Page 10 of The Compass Series

I lowered my head as my hands stayed gripped on the steering wheel. “If you guys need anything,” I offered, feeling awful for the poor kid. I wished I could take away his struggles.

He shook his head. “Nah. We’re good. We’re getting through it. Tonight, I’m going to watch a Disney movie with her to try to up her spirits. She loves that Disney stuff.” He always tried to act like the cancer wasn’t getting to him, but I knew better than to believe that.

It wasn’t fair that Connor was being forced to grow up faster than he deserved.

“Text me if you need anything,” I said.

“Will do. I’ll see you tomorrow. Hopefully the day involves more anal beads,” he joked, but the paleness to his face was still there as he tried to hide his hurting with humor.

“Doubtful.”

“Night, Jax.” He hopped out of the truck and dashed toward his front steps. I waited until I was certain he’d made it into his house.

Instead of heading home like I wanted to, I went to the one place I wished I didn’t need to go to see the one person I wished I knew how to get over. I went straight to the nursing home to see my father.

I knew he would probably be sleeping when I arrived. He’d been sleeping a majority of the days lately as his body fought to either preserve his life or move him closer to death—I wasn’t certain.

All I knew was that ever since he ended up in the nursing home, I was there every night, sitting at his bedside while he was in his deep slumber.

I noticed a bike parked outside the nursing home, and I knew it belonged to Amanda, one of Dad’s caregivers who just so happened to be my ex-girlfriend.

I walked into the center and noticed her sitting at the reception desk, reading a novel. She was always reading some book about knights in shining armor saving the day.

I figured it was because of those books that I’d never lived up to what she wanted me to be. Even when I tried to be fully into our relationship, I always knew deep down that something was missing. Passion? A deeper connection?

Who knew.

Maybe I was too fucked up from my past traumas to know how to love someone right. All I really knew was after two years of dating and no engagement, she grew tired of it all. When she mentioned us having a baby and skipping over the marriage step, I knew it was time to cut the cord.

“Hey,” I said, nodding in her direction. She hadn’t even noticed me walk in. When her eyes were locked on those pages, she was distant from the rest of the world, fully immersed in the words on the page unless a patient needed her help.

She shut the book and gave me a half-smile. “Hey.”

“How’s he’s doing?”

“You know, same ole, same ole.” She stood from her chair and hugged her book to her chest. Her brown hair was pulled up into a messy ponytail, and she looked exhausted. I had a feeling her job wasn’t the easiest to perform.

It was clear that Dad didn’t have much time left, and to be honest, I wasn’t certain how to feel about it all. My father wasn’t a good man. He was cruel to anyone and everyone he came into contact with.

A few glances around my house demonstrated what my father had been like toward me when I was growing up.

He’d put enough holes in the walls from when his drunken rage emerged through his fists.

When those fists hadn’t connected with walls, there was a good chance they’d collided with my face.

I couldn’t count on both hands the number of times he’d beat me in every single room of that house for the most mundane things.

If the washer didn’t finish before the evening news—beating.

If strangers were found wandering on our property—beating.

If he heard me snoring too loud—beating.

If he missed my mother—fucking beating.

I always tried to piece together when my father had become the monster he was.

He had been cruel and violent before Mom passed away, but Dad lost his mind when she died.

I didn’t blame my brother for leaving town.

I should’ve done the same thing except I could never build up enough courage to leave Dad on his own.

Maybe a part of me felt the need to take care of him.

Maybe a part of me felt I deserved the beatings.

Either way, I stayed.

I should’ve filled in the holes in the walls, but a part of me didn’t want to forget the damage that my father had done.

Amanda folded her arms, and her stare grew gentle. “How are you holding up?” she asked.

“You know, same ole, same ole,” I muttered, giving her the same words she’d delivered my way. I pulled out the paperback from inside my jacket and held it in the air. “Can I go back?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“Okay. Thanks, Amanda.”

Lightning lit up the sky outside, and within seconds, there was a deluge of rain falling.

“Crap,” she muttered, rolling her shoulders back. “It’s really coming down out there, and I rode my bike to work.”

“I’ll give you a lift home when I’m done here if you want.”

I saw the spark of hope in her eyes as I said the words, and I wished I could’ve been the kind of dick who didn’t notice a woman’s emotions. It had to be easier than seeing every feeling that shifted their features.

“Yeah, that would be great,” she said, trying to hold in her smile.

Don’t smile for me, Amanda. I’m not worth it.

I headed to Dad’s room, and when I walked in, he was sleeping, which was good.

If he hadn’t been asleep, I would’ve considered turning around and walking away.

Sitting on his deathbed, he still had the ability to be full-blown cruel—even when he didn’t recognize me as his own son.

When he was resting, though, I could look at him as more human than a monster.

I pulled up a chair beside his bed and began reading War and Peace —his favorite novel—to him.

I’d been reading him a few chapters each evening, even if he couldn’t hear me.

That novel was one of the only things he and I had in common.

Outside of liking the same book, I was the complete opposite of the fragile man who lay across from me.

I read for about forty-five minutes before shutting the book and rising to my feet. Dad looked so broken down and tired. Sometimes I’d count his breaths to make sure they were all being taken fully.

Other times, I’d lay my hand against his chest to feel his heartbeats.

My cold heart didn’t know how to deal with what was happening to the man I’d always known to be hard and rough. Seeing him so broken down was harder than I could’ve ever imagined.

After I finished my visit, I headed toward the reception desk where Amanda was already waiting. “Ready?” I asked.

She nodded as she gathered her things.

We walked out to my truck, and she was quick to change my radio from the rock station to her pop music. “Thanks for the ride. I didn’t know it was supposed to rain,” she explained, running her hands down her thighs.

“No problem.”

“Did you see the invitation for Alex and Morgan’s wedding?

” she asked. “I mean, it came to our old place, but Morgan said she’d send you another one since we aren’t each other’s plus-ones anymore.

Unless…” She bit her bottom lip, and fuck, all I wanted was a cold beer and silence. “Unless you want to still go together.”

I raked my hand through my hair. “I think we both know why that’s not a good idea.”

“It could be a good idea if we tried it, though. I mean, really—how about we give that exes-with-benefits thing a go? I think I’m healed enough from the breakup.” She said it in a playful tone, but I knew she was serious.

“Amanda…you just drunk-dialed me sobbing last weekend.”

“That was the alcohol’s fault. It makes me a mess.” She laughed, but I knew it was a nervous laugh. I felt pretty shitty about the breakup, not because it wasn’t right for us—because it was—but because she was having such a hard time with it all.

We pulled up in front of her apartment building, and I put the truck into park. “Amanda, come on. We’ve talked about this. It’s just not going to work between us. You already know I think you’re a great girl and?—”

“Please don’t belittle me with your empty compliments,” she muttered. “It doesn’t make it hurt any less.”

I lowered my head. “If having you work for my dad is making this split too hard, I can look into having him transferred?—”

“I can do my job,” she snapped. “I don’t need you questioning if I can handle my work because of my feelings for you. Besides, I was kidding about being exes-with-benefits. Just drop it. I’m sure you’ll be dating soon enough anyway, and it’ll be as though I never existed.”

“I’m not seeing anyone.” If only she knew how wrong she was about her theory. Dating was so far off my radar. I figured if a girl like Amanda couldn’t make me a family man, maybe I wasn’t meant to be one. She was a good person with a kind heart.

There was just some unknown part of me that didn’t see myself falling in love with her and raising her children, and I wasn’t going to be the asshole who strung her along. I was going to be the asshole who broke her heart.

Talk about a lose-lose situation.

“Did you ever love me?” she asked, and fuck did that question suck. She knew the answer. I didn’t know why she was doing this to herself.

I glanced over at her and witnessed her eyes filling with emotion. “I’m sorry, Amanda.”

“Maybe you’re just like your father,” she stated, and those words made my skin crawl. “Maybe you’re just so messed up in the brain that you can’t love another person—or even let them love you.”

My jaw tightened as I tried to shake off what she’d said.

Maybe you’re just like your father.

That was a low blow, and Amanda knew it. The only thing in life I never wanted to be was like my father.

“Good night, Amanda.”

“Really? That’s it? You’re not going to try to argue that?”

Of course I wasn’t. She was setting up a trap I didn’t want to mess with at the moment.

She was trying to force some kind of reaction out of me, but I had nothing to give her.

I’d keep my irritation to myself, because the truth was, I was nothing like my father.

I never allowed my anger to overtake me.

She hopped out of the truck without a word and hurried into the apartment building.

A sigh rolled through me as I turned the radio back to the rock station.

When I pulled up to my family’s property—over one hundred acres of land that had been pretty much unkempt for years—I released a sigh of relief.

I could’ve worked on the landscaping, but whenever I offered, Dad made sure to tell me not to touch shit until he was dead and gone.

He said once he died, it would all be mine, and I already knew what I wanted to do with it.

Mom had dreams way back when about what she wanted the lot to look like.

I was going to do my best to make her vision become a reality.

I didn’t believe in angels, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t a possibility they were real. If they were, I knew my mother would be an angel, and if she was watching over me, I hoped making her dream come to life would make her proud.

Just as I did every week, I called my brother that night to update him on Dad’s condition.

Derek lived up in Chicago and had been saying—for the past fourteen years—he was going to get back to visit. It turned out I was always the one to make the yearly trip up north to see him.

As we talked that night, I could tell he wasn’t upset by the news of Dad’s deteriorating health.

“Well, maybe it’s time for you to step back completely.

Let’s be honest, Jax, you’ve done more for that man than he deserves.

You don’t have to keep being a parent to a guy who didn’t even parent you correctly. ”

I sat down in Dad’s favorite recliner and sighed. “Easier said than done.”

“I’m serious, Jax. You’ve done enough.”

I didn’t respond because after the accident with Mom all those years ago, I didn’t feel as if I’d ever do enough to make up for what had gone down.

“I have a lot of karma to clean up, Der. The least I can do is look after him in his final days.”

He sighed through the phone, and I envisioned him pushing his hands through wavy hair that matched mine. “If this is about the accident?—”

“It’s not,” I lied. Of course it was a lie.

Everything about my life was a result of the accident from years before. Every choice I’d made to push people away was because of the mistakes of my past.

“Jax.” I could hear Derek’s pain for me through the phone. “What happened was not your fault. You can’t hold that shit on your soul forever. Believe me when I say this…it wasn’t your fucking fault.”

He told me that every time we talked.

I never believed him.

After we ended the call, I headed to bed and allowed the darkness of the night to rock me to sleep again.