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“You’re high if you believe your own words,” I informed him.
He ignored me, shaking his head. “I deserve a second chance. I freaked out. I wasn’t ready…”
Holding back tears, I jerked my trembling chin up. “Well, you can’t meet her. You don’t deserve her. Never have.”
“Don’t be a bitch. I’m trying to do the right thing here.”
“Are you kidding me? A second ago, you were fine not knowing whether she was alive or not.” I tried to sidestep him again.
“But now you’re here, and—”
“And it doesn’t change anything,” I bit out. “You’re still a stranger, and I still don’t want you anywhere near my daughter.” I squeezed past him.
“God dammit, Dylan, why do you always have to be so difficult?” He snatched my wrist as I fled, digging his fingers into my delicate skin and yanking me back.
My back crashed against the wall, the little stones in it digging into my spine. The pain knocked my breath away. I tried to jerk away, but it was too late. A ring of white-hot ache formed over the fragile bones in my hand. I looked up at him, shocked.
“I didn’t mean to.” He dumped my hand suddenly, and it crashed against the wall, which hurt even more. “Hey, don’t look at me like I attacked you or whatever. You can’t just up and fucking leave in the middle of a grown-up conversation, Dylan.”
The pain still reverberated all over my wrist.
“You’ve always been so flighty.” He chuckled to himself. “Anyway, so—”
I stormed off into the night.
Whatever calm I’d tried to maintain today evaporated like mist.
My dreamless life had just turned into a nightmare.
RHYLAND
Her Highness returned to her apartment at 7:30 p.m. to find me slumped on the couch belly-down, her child sitting on my back making biscuits out of my hair. It was sometime around half an hour ago that I realized Gravity didn’t know how to braid and was winging it, turning my hair into one giant knot. I’d have to shave my head completely after she was done with it. But being bald was a small price to pay to keep her calm and in the same spot for more than ten seconds flat.
“Mommy!” The child jumped up, stepping over my head in the process of running to her mother.
Dylan picked her up and flung her in the air, spinning her and nuzzling into her neck. They shared a five-minute conversation in high-pitched, ridiculous voices in which Dylan found out Gravity had spent her day eating McDonald’s, getting temporarytattoos, scribbling all over her new bed frame, and watching Family Guy.
Dylan seemed strangely subdued and unaffected by my version of child-rearing, even when her child attempted to fart the alphabet using her hand and her armpit. Her eyes also looked puffy. I’d think she’d been crying, but I knew Dylan, and that bad bitch didn’t even cry when her father died, when Tucker left her, or during childbirth. She was no crier.
“Did Uncle Rhyland give you a bath and dinner?” Dylan brushed her kid’s hair with her fingers.
“Kentucky Fried Chicken!” the child gurgled. “Mommy, Mommy, he let me dunk my chicken in the beans and then in the milkshake, and we ate it, because he said everything ends up in the same place anyway!”
“Uh-huh.”
“Oh, and I did bath with my Barbies.”
“So cool. Why don’t you brush your teeth and pick your bedtime story?” Dylan suggested warmly. “Mommy needs to talk to Uncle Rhyland a little.”
Gravity charged toward the corridor, where she disappeared into her room.
“Where the fuck were y—” I turned to Dylan, fully prepared to give her a piece of my mind, but the minute her child was no longer in the room, her shoulders slumped and her face fell. The rest of the word perished in my throat. Her olive skin paled, her eyes sunk into two dark hollows, and her nose became red as tears drenched her cheeks.
Was this how a real parent behaved—mastering the art of prioritizing someone else even when they wanted to fall apart? I’d never seen Dylan like this. She was always the most stubborn, proud, fearless woman I knew. And I guess she’d stayed that way. But only for her daughter.
“What happened?” I demanded, a thunderstorm rolling over my temper. Up until a second ago, I’d been inconvenienced. Now, I was pissed. Row was going to rip me a new one if something had happened to his baby sister under my watch.
Instead of answering me, Dylan threw herself at me, burying her face in my neck and encircling me with her arms. She started sobbing uncontrollably, the kind of hiccupy, breathless bawling that ripped your heart out even if you didn’t possess one. My knee-jerk reaction was to hurl her to the couch and bolt. I forced myself to stay still. She needed someone. Guess that someone was me. Soon my neck was wet and warm with her tears, and I couldn’t help it: I wrapped my arms around her, bringing her close to my chest.