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Do you see me standing next to the grave? Do you see the way my head’s buried in my hands, the way my shoulders are slumped? I’m sad. That’s the simple way to put it. I’m overwhelmed and confused and unsure what I’m doing in my life, let alone raising a three-year-old. I can’t believe yesterday happened, let alone the reality that I’m standing in front of Ava’s grave.
I haven’t been here since the funeral and thought for sure I would have been here more. I should be bringing River here every day to see her. Making sure her memory of her mother never fades, right?
A good person would, but I don’t feel like a good person today. I feel like one who put herself before the needs of the child her sister trusted her with.
I’m notorious for messing up my life. I do it all the time.
“I don’t know what you were thinking when you asked me to introduce River to Tiller,” I whisper, sitting cross-legged in front of her grave, tracing my fingertips over her engraved headstone.
Tear-filled eyes lift to the one I keep disappointing, even if she doesn’t see it. I flash back to the night I held her, twirling purple locks and untwirling. Reaching for my hair, I do the same and I’m only reminded of Tiller.
“I don’t think he’s ever going to be capable of being who she deserves,” I admit softly. “For about a minute, I really believed that maybe—just maybe—he could change. Maybe he could be someone River could count on. Who we could count on, but it was just me trying to fool myself into thinking someone as bad as him could be good. I so badly wanted to create a perfect world for River, and having Tiller there was part of that dream. But you know me. I mess everything up.” Emotion wells up, my throat tightens, but I have to admit this to her. “I came so close to losing her today, Ava. I found her, unattended, holding a razor blade playing with lines of cocaine.” The image of her innocently staring at the razor blade and the white lines will forever be engrained in my brain. “When I saw her, I think I stopped breathing until I had her in my arms and out of that house. What if I hadn’t walked in when I did? What if she had hurt herself with the blade or even worse, what if she had tried to taste the cocaine?” I pause, still not sure she didn’t. She’s awfully relaxed this morning, but then I supposed if she had ingested cocaine, she’d be wild, right?
I bury my face in my hands. “Oh my God, I can’t even imagine,” I cry. “But I promise, Ava, I’m going take care of herexactlyhow you would have. I’m going to make sure she has the life she deserves where the biggest stress is which princess dress to wear that day and not whether or not I’m gonna find her standing in front of a pile of drugs playing with a razor blade in her little hand. I know you wanted her to know her father, but I’m sorry, that’s just one thing I can’t do. He’s never gonna put anyone before himself, and I’m not willing to risk either of our hearts waiting to find out.”
For her, I have to stay away until he gets help, but I can’t be the one who makes him chose it. He needs to do this for himself, without us.
My phone rings in my bag. I don’t want to answer it because deep down, I know who’s calling. Tiller. He hasn’t stopped. But when I peek at the number, it’s not him. It’s Scarlet.
My heart races in my chest and I think she’s probably calling to check on me after hearing our fight. After it, I rushed out of the house with River yesterday. I refused to talk to anyone, unable to process anything that’d happened, other than I knew I needed to leave.
I slide my finger over the screen. “Hey, Scar.”
She breathes out. “Are you okay?”
“Not really.” There’s no sense in lying to her.
“I uh. . .” She pauses, withholding, and then lets out a sigh. “It’s Tiller.”
Does your heart pound like mine? Do you find it hard to swallow not knowing what’s going to come next? You know Tiller. He disconnects and self-destructs and eventually I know one of these days he’s going to overdo it. “What happened?”
“He’s in the hospital. He uh. . . he tried to overdose we think. Shade found him at some guy’s house in the valley.”
“Is he. . .?” I have to pause, my hand on my chest, my eyes on River in the distance, placing flowers on her parents’ grave and talking quietly to them. My heart aches to go to him, to feel the warmth of his body against mine, to hear his voice, but I know I can’t. “Is he okay?”
“I think so, but he’s either going to jail or rehab. Wrecked his Ducati somehow and Ricky’s pissed, and Willa wants to murder him.”
I can’t say I blame her. “I want to see him, but I can’t,” I admit, feeling guilty.
“I know, babe. You just take care of that little girl. He’ll be okay, we just wanted to let you know what happened. Ricky said he has his phone and noticed he kept calling you last night.”
“Yeah, he called constantly. I had to shut it off.”
The line’s quiet, our breathing, mine unsteady, hers nervous. “Is River all right?”
“She’s fine. I don’t think she even remembers what she was playing with or what it was.”
“That’s good.”
Awkward silence envelopes me and my eyes burn with tears thinking of Tiller in a hospital bed, knowing I drove him to do what he did. “I just can’t. I need to go.”
“Oh, yeah. Let us know if you need anything.”
We hang up. I look at River. I cry. Maybe I’d been blind to everything so I could know what it felt like to have him, to have her, to have a life that I loved, if only for a moment. While my back was turned, I let it all fall apart.
I’m alive.
Are you surprised?