“So what’s brought you out here looking for answers?”
He took a long pull of his beer and turned to where Daniel approached. He wasn’t ready to talk about it. He didn’t know if he’d ever be ready to say it aloud. So he went with something easier to bear. “You know, John was one of my best friends, and I’ve never come out here to visit him.”
“He’s gone. Visiting his grave doesn’t make him any less gone.”
The words didn’t sit well with him. There was nothing more final than a gravestone, and the thought that in too short a time he might be standing in front of a different gravestone made his throat burn. “Have you been out here?”
“Yeah.” Daniel tipped back his head and closed his eyes. “I share a six-pack with him once a month.”
It was becoming startlingly clear that Adam had well and truly fucked up when he left town—and he’d been fucking up ever since. “I should have come back sooner. I should have been here for you and Quinn.”
And for Mama.
“We were all fighting our own demons in our own way. You did the best you could.”
But that wasn’t the truth. He could have done better. Oh, he’d spent the last decade telling himself that no one expected any different from him. He was just like his old man. The bad egg. The hell-raiser. So when he blew out of town, restlessness driving him like a leaf before a hurricane, it was only the last in a long list of things adding up to him being the piece-of-shit leaver he’d always known he was.
He’d never once considered that he could change.
“My mama’s dying. Cancer.”
Daniel finally looked at him. “Shit, I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
“No one did. The only reason I know is that I bullied my way into her doctor’s appointment.” And suddenly the words were there where there hadn’t been any before. “I should have been here. All this time, I should have been here.”
“You had your reasons for leaving.”
Adam suddenly hated that everyone was so goddamn willing to give him a pass. “What could possibly be more important than being here? All these years wasted, chasing some adrenaline high while I was missing the shit that really mattered back home.”
“Fuck, Adam, what do you want me to say? Was it shitty that you left right after graduation? Yeah, it was. And, yeah, it would have been nice to have you here instead of passing through town like a fucking tumbleweed. But you made the decision that you made. I wasn’t willing to lose another friend over it.”
Especially not after they’d lost John.
“I’m sorry.” He felt like he’d been saying that too fucking much lately. What did sorry really mean if he didn’t do a damn thing to keep this shit from happening again?
“There’s nothing to be sorry for. We all did stupid shit when we were eighteen and full of more come than common sense. If you keep beating yourself up about it, you’re never going to get past it.” He looked at Adam. “But you’re not eighteen anymore. So what are you going to do?”
About his mama.
About Jules.
About his goddamn life in general.
He rubbed a hand over his face. That was the problem—like Daniel said, they weren’t eighteen anymore. He’d spent so long running from the idea of settling down, he wasn’t sure what it’d be like to stand and fight. But he already knew that chasing down his favorite adrenaline rush was only a temporary solution. “I don’t know.”
“Here’s a hint—apologize. Your mama loves you as much as you love her.” Daniel pushed to his feet and finished off his beer. “And, Adam, none of us knew she was sick—not like you’re saying. If no one in Devil’s Falls could tell, how the hell would you be able to? Do you have some sort of X-ray vision that you’ve neglected to tell me about?”
“No.”
“Yeah, I didn’t think so.” He awkwardly squeezed Adam’s shoulder. “Just be there for her. That’s all she wants.”
That seemed to be all anyone wanted from him. Except Jules. Jules fully expected him to leave at some point and had plans to eventually settle down with some future guy.
Something must have showed on his face, because Daniel hesitated. “I hate to even ask, but what the hell happened with Jules? One second you’re making googly eyes at her, and the next she’s calling me upset and telling me to track your stupid ass down.”
Of course she’d been the one to call Daniel. It didn’t matter that he’d said some awful shit to her—she was still trying to take care of him. “It never would have worked. I don’t deserve her.”
But he wanted to.
Daniel leveled a long look at him. “Yeah, well, not with you being own self-fulfilling prophecy. You’re not your old man. You never were, though you’ve been determined to prove otherwise since you were a kid.” He set the empty bottle back into the six-pack. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help with your mom.” And then he was gone, striding across the cemetery to where his truck was parked at the entrance.