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I have no clue what to do, how to help her, or why I’m the one sitting with her on this hideous bathroom floor. She deserves someone better. Smarter. A mother who didn’t fuck her whole life up.

Hugging her knees to her chest, she sits up, her smeared eyeliner painting her face.

“Does your dad know?” I ask, resting my back against the bathtub.

She shakes her head, sniffling. “He might suspect, but he hates when we fight. He’d never bring it up unless he knew for sure.”

I nod, shell-shocked and heartbroken.

“Are you going to tell him?” she asks with a sniff.

Once I realized she was okay, it’s the only thing I’ve been thinking of. If I tell him, I lose her trust, which is what he wanted out of me spending time with her. If I don’t tell him . . . I can’t even think about that. I bite a nail. “I don’t know.” I chew until my finger bleeds then move on to the next one. “When was the last time?”

Through sniffles: “A few weeks ago.”

I’m not sure what the protocol is for this. “Why?”

“Because”—she starts to cry again—“my dad found the weed and got mad at me.” I pass her a roll of toilet paper and she blows her nose. “And I knew about you before I met you. He told me about you. And your brother. So”—she exhales a shaky breath—“I don’t know.” New tears follow, and she says something garbled that I can’t understand. “And I should have just told you he was my dad, but not many people want to hang out with a cop’s kid.”

“Especially that cop.” My joke flops; neither of us laugh.

She blows her nose again.

“Why do you do it?” I ask. “What does it feel like?”

Her eyes widen slightly, caught off guard by my directness. “I started after my mom went to prison. A kid at school knew, called me a convict baby. Even though my dad’s a decorated cop and zoomed around Atlanta like a superhero.” She scoffs as she shakes her head, wiping her eyes with a wad of toilet paper. “I accidentally cut myself doing dishes on a glass that night, but insteadof it hurting, I felt relief. Like I had so much pain in me it needed to be bled out. It’s just—some days I’m fine, and then all the sudden I remember my mom killed someone’s daughter, and I don’t know what to do with that.”

I go dizzy at the visual.

“Are you mad at me?”

Despite the mental health crisis exploding in my ugly bathroom, I laugh. “I’m the furthest thing from mad, Wren. I’m . . . sad. Scared. Completely clueless.” I blow out a long and weighted breath. “This is why people who read monster romance don’t have kids.” She almost smiles. “Text your dad, tell him I’m dropping you off.”

She punches at her watch, then stares at me.

“I don’t know,” I tell her, answering the question we’re both thinking as I stand from the bathroom floor. “What I’m going to do or not do, I just—I need time. And, if we do this—if I keep it between us—you listen to everything I say, got it?”

“Yes. I swear.” She sniffs as she stands. “Please, Scotty.”

“If I see a new cut, I’m telling him.”

She nods.

“Are you—” I swallow, scared to finish the question. “Do you want to die?”

Her eyes go as wide as baseballs. “No.”

“Okay.” I have no way of knowing if she’s telling the truth, but I hope she is. Desperately.

Then it strikes me right between the eyes how hard this is. How royally fucked-up parenthood must be. One minute you’rescraping wallpaper and laughing, the next you’re in an outdated bathroom, everything falling apart without a soul to tell you what to do. Nothing to guide you but panic and a prayer that feels too small. You inhale without a care in the world only to find your lungs collapsed on the exhale.

I’m not made for this; I don’t have a clue.

I study Wren in the Bronco, her gaze out the window, and a deluge of doubt washes over me along with a twisted feeling of confirmation. Because if I can’t handle one hard moment with a kid, I know for certain my choice not to be a mother was also my best.

Nineteen

“I’mWinterandI’maddicted to winning.”