Love Always, Damian (7 page)

“You need to go, Elle,” I murmur, because I’m close to doing something stupid. I have to do for Lia what I couldn’t do for Kate and walk away. Still, I can’t take my eyes off her.

“I can send pictures or something, if you want,” Ellie offers.

I shake my head. “Just go.”

Ellie obeys, walking toward our daughter. She squats down to help Lia with her coat, zipping it up.

“Thanks, Mommy,” I hear Lia say, her tiny voice carrying across the room to me.

Ellie takes her hand and leads her to the door. Yeah, I’m letting them leave. I can’t be anyone’s father. That little girl deserves so much better than me.

Besides, I gave my heart to Kate four years ago, and she took it with her to the grave. I have nothing left to offer anyone.

As Ellie opens the front door, Lia spins around, eyes piercing into me. Then she smiles and waves her tiny hand at me. “See you tomorrow, Daddy.”

Chapter 8

Damian

Goddammit!

Shit!

FUCK!

I can barely see through the blur of fury as I speed down the interstate. I fucking can’t do this. Dammit, Ellie!

Because I have to maintain some control over the situation, I think about how this is Ellie’s fault. All she had to do was take the damn birth control pill. Why did she even have to be in Liam’s room that night? She knew I’d be broken. She fucking knew what I’d want from her!

I can’t breathe.

Lia’s innocent little voice repeats in my head, louder and louder.
“See you tomorrow, Daddy.”

God-fucking-damn-it!

The tires skid over the pavement as I spin into the cemetery, my personal sanctuary. The only place I truly belong.

I cut off the engine and leave the keys in the ignition. It’s dark outside, but I don’t need light to know where I’m going. I bypass the three headstones that usually give me the solace I crave. Right now, I need to punch something. Pound on it until this fucking ache ripping through me leaves me the hell alone.

The elder tree protecting my loved ones serves as my relief. I’ve used it before, so it knows what to expect. My fists do too, which is why I come here instead beating the snot out of a bag at the gym. Here, the bark rips into my knuckles with each hit. It hurts like fucking hell, and I beat into the trunk harder and harder until blood I can’t see slides into my palms and mixes with the sweat pooling inside my fists. Still, I don’t stop.

I can’t.

I have to fucking undo this mess I’ve created.

Voices and images filter into my mind. The pain and regret in Ellie’s eyes. The sweetness in Lia’s smile.

And Kate. There’s always Kate.

“It’ll be okay. I promise,”
she’d told me.

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,”
my own shaky voice echoes back at me.

“I won’t.”

It’s only when I no longer feel the pain that I drop to my knees and cover my face with my bloody palms. I never should have asked to see her. What the fuck was I thinking?

I stare at the three tombstones peering back me. Nora Lowell. Liam Lowell. Kate Browdy. The three people I’ve loved more than anything in this world. I came here for this reminder tonight.

Because of me, they’re dead. I never want to forget that.

And I won’t—
I won’t
add Lia to this list.

Ellie is gone, and she took Lia with her. That’s what was supposed to happen. They’re safer far away from me. I won’t go after them, won’t call them. Ever.

My gaze lands on the red roses on Kate’s grave. Then, slowly, it rises to her name. Kathryn “Katie” Browdy. I slide my focus over to the marble stone beside Kate’s—to Liam’s.

“Lia Kathryn,” I whisper into the chilled air. I barely get the words out. Lia-Kat is such a stupid name to call her. She’s not fucking named after a pet. No, she was named for two of the most amazing people to ever set foot on this godforsaken earth. Two people who deserve to still be here.

“You should see her,” I say. “Mom, she’s the spitting image of you when you were young. Big blue eyes, long blonde hair, and a smile that will make you melt. Liam, your girlfriend is a natural as a mother, but I’ll bet you already knew she would be. You probably figured she’d have your kid instead of mine.” I snicker. “Hell, I did too.”

I pause when I come to Kate. What do I say to her? The question I always ask myself rears again: how do I tell her how bad I fucked up after she died?

I spent so much time apologizing to her when she was alive, though. I guess that hasn’t changed. “I’m sorry, Katie. I have no excuse other than I’m an asshole. But Ellie named her after you if that’s any consolation.” I pause and run a hand through my hair. “God, Kate, I wish you were here. I don’t know what to do, and I can’t fuck things up even more.”

I wait in silence for an answer that won’t come. Even so, I brush a bloodstained finger over her name again, begging for a reply. “Please, Katie. Tell me how to fix this.”

~*~

It’s sometime after midnight when I get back home. Dylan is lounging out on the sofa, nursing a beer and watching some crappy sci-fi movie.

“Hey dude,” he says. When I don’t answer right away, he glances up at me. “Damn, man. You look like shit.”

I don’t have to examine myself to know what he sees. Dried blood coats my hands and clothes. I probably have it smeared on my face too.

“Please don’t tell me you got into another bar fight,” he says.

“I wish.” I nod at his drink. “Any more of that?”

“In the fridge. Help yourself.”

Unlike me, Dylan usually sticks to the lighter stuff. Tonight, I’ll drink his cheap beer, though. I want to stay sober to remind myself that I’m making the right choice in letting Lia go. I can’t run off and do something I’ll regret because I’m drunk.

I don’t wash the blood off me before I yank two bottles from the refrigerator, pop the top on one, and sink down in the armchair. This whole scene is unusual for me, which is why Dylan eyes me instead of going back to his movie. I down half the beer in one swig, and Dylan’s eyebrows quirk upward.

“What happened tonight?” he asks.

Dylan and I don’t do the heart-to-heart thing. However, tonight I make an exception. I blame it on Dylan’s shitty beer.

“Ellie came by to tell me we have a kid together,” I say, then top off the beer.

Dylan’s eyes widen. “A kid?”

I open the second bottle. “Yep. She’s three and a half.”

“Holy shit, dude,” Dylan says, sitting up.

“That’s what I said.”

“Wait.” Dylan’s brows furrow. “Three and a half?”

My roommate is stellar when it comes to repeating what I’ve told him.

“Three and a fucking half,” I confirm.

I wait while he puts it together. Dude’s smart. Won’t take him long.

He shakes his head. “After Kate.”

Dylan knew about my “relationship” with Ellie. He never approved, but he kept his mouth shut, which I appreciated.

“Yeah. After Kate,” I verify.

“Okay then, what’re you going to do?”

I take a long drink, then shake my head. “Nothing.”

“Nothing? You serious?”

“One hundred percent. They’re both better off without me.”

Dylan takes a second to digest what I said. “So, Ellie just came here to tell you she had your kid three plus years ago, and that’s it? She didn’t ask for help or child support or anything?”

“No. She earned herself a spot on some big research project in the Great Barrier Reef for two months and needed someone to watch Lia during that time.”

“Lia as in
Liam
?”

“Lia
Kathryn
to be exact.”

“Fuck, man.”

“Tell me about it.” I suck down more beer.

“And you don’t want Lia while she’s gone?”

The whole evening replays before me, and I have no regrets. Slowly, I shake my head again.

“Why the hell not, man?” Dylan asks, his voice raising some. I understand why. Dylan’s dad bailed on his family before he was even born. Tough stuff to deal with. “She’s your daughter.”

“Because I’ll make a shitty-ass father, that’s why,” I tell him as I finish off the bottle.

“So you’re just gonna let them leave and never see her again.”

“That’s the plan. They fly out tomorrow, back to the sunny skies of Florida where they belong. Far, far away from me.”

Dylan pauses for a moment, incredulous. “Let me give this to you straight, man.” He leans forward. “You are a fucking coward, Damian. A selfish, fucking coward. You have the opportunity to get to know your own daughter, and you’re going to squander it for what? So you can spend the summer drunk off your ass, scoring with a bunch of chicks who don’t give a damn?” He shakes his head, pissed off at me. “You think if you let her go now you won’t lose her, but dude, from where I’m standing, it looks like you already have.”

~*~

When I wake up the next morning, my hands are unrecognizable. Still covered in blood with strips of skin hanging off them, they resemble raw hamburger. I shower and let the soap slither under what’s left of my skin. It stings, but I can’t go to the hospital on my first day with knuckles like this.

Working for my dad should be something I never want to do again, yet other than at the cemetery, it’s the only other place I feel close to Kate. It’s where we first met, so I spend my summers on the oncology floor of Methodist Hospital in Des Moines.

I wrap my hands in bandages the best I can. I’ll see if one of the nurses will help me out when I get there. Someone who won’t ask for an explanation. Yeah, right.

Dylan’s not up when I leave. After his lecture last night, I finished off the rest of his nasty beer and went to bed. I don’t give a fuck if the dude’s studying to be a psychiatrist; he’s got to stop analyzing me. I know what the fuck I’m doing.

At least, I did last night.

This morning, though, I’m not so sure.

They’re better off without me
, I repeat for the thousandth time to fend off my growing impulse to keep Lia this summer.

As I pass the counter to swipe my keys off it, a familiar swell of emotion fills my chest. The purple pony Lia gave me stands on the edge of the peninsula, and her calling me daddy rings loud and clear in my head again.

Before I can stop myself, I stride over and pick up the toy. I can’t remember what she called these things, but this one is special to her. Because she’s a princess. The silky purple hair has a streak of pink in it. Damn horse is so fucking girly that it makes me smile thinking about Lia playing with a whole hoard of these things.

I push the thought out of my head. Lia’s gone, and she’s not coming back, thank God. That little girl deserves more than I can ever offer. I need to get her out of my memory before I change my mind.

On the way out to my car, I dump the toy into the garbage.

~*~

“From the gym?” Leslie, Kate’s favorite nurse, asks. It’s clear she doesn’t believe me.

“Finals week was tough,” I answer. “I had to take it out on something.”

“A cement block?”

I puff out a laugh. Leslie and I have a like/hate relationship. The only thing we ever agreed on was Katie. Somewhere along the way, though, I won Leslie over, and I can’t figure out how. After all the crap I did, I was never good enough for Kate.

“Let’s clean it up and I’ll ask your dad to write up an antibiotic script for you.”

“I appreciate it, Leslie.”

After I’m wrapped up, Leslie, who acts as my supervisor of sorts, gives me the rundown for the day. I’m limited in what the hospital will allow me to do, but I work my ass off and do what I’m asked. Completely unlike how things were before Kate.

Before, I didn’t give a flying fuck and the hospital was the last place I wanted to be. That fact was clear to everyone here. I was an asshole, destroying hospital property, creating more work for the nurses, and doing what I could to make their lives hell. Until Kate, I never gave a patient a backward glance. It was Kate who changed that.

Now, the patients are my biggest reason for coming. None of them deserve to be here fighting for their lives like this. Cancer is the devil, an evil monster that destroys everything in its path.

And all the kids in here have looked him square in the mother-fucking eye and said, “I won’t let you win.”

When I’m finished with what Leslie gave me, I make my way into The Commons for some down time. The room is like a large rec room with sofas, tables, and chairs, a ping-pong table, a seventy-inch television with a Blu-ray, Wii U, and X-box. Windows line one whole side and the adjacent wall has been painted by the kids who’ve spent time here. Anything they wanted to paint or write in whatever colors they choose. It’s a memorial, an inspiration, and a reminder to keep fighting. The patients call it the Hope Wall.

I’ve searched the wall high and low, and I’ve never found Kate’s. I guess she died before she got the chance.

There are two bald little boys playing
Mario Kart
, faces contorted into competitive mode. Brennan crosses my mind and how I let him win the tournament at his remission party over four years ago. Leslie tells me he’s doing great with a head full of dirty blond hair and has only been back for check-ups.

As I scan the room, I realize the boys aren’t alone. In the far corner, sitting on a pink beanbag and reading a book, is a girl. What strikes me is the long, blonde hair that falls in her face the same way Lia’s did last night. In fact, this girl can’t be more than a few years older than Lia.