“Fuck,” I whispered, hitting my head again.
“We’re here,” the driver announced.
I looked out at the curved driveway and regal front doors just outside the city. It would have been closer to go to Vera’s penthouse. That’s where I should have gone, returning the favor for all the times they’d shown up brokenhearted and crying at my doorstep.
Yet, somehow, I stood at the front door of my family home. Or the house I’d called home since I was twelve. I raised my fist but only managed to make it hover inches from the door, hesitating.
I could turn back. I could head to my girlfriends and cry and eat ice cream and threaten to kill whoever hurt us.
But I had questions. Questions only one particular person could answer.
Something broke open inside of me this morning. I’d never talked about my father with anyone. I shoved it aside, making myself believe that because it was in the past, and I couldn’t change it, there was no need to think about it. I believed it couldn’t hurt me anymore. Instead, I opted to power through any doubt, refusing to be anything other than a strong woman all on my own.
In the unknown territory of confessions and revelations, I’d babbled on, accidentally slipping about Bodie, too.
The flash of sympathy—pity—before he could mask it still left me cringing. It still left me feeling weak and stupid. And when Austin’s pity morphed to a raging superhero, I panicked, spiraling into a hole I was sure I’d never dig my way out of. The thought of him confronting Bodie, of people finding out and splashing it across the news, had bile rising from my stomach. It was bad enough I had to live with the shame of letting myself get there when I swore I never would, but to have everyone else know too?
I’d panicked, spewing the words I always said—the ones that made me, me, but this time, they felt wrong—foreign. This time they left me questioning my foundations. This time they left me alone, watching Austin leave me behind.
And now I stood outside my mom’s door, without a heart and too much pride, unable to knock.
What if the answers I got only made it worse? What if I stood on the brink of opening Pandora’s box?
What if you feel this hollow and empty forever? A voice whispered underneath everything else.
“I am Raelynn Vos,” I muttered through the tears I kept choking back. “I don’t fucking run.”
Sticking with my decision, I hammered against the door. With the click of the lock, tears welled to the edge. When the door swung wide, revealing my mom, I lost the battle, and they spilled over.
“Mom,” I cried before flying into her arms just like I had as a little girl.
She held me tight and let me soak her in tears, stroking up and down my back, rocking us back and forth. “I’m right here. Shhh. Shhh.”
As soon as there was a break in the tears, the questions came pouring out.
“Why did you marry him?”
“Kenneth?” my mom asked, surprised. “Why would you a—”
“Why did you stay with him for so long?” I didn’t have it in me to stop and explain the flood of questions. “Why when he hurt us so much? Was he always that way? Did he change somewhere along the way? Did you see it coming?”
Realization replaced the confusion, followed quickly by acceptance as if she’d been waiting for these questions.
“Raelynn, I didn’t think we were supposed to—” my dad’s greeting came to a screeching halt when I raised watery eyes to his shocked ones. Behind his glasses, I saw the caring dad who loved me from day one harden into a man ready to do battle. “Who do I need to kill.”
“Kenneth,” my mom scolded blandly.
“Is it Bodie?” he asked, uncaring of the reprimand. “I’ll fucking wipe the floor with that piece of shit.”
More tears built over his knight in shining armor dad routine. Unable to get words out, I shook my head.
His brows lowered more while he worked the puzzle out in his mind. Realization dawned. “Shit. Is it Austin?” Disappointment flashed before he hardened again. “Well, then, he can wipe the floor with me, but I’ll get enough hits in to make it count.”
A garbled laugh choked its way through the tears, watching my dad try to pump himself up like he was about to hop into the ring right there. With a swallow, he relaxed enough to offer a sad smile. “I’m sorry, kiddo. Do you, uh, want to have a drink and talk about it?”
While Dad and I always managed to sneak a joke in here and there to ease the tension in any situation, he still struggled with handling all the “girl stuff,” as he called it. But he always tried, and I loved him for it.