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My mawmaw’s voice slid out of the house. “Fleur, this is your son. Think about—”

“I have no son,” my mom hissed, and the door slammed shut in front of my face.

I clenched my jaw, swallowing the lump that hung in my throat as peeling paint was all that stared back at me.

That was what I’d expected, thought I’d prepared for. But it didn’t hurt any less. The sting bit as raw as the knife that had sliced into my quad a few hours ago.

Chatter rose from inside. Passionate and heated words were exchanged loudly. But the conversation was indecipherable above the ringing that echoed in my ears. It was what I deserved. But the agony ripped through me all the same.

With a stumbling step back off the porch, I shrugged my shoulders up to my ears and turned away from the yellow glow piercing the night air. The hunger that sat heavy in my stomach was numb to the blow I’d received from my mother. Doubt and regret drowned the cold sliding into the humid night air.

Stars were my guide back onto the forgotten pathway as I crept away, as silent as the near-death that consumed my blackened soul.

Nothingness.

I’d left a world full of love and desire, and abandoned it for absolutely nothing. And came home too late for the mourning of someone I no longer recognized.

Good intentions had been met with a painful consequence of my own making.

Maybe it would be best to just disappear again. To call up Bernie or Dom and find my way once again, coasting along in a world where people had no expectations of me other than how quickly I was able to pull a trigger. Maybe there wouldn’t be so much sorrow left hanging around if I simply…left. Again.

But Colette was right. Running away had always been my go-to whenever things became rough. But it had been to protect her. All the running as kids had been to ensure we were never caught together, and then one day, I just kept going. My feet hadn’t stopped since, and here I was, once again, running.

Running away from parents whom I had destroyed.

My fault.

My choice.

My consequences.

Facing them fifteen years later should’ve been easier to bear, but what I felt now was nothing short of the first time I’d been shot.

This was my burden to crumble beneath. Alone and exiled. By my own actions.

Chapter 4

COLETTE

An hour until my first patient would arrive at the clinic afforded me an hour of quiet solitude to attempt to understand the thoughts rolling through my head like the storm that he was. I slowly meandered the path that took me to my little cabin. Fifteen years later, I’d long since given up the idea that Ford would ever return. I’d moved on. I’d found a life, found love, figured out how to do this whole adulthood shit without him. I’d mourned his death in a way, because he had died all those years ago. Maybe not physically, but to me, he had.

How dare he.

How dare he show up and upturn the life I was living. Okay. So this town, my parents especially, were already three feet from drowning, so help would be nice. But not from him. Definitely not from the man who had ripped out my heart and stomped on it. I’d already grieved him. I’d grieved two loves, and it had nearly destroyed me.

How fuckingdare he.

But there was apprehension building, stemming from a deeper and darker part of my heart. If he found out… Or maybe I should just tell him. Fifteen years was a long time to hold onto a secret, and he deserved to—

No. He fucking didnotdeserve to know. He’d actively chosen to leave. He’d taken my choice away from me and left, so I’d done the same thing to him.

Doubt crept into the corner of my mind in a way I’d never let before, because part of me wasn’t ready to admit that he wasn’t entirely wrong. I wasn’t sure what I would have chosen if and when I’d been faced with that decision. To pick between him and my family…

I wanted to believe I would’ve picked him. That was the choice I’d convinced myself of because it certainly made me out to be less of a horrible person. It took some of the blame off me. But I’d chosen not to call him. So there was fault on my end.

My reasoning for not calling him was fair. Was valid.

Right…?