Page 127 of Always Love You More

She doesn’t argue, and I scoop her up, her body too light in my arms. I move past Billy and Luke as I exit the room and start down the hall.

I set her on the bed, making sure she’s on her side, and within a couple minutes, she’s out again.

When I step back into the kitchen, Billy and Luke each have a trash bag and are clearing things off the floor. I move to help them, but Luke stops me.

“Why don’t you go shower or something? Give yourself a minute. We’ve got this.”

I glance over at Billy, and he nods.

After muttering, “Thanks,” I make my way to the bathroom and for the first time since it all happened, I’m alone.

The door shuts with aclickbehind me as I lock it, and for several seconds, I do nothing. Just stand here. Then, as if all at once, everything I carefully pushed away crashes into me.

Pain.

Sadness.

Grief.

Every emotion swirls around in my head.

And it’s too much.

Too much to feel.

Too much to deal with.

So, I grab onto the thing I’m used to. The emotion I know how to handle.

Anger.

It courses through me, burning everything in its path.

Until there’s nothing but a white hot rage.

How could my father leave me like this?

How could he do this to me?

He picked his pride over me, and because of it, he’s gone.

And Sam. He fucked her up, too. He took her brother away.

He tookeverythingaway.

All my fucking life, he’s taken everything.

He took my mother away. Made her a shell of herself.

He took my childhood and forced me to become something—someone—I don’t want to be.

And now he’s gone, and I don’t know how the fuck I’m supposed to feel.

Because I hated him.

Wanted him to die more times than I can count.

But he was my father, and for some fucked-up reason, I still loved him.