming out my gut, this thing I never actually looked at before to recognize it for what it honestly is.

Guilt.

All these years I’ve been carrying a boulder of guilt for not saving my wife from a freak aneurysm I had no control over.

Like if I’d been a better man somehow, not only would our marriage not have fallen apart, but she wouldn’t have died.

Wouldn’t have left Andrea behind.

Crazy thoughts, I know.

No good reason it’s my fault.

I just know that dark knot of hurt inside me swears it is. I can’t take that shit right now when I’m still all tangled up with present-day guilt over being a mindless jerkwad animal to Peace, too.

Now, I’m doing it again.

Lashing out like a trapped beast who doesn’t trust the person trying to clean the blood from its flesh, biting the hand that ought to soothe it.