Page 62 of Ebbing Tides

I walked down the hall with my head hanging until I reached the bathroom sink, where I turned on the water, made sure it was hot, and soaped up my hands.

I could think of several reasons why my father would spend an eternity repenting for his multitude of sins. The child abuse and neglect I’d suffered should be enough to earn a one-way ticket to Hell, if it were up to me. And while I was no innocent in my own life, I wouldn’t consider myself a bad man either.

Isn’t that exactly what a bad man would say?

Laura didn’t think I was a bad man, I silently replied, scrubbing at my hands with vigor and aggression.

Yeah, but she’s dead. That’s still on me. Dad’s right. I didn’t push her down the stairs, but she was left alone, abandoned, forhours… because ofme.

Stop. No. I’m not doing this again.

I forgot about her. I let her die, and the second I found someone to replace her, I forgot her again.

Stop.

I squeezed my eyes shut, scrubbing and scrubbing, the water scalding as it burned away the particles of Dad’s puke and poisonous blood. The blood in my veins. The blood that made me as bad as him.

I never forgot to leave flowers on her grave. I never ever forgot. But today, I forgot. It’s been ten years, and Iforgot.

“Stop,” I whispered through gritted teeth. “Please stop.”

“Max?”

I snapped my eyes open with a gasp at the sound of Melanie’s voice. I turned to see her wide, sad eyes staring up at me, her hands gripping either side of the doorframe.

Without saying a word, I turned from her to look down at my hands, red from the scalding water. Ribbons of blood oozedfrom open wounds to swirl around and around and around, disappearing down the drain.

I winced, the pain hitting me all at once, yet I remained still, statuesque, as the burning hot water continued to pour over my hands.

“Oh God, Max,” Melanie whispered.

Then she did what I couldn’t.

She reached over to smack her hand against the faucet, and the hot water quickly turned to cold. She squeezed into the bathroom behind me and grabbed a towel from the rack, turned off the water, and pulled my hands from the sink after a moment of letting them sit under the refreshing cold. She wrapped the towel around my sore, stinging hands with tenderness and care, patting gingerly and looking up to my eyes.

“Do you have a first aid kit?”

“You don’t have to take care of me,” I muttered, my voice taut with pain, both emotional and physical.

“But if I don’t, who will?” she asked, her expression soft but serious.

A boulder clotted my throat instantly, the backs of my eyes pricking, nagging, with a wave of oncoming tears I did not want. I dropped my gaze to the floor, coaching my lungs to breathe, just breathe, but they stuttered against the mounting pain pressed to the center of my chest.

Melanie’s warm palm lifted to lie against my cheek. “Who takes care of you, Max?”

I don’t need anyone. The words dangled from the tip of my tongue, begging to be said. To put a stop to this stupidconversation, this moment, and move forward to better things. Her. Work. Sex. Anything away from him and this godforsaken place.

I don’t need anyone. I don’t need anyone.

God, I could say it in my brain, but the more I tried to utter the words aloud, the more that boulder swelled in my throat, choking me with the pain of knowing damn well that I needed more than I was ever willing to admit.

I don’t need anyone, I lied to myself one final time before the dam to my soul broke and the tears I’d been holding back leaked from my eyelids, squeezed tight.

“Come here,” Melanie whispered, releasing my hands and wrapping her arms around my neck.

Somewhere in the house, her kids were laughing, bringing joyful noise to this house of horrible things. Breathing life into a place that held too much death and despair. And I tried to grasp for it, to bring some of their happiness into my heart, but, God, a heart could only hurt so much.

With my face pressed to her shoulder and my arms held tight around her waist, I permitted myself a moment to release some of the pressure.