Cade turns off the Jeep, lays his palms on his knees, and breathes out heavily.
None of us move.
None of us are ready.
But in order to heal, you have to make that step and do the hard thing, instead of letting the pain beat you.
I put my hand on the door handle and push it open. “Come on,” I say, coaxing them out of the car.
Cade follows first, then my mom.
We all say nothing as we head inside the building, check-in, and take our seats in the waiting area.
Little time passes before we’re being called back into Dr. Long’s office. He’s an older man, about fifty or sixty, with gray hair and a heavy beard. He’s kind and patient, though, and as far as therapists go, I don’t think he’s that bad.
Cade and I sit on the couch and my mom takes the chair.
Dr. Long sits in his chair, his legs crossed, and smiles kindly.
“I’m glad to see you all back today,” he says. “I know this is only your second visit together, but consistency is progress, and I think these meetings together, as well as your separate appointments, are key in healing.” He claps his hands together and appraises us. “What would you all like to talk about today?”
I bite my lip. So many thoughts are running through my mind because there’s an endless list of things we need to talk about.
Cade surprises me by speaking first. “Gabe. I want to talk about Gabe.”
My head swivels toward him, and like always, whenever I hear Gabe’s name a pang pierces my chest.
Cade swallows thickly and looks at me and then Dr. Long. “Thea blames herself, and I want her to know that it wasn’t her fault. It was no one’s fault. It was a freak accident.”
I exhale a shaky breath and my eyes dart to the ceiling. “Is that true, Thea? Do you think it’s your fault?”
I press my hands over my eyes. In the last month I’ve thought more about Gabe than I have in the eight years since he died. It’s too painful, and every time I think of him, it’s like someone’s stuck a knife in my chest and torn open the muscle and bone, splitting me in half.
“I know it’s my fault,” I mumble.
“Why is that?” Dr. Long asks. “Why do you know it’s your fault? Tell me what happened.”
I take a deep breath as flashes of that day flit through my mind.
“We were on vacation,” I start. “I wanted to go horseback riding so we all went. Gabe didn’t really like it, and he kept saying he wanted to get off and not do it. I called him a baby.” I press my lips together, fighting the rush of emotions. “His horse got spooked and reared back, and he fell off. He hit his head and bled out. God, there was so much blood.” When I close my eyes, it’s like I’m back at that day, watching him bleed, and there’s nothing I can do and the last thing I ever said to him was that he was a baby and he needed to suck it up.
Dr. Long presses his finger to his lips. “I don’t see how this is your fault, Thea. You didn’t push him off the horse. It sounds to me like a freak accident.”
“If I hadn’t begged for us to go, we wouldn’t have been there.” I pause, gathering my breath. “And you know how they say horses can sense your emotions? I think that horse knew Gabe was scared and it made it antsy, and then … who knows.” I shrug. “All I know is that it was my choice that led us there.”
Dr. Long sits back in his chair. “Hmm.”
“What?” I ask. “Say it.”
“It seems like this could have easily happened some other way. For instance, what if Cade had suggested you go zip-lining, and the gear had failed and something had happened to Gabe that way. Would you expect Cade to blame himself for that?”
“No,” I whisper.
“And if Gabe had suggested horseback riding himself and something happened, would you have then blamed Gabe for his own death?”
“No,” I whisper again. “I would have said it was an accident.”
“Exactly.” Dr. Long smiles. “It was an accident. Nothing could have prevented it.”
“I feel so guilty,” I sob.
The warmth of Cade’s arms wrap around me. “Please, don’t feel guilty,” he begs.
“Do you have anything you’d like to say, Lauren?” Dr. Long asks my mom.
My mom wipes a tear from her eye. “I think we’ve all been carrying a lot of guilt about Gabe. I blamed myself, thinking if I’d left Malcolm we wouldn’t have even been there. I hadn’t even wanted to go on that vacation, but I had to do whatever he said.” She laughs humorlessly. “God,” she groans. “I was so stupid to stay with him.”
“Stupid,” Dr. Long repeats. “Why did you stay with him then?”
She presses her lips together and then sighs. “Fear. I was afraid he’d hurt me if I left. Or hurt the kids more than he already had. I was scared I’d have to share custody and I wouldn’t be able to protect them. But as it is, I wasn’t able to protect them even when I was there. Again, I was too scared to even stick up for my children, and that makes me as much of a monster as him.”
Dr. Long steeples his fingers together. “I’m not saying what you did was right, because there is no right or wrong in your situation, but you did what you had to do to survive. All of you have.”
“I want him gone from our lives for good,” I whisper. I look my mom straight in the eye and say, “I don’t want any of us to ever speak to him again. He doesn’t deserve the right to be our dad.”
She nods. “I’m not going back,” her voice cracks.
“Promise me,” I beg. “Promise.”
“I promise,” she whispers.
This time, when I breathe out, my chest feels lighter than it has in years.
Thea and I walk the streets of downtown Denver, hurrying to keep up with the realtor.
Anna Walker might be five foot two and wearing six-inch heels, but the woman mows through the people on the street, leaving Thea and me in her dust.
“How does she move her little legs so fast?” Thea hisses under her breath.
“I have no idea.”
Anna stops in front of shiny steel doors. “The first place is on the top floor of this building.”
I grab the door and let her and Thea in first.
“Whoa,” Thea gasps. “This lobby is gorgeous.”
Everything is shiny black and chrome, giving it a modern industrial vibe.
Anna heads straight for the elevators. There are four total, two on each side.
The doors on one slide open and we step inside. Anna swipes a card and then pushes the floor button.
“You have to have a card to operate the elevators,” she explains. “So no one from the streets can wander up to your door. Several players on your team live here as well, if you choose this place,” she tells me with a smile. “It’s one of the more popular buildings. It’s central to everything downtown and has excellent views.”
She continues to rattle off various facts about the building, but I’m only half listening. Instead, I’m watching Thea for any signs that she’s uncomfortable. After her reaction yesterday when I told her about the realtor, I worried I’d pushed her too far. It’s not that I’m desperate to move out, but with the added addition of her mom, it has grown crowded in the house. If she doesn’t want to move, I’m cool with that, but I do think we need to see what’s out there and talk about it.
There’s a lot we need to talk about. There are only a few weeks left until Thea’s back in school and then my game season is going to start.
The summer’s been well and good, but adulthood is about to smack us square in the face and we have a lot to figure out.
The elevator doors slide open and we enter into a long hall.
Anna leads us to the last door on the right. “This is a corner space, so lots of windows and natural light.”
She unlocks the door and it swings open into a small foyer.
“Door to your left leads to a powder room,” she explains, opening that door and turning on the light so we can see. “And this do
or is a closet.” She points to the one on the right.
Thea opens that door and pokes her head inside.
Anna leads us through the archway and it opens into a large living space.
“This would be your family room and dining area, and the kitchen is there to your right, open to this space. It’s an excellent place for parties,” she says exuberantly like this is a major selling point.
“I like the floors,” Thea comments, pointing at the shiny black wood floors. “And the view is nice.”
It certainly is. The whole left and back wall are solid windows, overlooking the city and mountains in the distance.
I head to the window and nod. “Yeah, the view is amazing,” I agree.
“Bedrooms are this way.” Anna claps her hands together to get our attention.
Thea and I follow her down the hall and see another bathroom, guestroom, and master bedroom.
“What do you think?” Anna asks us, leading us back through to the front door.
I shrug and look at Thea, waiting for her to speak first.
“It’s nice,” Thea hedges, and Anna beams. “But cold. It doesn’t feel like a home.”
Anna’s smile falls but then she quickly goes into sales mode. “You can make it a home, though. Your home.”
She shrugs and looks at me. “This doesn’t feel like our home to me, does it to you?”
I shake my head. “No, it doesn’t.”
Anna’s shoulders slump, but she puts on a winning smile. “That’s okay. That’s why you have me. We’ll keep looking.”
We see three more places after that, each one worse than the last.
We part ways with Anna and it’s easy to see she’s feeling a bit frazzled that we haven’t liked anything. But they were all too modern and not us.
Thea and I start down the street, back toward where I parked my truck, but I spot an ice cream shop and pull her inside.
She smiles widely. “Ooh, ice cream.”
We each order a cone; I get mint and she gets cookie dough.
There are tables and chairs outside the shop and we take a seat so we can eat our ice cream in peace instead of walking down the street with it.
I lick my ice cream and then ask her, “How’d it go yesterday with the therapist?”
“Good, I think.” She shrugs. “We still have lots to talk about, but I think we’ve made a lot of progress in a short amount of time, so that’s good. I think Mom’s feeling a lot better. She’s looking and acting more like a human being.”
I nod and grab a napkin, wiping melted ice cream off my fingers. “Any word from your dad?”
She nods. “He keeps calling my mom, non-stop, apparently. She never answers, but that doesn’t stop him from leaving nasty messages. I keep telling her she needs to change her number.” She shakes her head. “Cade’s caught him driving by the house twice, looking for her, I guess.”
My eyes widen in surprise. “Has Cade confronted him?”
She shakes her head. “He never stops. Only gives dirty looks.”
“We should get a security system installed.”
She nods in agreement. “Yeah, we definitely should. He might be my dad, but I don’t trust him. At all.” Fear flashes in her eyes.
I don’t like seeing that she’s afraid. Especially of someone she should be able to love completely. It’s a shame she’s been robbed of that.
“We talked about Gabe too, at therapy, I mean,” she adds.
I nearly fall out of my chair. I can’t even remember the last time I’ve heard someone utter Gabe’s name. After he died it became this unwritten rule that we never speak his name.
“Gabe?” I repeat, hating how squeaky my voice sounds, but she’s completely surprised me. “How’d that go?”
“Good.” She licks her ice cream, her brows furrowed so I know she’s thinking deeply about something. “I feel better, since we talked about him yesterday. Like a weight has been lifted from my shoulders. I’ve blamed myself for what happened for a long time, and Dr. Long is showing me that it isn’t my fault. Accidents do happen.”
I frown. “I didn’t know that.”
“Know what?” She bites into her cone.
“That you blamed yourself. You never talk about it.”
“Exactly. I don’t talk about it, because it hurts too much, and I felt like for a long time I could’ve prevented his death. So, I guess, it became easier to pretend he doesn’t exist, which was wrong of me. I don’t want to erase his existence from my life.” She presses her lips together, staring off into the distance. “I want to go visit his grave. I haven’t been in years.”
“We can go. Just say when.”
“When.” She smiles, but it’s a little bit sad.
“Right now?” I confirm.
“Well, after we finish our ice cream. We should probably get some flowers too. Aren’t you supposed to take flowers to a grave? Maybe a toy too? Gabe loved trains.”
“Whatever you want.”
“Thank you,” she whispers.
“Don’t thank me.”
“You deserve to be thanked,” she argues. “You’re pretty awesome.”
I chuckle. “No, I just love you.”
She grins. “Same difference.”
We finish our ice cream, and since we’re already downtown, it doesn’t take us long to get flowers and a toy train.
We head back to my truck and get in, then drive back toward home, and to the cemetery.
I reach the cemetery gates and park on the street.
I can feel Thea shudder beside me and her hands flex in her lap. Eventually, she takes a breath and gets out of the car. I reach into the back and grab the flowers and train before joining her.
She stares at the wrought-iron gates with fear in her eyes. She steels her shoulders, though, and lifts her chin defiantly, refusing to be bowed.
Thea takes a deep, shaky breath and her hand finds mine. I squeeze hers in reassurance.
“When you’re ready,” I tell her.
She nods and gives me a small smile in thanks for not pushing her.
This is a big deal for her, and she has to go at her own pace.
A few minutes pass, and then she finally takes the first step forward, letting go of my hand.
She’s slow at first, but then picks up speed, until she wraps her hands around the gate and pushes it open. I follow behind, so that I don’t crowd her. If she needs a moment alone I want her to have it.
She stops and turns around, looking at me with panic in her eyes. “I can’t remember where it is. Xander,” her voice cracks on my name, “it’s been so long that I don’t know where my own brother is buried. How wrong is that?”
“It’s okay,” I assure her. “We’ll find it.” I scan the area and point. “I think it might be that way. I remember it being near a big tree.”
“Right, right,” she chants. “That sounds right.”
She heads off the way I pointed. I scan every marker we pass, and up ahead, Thea gasps, dropping to her knees.
“This is it,” she breathes.
I hand her the flowers and toys and start to back away, but her hand quickly darts up and grabs onto my jeans. “Stay,” she pleads, looking up at me with wide eyes. “I don’t want to be alone.”
“Are you sure?” I ask.
She nods. “Please.” Her voice is no more than a whisper, the pain evident in the way she can barely speak.
“Okay.” I clear my throat and sink down onto my knees beside her.
She takes my hand, wrapping her fingers firmly around mine.
I look at her, but she keeps her gaze pinned on the gravestone. It’s just a simple stone marker, spelling out Gabe’s name, birthday, and the day he died.
“Hi, Gabe,” Thea says softly. “I’m sorry I haven’t come to visit you in a while. I’m a shitty sister.” She wipes a tear away. “I’ll be honest, I’ve tried hard to forget you. It was easier to pretend you didn’t exist, but that was wrong of me. So wrong. And I’m sor
ry. I hope you can forgive me. I promise I’m done being that selfish now, and I want to celebrate you in any way I can, every day, so that you’re always here with us.” She traces her finger over his name. “You were a cool kid, even if you irritated the crap out of me. I really do love you, so much, more than you’ll ever know, and I’m sorry I never got to show you. I’m sorry your life was cut short.” She begins to sob, and I place my hand on her back, trying to offer her any comfort that I possibly can. “I hope wherever you are up there, that it’s beautiful, and that you’re always smiling.”
She wipes her eyes and places the flowers the way she wants them and then puts the train above his name.
She turns to me, mascara smudged beneath her eyes. “Look at me.” She laughs. “I’m a mess.”
I chuckle and grasp her neck, pulling her toward me so I can kiss her forehead.
“You’re my mess.”
“The divorce papers are here,” I announce with glee.
Xander’s head snaps up from the kitchen table, where he was eating his breakfast, and says, “What?” His eyes are wide with horror and he looks torn between pissed off and hurt. He starts to slide the chair out from the table, no doubt ready to confront me.
I smack him on the head with the padded envelope. “Not for us, you dipshit. For my mom.”
“Oh.” His body sags with relief and he gives me a boyish smile. “My mistake.”
“Now that you mention it, though …” I start, tossing the envelope on the kitchen counter. I saunter over to him and sink into his lap, straddling him. His hands fall to my thighs. “The summer is dangerously close to over. So, what do you say, Kincaid? You wanna be stuck with me forever? Sure you don’t want to take one of those pretty cheerleaders for a ride?”
He shakes his head, his brown eyes darkening. “You. I only want you.” He licks his lips. “How about you? You want to explore the party college life? A new guy every weekend?”
“Eh, I did that last year.” I wave a hand dismissively. He gives me a look of horror. “The parties, not the guys.”
When Stars Collide (Light in the Dark #2) Page 21