“Spitfire.”
“Yup.”
“Cute as fuck.”
“Yup.”
“You’re toast, man. You know that, right? Are you about ready to stop lyin’ to yourself and the rest of us? You could start with me. Not gonna bite. Well, I might. Should’ve kicked your ass from here to Kentucky when you walked away from her in the first place.”
Reluctantly, I shifted my attention to him, for the first time broaching a subject I’d refused.
Unable to keep it in.
Pressure building until I had to let off a little of the steam.
“Didn’t have a choice.”
A scowl knitted his brow. “Didn’t have a choice? Sorry to break it to you, brother, but life is nothin’ but a fucking string of choices. Seems to me you made the wrong one.”
“And making the choice to stay would have only hurt her more than I already did.”
Shattered her.
What I’d done had been a showing of mercy. For her and myself. Euthanizing who we’d been to keep from subjecting us to a long, excruciating death.
Didn’t matter.
This bullshit turned out to be excruciating, anyway. Living without her a cold, bitter hell.
He scoffed. “Is this that whole ‘being on the road is too much’ bullshit? Letting her off the hook to give her a better life? Making that choice for her? Because believe me, y’all don’t look better off to me.”
A heavy breath pilfered free of my aching lungs. “No.”
“You just didn’t love her, anymore? You gonna keep claiming that? Because believe me, we have plenty of horseshit back at our parents’ places. Could do without it being fed from you.”
Frustrated, I stabbed my fingers through my hair. “Think the answer to that is plenty apparent, yeah?”
He roughed a hand over his face, and his eyes grew wide in disbelief. “So, what…it was the kid?”
Disgust poured through his words. “That’s what it came down to? You were too much of a pussy to handle it?”
I flinched at the accusation that was so off base it would be hysterical if it wasn’t so devastating.
A face I barely knew but would recognize anywhere flashed through my mind.
Dark, trusting eyes.
Carefree grin.
The memory of her sweet smile was demolished by the rush of realization. Every mistake that had been made. Every war. Everything I’d been fighting for and everything that had been lost.
Would be wise for me to accept there was nothing left to reclaim. Nothing to give but penance. Atonement for what had been inflicted.
That and to watch over them until it came to fruition.
Until the last nail was driven in my heart and Violet realized the vile secret I kept.
“Loving that kid wouldn’t have been the issue. Deserving to do it was.”
A frown took over Rhys’ face as he whipped around a corner, ramming on the brakes and downshifting as we fast approached our turn. “The fuck are you talking about, man?”
I rubbed a palm over my mouth, trying to break up the torment that was rising fast. A flashflood. All the pain and grief and regret I’d kept chained breaking free of the dam and swelling fast.
“I fucked up, Rhys. Fucked up bad.”
He took the left, tires skidding on the pavement before he hit the dirt drive. Dust billowed behind like a ghost hunting us through the night, and he cut me a look through the slivers of moonlight that poured down through the darkness. Could feel the instant aggression that curled through his muscles.
“And what kind of trouble is that? You need someone to take up your back? Just say the word. Where and when. You know that, man.”
Without a doubt, Rhys would go down for me in a blaze of burning glory.
“It was a long time ago. Doesn’t matter anymore.”
More lies.
But this was not something I was willing for him to get into. It’d already squandered enough of the people I cared about. Destroyed and decayed and trampled.
A fucking field of casualties.
It’d left a bloodied trail of destruction in its wake, and here I was, getting ready to go another round.
But this was the finale, and someone was getting knocked the fuck out.
He slowed as we got closer to our houses at the top of the hill. Agitation lined his thick, brawny muscles, dude ready for a fight. He jerked his attention toward me. Hurt slashed through his expression. “You been keepin’ me in the dark, dude? What is this fresh shit? I’m your best friend. And here I thought this whole time that whirlwind you got swept into with Violet had just fizzled out, and all these years later, I’m hearin’ you got your stupid ass mixed up in some kind of mess?”
A hard gush of air left me. “I make the mistakes. I’m the one who has to suffer for them.”
“Alone?” he challenged.
“When getting you involved could only make it worse, yes.”
He came to a stop at the fork in the road. Car idling. Dude was clenching his fists on the steering wheel like he was going to go Hulk on me. Uncontrolled chaos. He always kept it bridled, but I knew him well enough to know it was there.