by Casey Hagen
Because I was trying to save his life.
Being with Maisy lit me up from the inside out with so much color, so much attitude, so much heart, and no amount of being here would ever feel normal again.
I live for the both of us now.
She was right. The minute I didn’t have someone who needed me, someone to save, I didn’t know what to do with myself. Being here wasn’t living. And how did I figure out how to live for both Abel and me when I hadn’t even figured out how to do it for myself?
The sinking feeling in my gut hadn’t eased since I left that hotel, no doubt making another monumental mistake with Maisy, but they had a win to celebrate and the minute the exhibition was over, the storm took hold in me one more time and I wouldn’t do that to her in her moment.
She’d say okay again and I just—I didn’t want us to turn into that. Me coming apart and her becoming the person who had to tether me to the ground again.
She wanted to take care of me and I didn’t want to be the person in her life who constantly needed to be taken care of. Who stole the joy from her wins because he still stewed in an emotional wasteland because he used people needing him as a way to avoid his emotional shit.
She called my phone just once that last night in Philly and when I didn’t answer, she let me go.
And I took advantage of the fact that I knew she would.
I had to get my shit together and I wouldn’t face her again until I could be the man she deserved, the one who could give and take instead of being sucked into constant doubt and memories I couldn’t shake, so consumed by my past that all I did was take and take from her, leaving her with little happiness—her free spirit obliterated until okay became the standard between us instead of the glaring warning sign it was now.
I had to finally let my brother go.
I didn’t know how. He was half of me and letting him go felt like I was letting myself go too. Who did I become when I was alone again?
I’d never figured out the answer…and maybe that was the answer—there wasn’t one. Like words in English that couldn’t be translated into other languages because the concept just didn’t exist.
My phone buzzed and I glanced down and spotted Lana’s number.
I debated ignoring it, but this was Lana—she didn’t let anyone ignore her for long.
“Hey, is everything okay?”
“You know, Coach…I’m a pretty happy woman. I made peace with the fact that these legs are never going to work again. And until recently, I could even say I didn’t miss them for anything, but you know what I miss them for now?”
I leaned against the wall and stared out at the gray city, nothing special standing out, just a spattering of nondescript buildings with no connections—no memories. A stark contrast to the lively personality on the other end of the line. “Nope, but I’m pretty sure you’re going to tell me. Just do me a favor and skip any sex parts.”
“No sex parts unless you count me shoving my foot up your ass as sexy.”
I closed my eyes and turned away only to have my eyes go right to Abel’s urn. “How is she?” I asked, my voice thick as I swallowed hard.
“You’re an idiot.”
“No doubt.”
“She’s—well, how the hell do you think she is, huh? The damn powers that be over at Crossroads paraded them around like hometown heroes; that was cute. A bit nauseating. But I get how these things go. Look, she’s doing all the right things. She’s slapping on a smile. She’s showing up at work; she even managed to get up there to see your nephew, but she’s dying inside, man.”
“I’m working it out—I just, wait, what?” My skin tingled as restless energy skittered through me, making me pace. “She saw him?”
“So that perked your little ears up, did it? Good. Yeah, she saw him. She brought him a present and everything. She’s up here living life…a life you could be living with her if you’d stop getting in your own damn way. You’re two left skates, man, and it’s embarrassing.”
“Is she mad?” God, those words made me sound like a fucking coward. Like I didn’t dare face her down that way when really, it was one of my favorite ways to face her.
And I kind of hoped she was, because if she wasn’t—
“No, you bonehead. She’s hurt. I would kill for mad right now. Look, Zach’s here and I have to go, but I’m going to give you a little tip you gave me once out on that track. Never forget what you’re fighting for.”
She hung up before I had the chance to say goodbye, my words coming back to bite me in the ass.
Was I going to keep fighting my past or fight for my present?
My phone chimed again. A fucking Facebook notification of all things, something I’d become helpless to ignore since my nephew was born, especially now that this was the only way I could get a glimpse of him.
I swiped the screen and dropped onto my couch, only to have a frozen image of Mayhem, trademark red bandana in her hair, her eyes glassy like she’d been crying, smiling down at my nephew.
My chest constricted, my head swimming with lightheadedness.
I wasn’t ready to see her like this.
Holding a baby. Holding him.
When I couldn’t.
Or wouldn’t…because it was time to be honest.
The play icon in the middle of the frame mocked me. Dared me to tap it.
The urge to save myself came, filling me with shame. To turn off my phone and not look—not see life happening without me—happy memories I could be making with her if I could just reach for it. Saving myself meant continuing to hurt her and I couldn’t do it anymore.
I wouldn’t do it anymore.
I turned up the volume, not wanting to miss a single second even knowing I could play it over again.
Her soft voice slammed me right in the chest as her gentle fingertips brushed over my nephew’s cheeks. My heart ached in a whole new way as I watched her living in my life—what could be our life, if I’d only just stepp in and join her there.
For the first time a new pain overshadowed the old. The thought of living without her cutting me so deep the pain took my breath away as it roared through my blood.
Her lesson finally hit home.
I live for both of us now.
Abel’s urn sat there mocking me. My exact match so full of life himself that his every feeling came out, good or bad, calling me a traitor—a scathing word that killed me for so long—but words of a teenage boy diverging from his other half as he tried to be worthy to his only living parent. A man who didn’t deserve his loyalty.
But also the only parent he had left.
Why wouldn’t he see me as a traitor in that moment?
And being my vocally passionate half, what would he call me now if he were standing right here to catch me hiding out?
She was doing it. Every day she was living for us and I was hiding.
She loved me so damn much she’d give me whatever space I needed to do it.
I blinked, my eyes hazed over with unshed tears, but not enough to miss the flash of something familiar in the background. I backed up the video and caught sight of it again, hitting pause, the image frozen before me.
Right there.
Skates.
Tiny black skates with red flames on the side almost exactly like mine.
I didn’t have to wonder who got them for him. They had Mayhem written all over them.
Home.
I want to go home.
31
Patti pulled me in for a hug the minute I stepped into Banked Track late afternoon to avoid the evening rush. “Have you heard from him?”
A couple of guys sat at a table in the back, but other than that, the bar was empty. I usually loved these moments where it was pretty much just us and daydreaming as I stared at her derby days hanging on the brick behind her.
But today—today was one of those days like when you got home from school and basked in the relief from the gnawing feeling in the pit of your belly after you ov
erheard the popular girls talking about you right before lunch, so you sat away from everyone and the rest of the day you counted the minutes until you could escape and pretend it wouldn’t all happen again tomorrow.
“No,” I said as I hopped up on a stool—the flaming asshole’s stool—and watched her work behind the bar.
“He is getting entirely too old for this nonsense,” Patti said as she poured cranberry juice over ice and kicked in a splash of pineapple juice on top just like she used to when I was too young to drink, but old enough to know I wanted to sit in this bar and soak up her wisdom.
“He is kinda old,” I said.
Patti gave me a warning look as she slid the glass to me complete with a quarter slice of pineapple on top with a sword toothpick sticking out of it. “Easy girl, if he’s old, what am I?”
“Stop that, you’re going to live forever.”
“I don’t know if I want that, but he better if he’s gonna keep on wasting time like this. That boy is in for some lessons in etiquette the minute he steps foot in this town again. No more Brussels sprouts paninis for him either…not until he earns them,” Patti said as she rubbed the flat of her palm into her chest.
I froze with the pineapple halfway to my mouth. “Hey, are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” she said, waving me off. “Just indigestion. Getting old is not sexy. I do not recommend it at all.”
“I went to see Lilith and the baby the other day.” She’d named him after Cain and I still couldn’t bring myself to say the poor kid’s name out loud. I held him, he puked on me, I even gave him his first pair of skates, and I still couldn’t say his name. “She said he called once to check on him, but other than that he’s been silent.”
And he didn’t ask about me when he called.
That hurt.
Really hurt.
If he showed back up in town now, I didn’t know if I’d kiss him or kick him in the balls.
Maybe have Lana run over him with the very motorized chair he bought.
Flaming asshole.
“Honey, I normally wouldn’t do this because we should not have to do the chasing. We have to have the babies, we have the periods, we have the careers that earn seventy whatever cents on the dollar compared to a man so again, we shouldn’t have to be doing the chasing,” she said, slashing a hand through the air. “But go get that boy and bring him home. He’s your family, right? Well, he’s gone astray and maybe he just needs someone to show him the way home.” She pointed a finger at me, the towel swinging from her fingers as she did. “But for the third and final time, we shouldn’t have to do the chasing.”
I propped my chin on my hands. “If he’s having such a damn hard time finding home, he can damn well get a map.”
Patti threw her head back and laughed, her palm grinding against her chest again.
Her skin took on a gray pallor right before my eyes as her laugh came to an abrupt halt, her usually pink cheeks with barely a faint splash of color.
“Patti?” I slid off my stool. “Patti, are you okay?”
She clutched the counter, her knees buckling, the towel sliding from her fingers as she hunched over. “You know what, honey, I’m not,” she said, trying to catch her breath. “Hurts.”
I slid around the counter and managed to get behind her as her legs gave out and she crumpled to the floor in my arms. “Call 9-1-1!”
Please not now. No dammit. No!
“Patti, can you hear me? Stay with me. Help is coming.” I squeezed her hand and checked her pulse, afraid to take my fingers away once I found it. “Don’t you die on me, dammit. You’re my family too; you are not allowed to tell me to chase him down and check out on me a few minutes later. Do you hear me? Do you?” I demanded with a quick shake.
I couldn’t tear my eyes from the rise and fall of her chest as I continued to count and talk to her. Promising her I would do the chasing, but just this once if she’d just hold on.
And if he came back for me, I wouldn’t have Lana run him over; I wouldn’t kick him in the balls, or let Jackson do it although he’d threatened to do it himself.
I’d hug him, I’d curl right into him where I belonged and tell him I love him.
And then I’d make it damn clear he would never walk out on me again, so I hope he’d pulled his head out of his ass while he was gone.
She never made another sound, just lay in my arms with her eyes closed until the ambulance pulled up and the EMTs took over.
In a matter of minutes they had her strapped to the gurney with an oxygen mask settled over her face as they wheeled her out the door and loaded her in the back of the ambulance.
And all I could wonder is if I’d just seen her for the last time.
I never got my last time with my mother, but if this is what it was, maybe that was a good thing.
Because this felt like an ax right in my already shredded heart and forcing myself through every motion filled me with frozen despair.
A crowd had gathered outside and watched her go. No doubt in a matter of hours everyone in Galloway Bay would be flooding Banked Track with calls.
I grabbed my phone and dialed Rory’s number, but when she answered, all I could manage was, “Patti collapsed,” my voice breaking on even those two words.
“Wait, what?” Rory said, her voice breathless and thin.
“She collapsed here at the bar,” I said again, choking back tears. “Can you come down and take over?”
“I’m just down the street. Five minutes. I’ll be there in five minutes,” Rory said before hanging up.
Was it really only a month ago when I walked into this waiting room and wrapped my arms around Priest while he waited for word about his sister?
Before I could even get used to one change, another would hit me, and the last two, they were biggins.
The biggest.
And all I wanted as I stared out into the darkness was for Priest to show up and return the favor.
Was that really too much to ask?
I missed him so damn much that even now, after two weeks, his scent haunted me and a new stream of tears spilled down my cheeks.
Was this how Abel haunted him? Or was that even worse?
Achingly familiar arms slid around me and a sob shuddered from my lungs. I couldn’t turn to him, not yet, but oh, how I wanted to. “Are you only here because you think I need somebody?”
He buried his face in my neck, his lips brushing over my skin as he breathed me in, his hand flexing where it rested on my belly. “I’m here because I need us.”
“She told me I should go get you. Before she collapsed,” I said, choking on the clog of tears. “She told me I needed to bring you home where you belonged.”
He cleared his throat. “I’m glad you didn’t,” he said, his voice thick, his breath warm over my skin.
I turned in his arms and searched his face. The exhaustion around his eyes the same as mine. The lines etched into his skin around his mouth telling the story of the torment he’d been facing while he’d been gone. “Why?”
“Because you’d always wonder if I was only here because you did,” he said, his thumb grazing over my damp cheek. “I don’t want you to have a single doubt about why I came back—why I came to stay.”
“The farm is your home—”
“No, it’s not,” he said, settling his lips on my forehead, setting off a shuddering breath inside me. “You, Maisy. You’re my home. Wherever that is, even if it’s in a tiny apartment over Banked Track.”
His arms swallowed me whole and I burrowed in, my eyes drifting shut, the first real full breath filling my heavy lungs.
He turned his face into mine and burrowed close. “I love you so damn much,” he murmured, that rumble of his voice vibrating clear through me and cradling my heart the same way he cradled his nephew.
Slow and smooth, he found my mouth, his taste sliding through me, his kiss promising me everything I’d ever longed for. “You don’t have to fight to hold on anymore, Mayhem,�
� he whispered over my mouth. “Because I’m holding on to you.”
Sheriff Chase had to turn on some serious charm to get the hospital to bend the rules and let us see Patti, but finally, by seven that night they led us back to her room, all of us, despite the visitor limit.
Me, Cain, Eve, Rory, Sean, Marty, and Zara, the core gang, the tried and true who never missed a night at Banked Track.
“You guys have ten minutes,” the nurse said before quietly closing the door behind her.
Cain leaned in and kissed Patti’s cheek and her eyes popped open, making him jump back. “What are you trying to do, give a woman a heart attack?”
“Word is you just had one,” he said, taking her hand and settling in next to her.
“Look at the two of you,” she said with a brief smile, until she shifted, felt the oxygen tubes in her nose, and yanked them free.
“Patti, you need—” Rory began.
“Do you think I’m going to wither away if I don’t have spikes jammed up my nostrils for a couple minutes?”
“Well, no, but—”
“No buts. I only have a few minutes before miss I want to be nurse of the year is back in here poking at me and I have some stuff I need to say.”
“The bar is fine. People were too worried about you to drink so we sent them all home and shut it down for the night. Told them they better handle their feelings tonight because tomorrow they needed to drink twice as much to make up for it.”
“Ah, smart girl,” she said, taking Rory’s hand.
“And you don’t have to worry about the ordering. I helped Vince and it’s all set.”
“You’re all smart girls.” She turned to Cain then, her smile turning into a scowl. “Jury’s still out on you, but coming home was a damn good start. I better start hearing you make it up to her from that apartment over the bar. If I can’t hear it, you’re not sorry enough.”
“Jesus, Patti,” Marty muttered, rubbing her temples.
“What? If I were twenty years younger, I’d—”