I don’t even want one the way my brother did. The way my brother asked. The way my brother got his.
I’d rather have this man in front of me. The one so painfully flawed. The one filled with endless amounts of love. I’d rather face the end with him.
“Honestly, Loren.” His voice slices me up again. How many more times will I hear him say my name? I glare at the ceiling, tears flowing backwards, dripping out of the corners of my eyes. He finishes with, “You’re better than I was. I want you to know that.”
My body runs cold. “Everyone at Hale Co. still loves you—”
“I wasn’t talking about the goddamn company,” he cuts me off, and the quiet abruptly cloaks us. I have to sit here and repeat his words over and over in my head for them to make sense.
You’re better than I was.
You’re better than I was.
You’re better than I was.
No matter how many times they play out, I still can’t believe that’s what he chooses to tell me. My father never admits defeat, rarely puts others above himself. He only ever wanted me to embrace my potential, but he never saw my potential as anything more than a flickering ember, ready to die out at the slightest gust of wind.
“Loren,” he says my name again. Is this the last time I’ll hear it? I keep my glare on the ceiling, tears still dripping out the corners.
“You’re a better father,” he tells me. Stop crying. “A better husband.” Stop fucking crying. “A better man.”
I drop my gaze, not covering my face. I cry in front of the man who always told me to goddamn stop. I’m hunched like if I try, I might be able to hug myself. Pain obliterates me from top to bottom, engulfing all that I was. All that I am.
“Loren.”
“Stop,” I choke. “Just stop.” I set a glare on him.
He sets one on me. “I won’t stop because you can’t control your tears.” There it is. In my fucked up reality, I’m almost glad to hear it. One last time. My older brother would think it was sick, but I can’t help it.
I rub my eyes with the back of my sleeve. When I look at him, he canvasses me like he’s remembering me for the final time.
“I’ve always loved you, son.” I know. He never let me forget it. “It was a decent ride. The whiskey could’ve been better towards the end.”
I can’t laugh at the joke.
He stayed sober. My dad stayed sober for a long time. For me. For Ryke. For Willow. For himself.
“Will you remember?” he asks, fear creasing his eyes for the first time.
“Remember what?”
“That I loved you.”
I realize he’s worried about his legacy. That maybe in time Jonathan Hale won’t be remembered as the man who fought to bring his three children together—but rather as the old drunk who shouted slurs and spiteful things.
I’m not sure what’ll happen in the future. How I’ll describe him to my children as they get older, but I know I won’t leave out the fact that he loved us. And he tried. God, he tried.
I nod a few times. “I’ll remember.” I rub the back of my neck. “You know…” It’s inside of me. I’ve said it before. It hurts. “You know…I love you too.”
He stares at the wall this time, away from me, as though repeating those words in his head. I wonder if he thinks that he doesn’t deserve my love. I know my brother feels that way.
If so, my dad never tells me.
We’re silent the rest of the time, and my tears dry.
“Dad?” Ryke emerges in the doorway, Willow beside him. He’s stoic, his gaze locking on me longer than our father.
I wrench my body up from the chair. I step back, giving Ryke and Willow time with him. Ryke stays put, letting Willow go first.
I’m a million pounds.
I’m sinking.
I go to leave, but Ryke catches my shoulder. Then he shuts the door, locking my escape. I barely hear him mention that he talked to the doctors. They said our dad wouldn’t make it through the night. I blink and look for an out. I tug my collar.
Leave, my brain screams.
Bottle. Booze.
Leave.
“Hey,” Ryke grits in my ear, shaking me by the shoulders.
I swat his hands away and glower like he’s the enemy. I’m the villain. I hate myself more right now than I have in goddamn years.
Stop.
Fight.
“Lily,” Ryke tells me, reminding me. I let out a deeper breath. As I calm down some, Ryke releases his grip on my shoulders. “I’m going to stay. I think we both fucking should.”
Despite the past, Ryke made more peace with Jonathan than I ever thought he would. And now he wants to stay.
And watch him die.
I shake my head, my eyes cast down to the floor. My dad knew I couldn’t handle it. It’s why he waited until the last minute, and even now, I choke.
“I can’t…” The air is too thin. The walls too tight. I’m uncomfortable in my clothes. In my body. I could fucking puke.
How did I live with this feeling for so long back then? I feel like I’m dying.
I was dying. Every goddamn day.
I need a drink.
Stop.
Fight.
Lily.
“Hey.” Ryke cups my face, my eyes returning to his. “I can’t even fucking imagine what it’s like for you, but if you leave, you’ll regret it.”
My many regrets are layered beneath my skin. Imprinted in my bones. Regrets that will never leave me. That will always haunt me, but ones that I have to face and accept.
Most deal with drinking and every shit decision that hurt Lily. Even though we’re together now, every day that goes by I regret not being the man she needed. Not being able to help my best friend. Days and nights fogged by booze. Drinking.
Drinking.
Dying.
I regret how long it took for me to wake up.
I’m awake now. I can’t forget how the haze is gone.
I’m awake. I’m alive.
Slowly, painfully, I walk back towards h
is hospital bed. I pull out another chair. I sit there.
And I watch my father die.
November 2025
Eden Cross Cemetery
Philadelphia
RYKE MEADOWS
My father’s funeral ended about ten minutes ago.
I stayed behind, alone. Facing a pile of fucking dirt. The headstone he picked out towers above all the others. It’s fucking huge. I roll my eyes at it—and at the empty plots surrounding it. The ones he bought for his children, for our families.
I shake my head over and over. I spent so much time suppressing my feelings that I haven’t come to terms with his death like I should’ve days ago. Connor told me he’d look out for Lo, and then he bluntly added, “You can cry.”
I glowered, but I never had to tell him why I couldn’t cry. He knows. It’s not just overwhelming concern for my little brother. It’s that I hated my father for so long, even when we’d been at peace towards the end. I just keep thinking, why should he get my fucking tears?
I’ll remember the last words I said to my father for the rest of my life. “Thank you for fucking pushing me to meet Lo.” My brother and my sister—they’re the only good things he ever gave me.
The last thing he said to me, “You’ve always been stubborn.”
I rake my two hands through my thick hair. I skim the new dirt, the engraved headstone—rich, every way I turn.
What I say next, I have to say to my father six-feet-under. Because I never would’ve said it to his fucking face. I rub my jaw. Then I go still.
My pulse slows. The wind howls around me.
Quietly, I say, “I loved you in the fucking end.”
I don’t cry for him. I don’t fucking need to, but I needed to say this.
* * *
I hike up a mountain, leaves orange and yellow. All around me.
All around my family.
While the world goes fucking insane with my father’s death—camera crews positioned outside of the neighborhood gates twenty-four-fucking-seven like royalty passed—I just leave that circus and find better solace.
Daisy, Sulli, and I hike in the Smoky Mountains, planning to camp at a remote site that we’ve been to a few times before. I carry Winona in a backpack baby-carrier, built for long treks. When Sullivan was a baby, she’d sit patiently and ooh and awe at every fucking tree.