Page 89 of What If We Break?
“Reece,” Mom said in a defeated tone, kind of like a sigh, but not really. “You can’t put your life on hold just because your father’s might have come to an end.”
Did she listen to herself?
Perhaps I was hearing wrong. My ears appeared to be working just fine, but maybe they weren’t.
I looked toward my brother, hoping he was going to say something helpful. Anything would’ve sufficed, but he kept quiet and just looked at me like our mother was right.
I couldn’t believe it.
A blunt chuckle slipped past my lips. “You can’t be serious.”
“You shouldn’t be sitting around and waiting for bad news, Reece,” Mom said.
“But I am!” I got off my seat, needing to walk around, even if it was just two steps back and forth. “Dad’s in surgery, and God knows if he’s ever making it out of there alive. Fuck, even if he does, who’s to say he will still be alive two hours later, huh?! He could die any moment, and then where was I? In the arena, doing stupid jumps and whatnot on the ice instead of being here with him.”
“If I had been glued by Eira’s side the moment I learned that she was going to?—”
“Fuck this!” I yelled, interrupting my mother. “Did shedie too young? Sure, I’m not saying she didn’t. But Dad’s not Eira. Dad doesn’t have cancer, and we didn’t haveyearsto come to terms with his death. I didn’t even fucking know Eira, okay? So please, just stop using her or Aiden as an excuse for everything.”
“I’m not using their deaths as excuses,” Mom said, sounding offended now. “But because of them, I know that you cannot just sit arou?—”
“Mamá,” Colin interrupted, shaking his head at her. “I know you mean well, but you have to stop.”
“You carried on with your life just fine,” she said. “Instead of spending the last few days Eira had with her, you were constantly…” Mom looked at Lily, who now had her eyes closed as if she was waiting for some sort of secret to be revealed. “Well, going on dates with Lily.”
Kieran rolled his eyes as if he wassoover the whole topic. He was acting like he was hearing this exact story for the tenth time this year.
“Yeah, I did spend a lot of time with Lily when I should’ve been there for Eira. I still visited her, though,” he said. “I left Lily to die just so I could be with Eira.”
My eyes were instantly back on my sister-in-law, shocked and confused at what Colin just said. I didn’t even fully understand what he was saying. Lily was alive, and she was fine? What did he mean he left her to die?
“Reece has every right to miss out on one stupid competition and one stupid game to be here. You don’t get to tell him how to live or when to hit the breaks for a moment. Truthfully, I’d rather he stayed here. He might seriously regret leaving, and you never know what this regret might do to him,” he continued. “Just because I could leave without regret doesn’t mean he can. He isn’t me. Reece is his own person.And this is still our father you’re talking about. If Reece wants to stay, he will stay.”
I wanted to agree with him, and I would have, but at that very moment, my phone started ringing. Thinking it was Brookefinallycalling back, I was disappointed to see it was only Erik.
Erik was calling me.
What the fuck?
Rolling my eyes at my phone screen, I picked up and started to walk away from my family. There was no need to let them hear whatever bullshit Erik was about to tell me. That guy was incapable of saying anything smart, but it made sense… he was Fynn’s brother after all.
“To what do I owe this pleasure, Erik?” I asked, refraining from sighing.
To my surprise, it was Brooke’s voice coming through the phone. “Where are you?”
39
BROOKLYN
My leg was shaking uncontrollably as I stared at the entrance doors of the arena. Reece and I were on in an hour and he wasn’t here yet. Surely his meeting couldn’t have taken this long.
Dad tried reasoning with me, telling me that there was no need to worry. Reece was probably just stuck in traffic. Today’s traffic was something else, I knew that, which made the whole thing even scarier.
On our way to the arena, we’d gotten in almost two accidents. Minor ones, mind you, but still. Whatever was going on today was crazy.
“Why don’t you just call him?” Dad asked, trying to be helpful. It wasn’t helpful at all.
“I forgot my phone at home.” It was lying on the coffee table in the living room.
