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A few of his punches connect. I feel the hit against my right cheek. It’s dull, but I know I’ll have a bruise just beneath my eye.

“Here’s what you seem to fail to realize, Bron.” I shove him into the corner between the wall and the front door. “I didn’t leave because you were my son. I wanted to take care of you. I wanted my son. But you made it so fucking hard to love you.” I pause, both of us breathing hard, staring into the other’s face like two alley cats ready to square off. “It didn’t matter how you came into my life, I accepted that you were there, and I did my best by you.”

“Best?” Bloody spittle spray over his busted lip as he shoves off the wall to stand toe-to-toe with me. “You couldbarely look at me most days. I was a burden you had to deal with. You left every chance you got just to get away from me.”

“I had to work!” I snarl back. “Your mother wasn’t, and I never asked her to. I asked nothing from her or you. I supported you both because that was my job.”

“Your job was to be a father, too. I never blamed Mom for sleeping around, for needing affection when you could barely stand to touch either of us.”

I take a careful step back, drawing in a breath as I go to calm the urge to break my knuckles into the plaster like some lunatic.

“You never let me,” I tell him softly. “Your head was so full of hate for me I couldn’t get two feet from you without you pushing me away. I used to sit with you when you were sleeping because that was the only time I could...” I cut myself off, emotion lodging deep in my throat. “I tried, Bron. In whatever way you let me, I tried to be your dad. I tried to get you to let go of all that hate you were fed and give me an inch, but the more I tried, the more you hated me, so I stopped.”

“You’re my dad. You’re not supposed to stop loving me,” he bites out, eyes bright with anger and unshed tears that cut me to my soul.

“That’s just it. I never stopped loving you. You just made it really hard to keep trying.” I look away before the burning in my own eyes gives me away. “I don’t know what you werehoping would happen at the end of all this, but maybe it’s for the best. Maybe it’s time you found your own way without me.”

“So, that’s it. You’re giving up.” I don’t miss the crack in his voice. I fight to ignore it. Ignore the bitter scoff that follows. “Typical. Just run away from your problems like you always do. Run back to your piece of ass and that piece of shit—”

“Enough.” I grab the knob and twist, but keep the door shut as I look my son in the face. “The saddest part of all of this isn’t that you burned the bridge between us. It’s that you hurt Everly. Why would you do that when you clearly never cared for her?”

Bron stares at me with genuine bewilderment furrowing his brows. “You really don’t get it?” His mouth quirks up while his eyes remain cold and dead. A barren wasteland of ice enveloping me in their hatred. “Hurting her, hurt you. Watching me make her cry and being powerless to do a damn thing about it fueled me. I lived for it. Using her, breaking her was just an added bonus for being such a pretentious bitch. But, yeah,” he smirks, “it was fun watching you suffer, making you think I was boning her tight pussy. She begged me to, you know. Took off all her clothes and begged me to fuck her, but the sight of her turned my stomach. Should have sucked it up and done it.”

I wait for the rage, for the brewing fury to beat his face until there’s nothing but pulp. But nothing comes. For the first time in twenty-four years, I stare at Bron and feel ... peace. I feellike I finally found land after being lost at sea for a million years. All the weight of him has lifted off my chest.

“Thank you,” I tell him without thinking.

His sneer slips a notch. “What?”

I wrench open the door, spilling a long square of sunlight across the threshold and over me like a blanket. Warming me for the first time in years.

“Time to go,” I tell him instead of answering.

Bron shifts, suddenly not so sure, but the time for that is long gone. I am no longer the man desperate for a connection. I will no longer beg to be loved in return. Hurting me I can forgive. Hurting Everly out of spite? For fun? There is nothing he can say now that will ever make me see him as my son again.

“You can’t do this. I have nowhere to go.”

My fingers close in the line right above the bend of his elbow and I drag him over the threshold in his sweats and t-shirt. I don’t even let him grab his shoes when I shove him onto the porch.

“You are no longer my problem,” I tell him.

“What about my stuff?” he shouts, looking like he’s ready to start forward. “I don’t even have my car keys.”

“I’ll pack up anything you paid for yourself and leave it on the porch for you.”

I reach for the clump of keys hanging on the hook next to the door and unthread his SUV key free of the rest. I toss it tohim. It catches the back of his hand mid attempt and goes sailing over his shoulder and down the porch steps.

Bron goes scurrying after it.

“Also,” I call after him, “if you tell anyone about what you saw, I promise, I vow on my life, no one will ever find your body, Bron. I will make you disappear.”

Without waiting for a response, I shut the door.

And exhale.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

EVERLY