The girl protecting them. Just like I should.
He stood in the distance, holding something that I couldn’t make out. After last night– after every fucked-up thing I’d done—I was surprised it wasn’t that shotgun.
Unease whirled through my being. “I’m so sorry,” I grated loud enough so he could hear, voice cutting through the morning.
It was the truth. I was so damned sorry for dragging that incredible family into my sordid world.
Time after time.
Maybe I never should have crossed that bridge segregating us in the first place.
“You seem to have a lot you’re sorry for, Maxon.” His voice warbled a little, filled with emotion and old age. But there didn’t seem to be a whole lot of anger lacing it.
Disappointment, maybe.
Affection, too?
A frown pulled across my brow. “Have plenty, don’t I? All the things I put your daughter through?”
His head slowly shook, and he took a step deeper into the meadow. The man was short, and his shoulders had started to hunch, but there was no missing the conviction and strength in his voice. “Only blame you wear was walking away.”
My frown pinched in disbelief, and bitter laughter ripped free. “My only blame? I got your daughter caught up in a world where she didn’t belong. Right from the get go. Thinking I could somehow fit. And look where that got her. Where it got your family. My father hated you all because of me. It was my fault you almost lost them that day. What other choice did I have but to walk away?”
He took another step forward, lifting his chin. “Your father hated everyone, Maxon, because that’s what he was—hate and cruelty. Long before you came along, I tried to get through to him. Hoping he might find something inside of himself that was good. But that man didn’t possess a kind bone in his body.”
Get mad, boy. You are just like me.
My father’s taunt wound through my spirit.
I flinched against the assault of it.
Izzy’s father made a soft sound of dispute. “Think your first mistake was thinkin’ you were like him. You think your good didn’t always shine through? You think we didn’t know it all along?”
“You should hate me.”
“Hate you? Don’t like you much right now, honestly, messing with my daughter’s heart. The way you’re contemplating runnin’ again.”
I started to refute him, but wavered, the words dying on my tongue.
“Wanted to hunt you down myself after I found out about Benjamin,” he continued. “Knock some sense into you. But hate you? That’s not possible.”
He took another step closer. “We wanted you, you know . . .”
Confusion had me squinting, and my hands started to shake with uncertainty. Or maybe it was just my spirit trembling with the fear of what he was getting ready to say.
He took another feeble step forward, his voice low. “Tried to convince your mama to let us adopt you when we finally got your father sent off to prison when you were a baby. Of course, that was after we tried to convince her to leave that monster, but she refused. Said she loved him. Think she was always a bit confused by what that meant.”
Agony gripped my chest when he mentioned my mother.
Horror and hate.
The love I had for her.
The loss that would never be repaired.
My failure to be better. To save her.
I’d been too weak. Too weak.
Reeling, I angled my head. “It was actually you? You were responsible for him getting arrested?”
I blinked, trying to process. They tried to . . . take me away from him?
“Your mama always denied the beatings, always making up absurd stories that a child wouldn’t even believe. But my Brianne heard it going on one day. You were screaming bloody murder, just a tiny thing, and she ran over there. Got in the middle of it. Got beat up bad. But she wasn’t afraid to sit on that stand and testify against that monster.”
“You actually think you’re somethin’? Somethin’ special? Those pig fuckers fillin’ your head with lies, too?”
He took another step closer while I stood there frozen. “We woulda done anything for you, Maxon. Our house was your home. Didn’t approve so much of you going through our daughter’s window, but we saw that bond. You were family. Through and through.”
He shifted, drawing attention to what he held in his hands.
Emotion crushed my ribs.
The book. My mother’s book.
Mr. Lane frowned, his scraggly eyebrows pulling together. “You know, it was funny when my grandson wanted me to read this with him last night before we tucked them in. Said something about it being from his dad’s mother, that it was special.”
He glanced down at it before he looked back at me. “It is special, Maxon, but it wasn’t from your mother. Izzy made this for you with a little help from her mama. After you saved them. She believed it held the truth of who you were. That it might show you what you meant to her and the way she’d always seen you. How we’ve all seen you. You’d been too blinded by self-hatred to see it for yourself. Never got the chance to thank you for that . . . for you savin’ them.”