Page 212 of By A Thread

“At home. Why?”

“You don’t hear that noise? What is it? Banshees? Someone running kittens through a wood chipper?”

“Oh, that,” he said dismissively. “That’s the girls. They’re either mad or happy. Can’t really tell just from the sound. The screaming is pretty much the same.”

There was another blood-curdling shriek on his end. “Oh, good. They’re happy,” he said. “Lay it out for me, man. Don’t go all Vault on me.”

“Vault?”

“That’s your mean, behind-your-back nickname bestowed upon you by the lovely and never-wrong Delaney,” he explained.

Harry had once lost a bet with Delaney. The stakes had been he had to refer to her at least once a day as “The lovely and never-wrong Delaney.”

I sighed audibly.

“Every guy has one,” he continued. “Mine’s Pretends to Be Listening. And don’t insult either of our admittedly limited intelligence by asking me to explain why you’re Vault and I’m Pretends to Be Listening. Just tell me what you did, and I’ll tell you how to fix it. Or get Delaney involved if it’s a bad fuck-up.”

Oh, it was a bad fuck-up. An unrecoverable one.

“I don’t think even Delaney could fix this,” I admitted.

“That bad, huh?” he asked.

“Think about the worst thing you’ve ever done to your wife,” I advised him.

“Uh-huh. Okay. Got it.”

“Then make it ten times worse.”

Harry let out a low whistle. “That’s bad. Did you accidentally cut off one of her limbs?”

“Worse.”

“Okay. I’m with you, brother. We’ve all done really stupid fucking shit. Lay it on me.”

I thought about everything. About my mother, my father. About Ally and the women my father victimized and used. About Elena and Gola and Harry and Delaney. About that jackass Christian and Faith. About how I’d never once confided in Harry, my best friend.

So I told him everything. From my father’s gruesome predilections to my breakup with Elena to my epic, unforgivable fuckup.

“You fucking asshole,” he said without heat when I’d finally finished.

“I know,” I agreed. “I’m a monster. Just a different kind than my father.”

“No, idiot. You should have had this conversation with me or someone a year ago.”

“You have to admit, it was the worst possible thing I could have done.”

“Not the worst. You could have cheated on her in her own bed, and when she walked in on you, you could have chopped off one or two of her limbs. Or you could have accidentally nudged her grandmother with your car eight years ago so everyone in the family had to spend Thanksgiving in the emergency department.”

“That last one sounds a little specific for fictionalized moral lessons.”

“Yeah, so I accidentally hit Delaney’s grandma with the car. To be fair, the woman hated me, and I swear she jumped behind me at the last second. That woman would have been willing to break a femur to make a point. Anyway, she was fine, and Delaney and I recovered. You can too.”

“I abandoned her, Harry. Not only did I live up to the example her shitty mother set, I accused Ally of using me.”

Harry sighed. “Look, the point of a relationship isn’t hiding your stupid wounds and flaws. It’s about showing them to someone and letting them still love you. You were able to hurt her because she let you in.”

“Is that supposed to be good news?”