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Fuck. Fuck! I handled that about as well as a lava monster making an ice sculpture.

Maybe I’ve been watching too much Moana , but that’s the thing. You watch your kid’s favorite movie and you think you’re fine. You think nobody will ever swoop in and take her from you once she’s with you. You think you’re safe, but as it turns out, you’re not.

As it turns out, greedy assholes are everywhere, and it’s suddenly my job to fight them. To protect my daughter.

Even as her words twist a knife into my guts. Even as it replays over and over.

I hate you.

It’s your fault.

I hate you.

I don’t want to live here anymore.

I hate you.

I wish I never met you.

I hate you.

I should’ve expected all those words at some point, but I was hopeful she’d hold onto them at least until she became a teenager.

Nobody has ever loved me the way Harper has grown to love me over the last few months. Nobody has ever loved me the way Victoria grew to love me, either.

And now I’ve somehow managed to lose them both.

I’ve fucked up my entire life. It wasn’t so long ago I thought about how close I was to rock bottom. I was falling toward it, and I knew that there would be a crash landing once I got to the bottom.

Here we are.

Rock fucking bottom.

The only thing that would make this worse is if Jerry Callahan actually did take Harper away from me. After the way she just stormed out of the room, I can’t honestly see her walking into a court room and telling the judge she’d prefer to stay with me.

And that sounds about right. That sums up my entire existence. People hold on a little while, but then they see what’s inside me and decide it’s just not for them, so they bail.

Why should my own daughter be any different than everyone else?

I answer my own question.

Because she is different from everyone else.

She’s the one rock I have left, and I will not lose her .

I will fight for her until my dying breath.

Maybe I’ve lost everything else, but she isn’t going anywhere.

I give her a minute to cool off, and then I head upstairs to talk to her.

She ignores me when I knock on her door, and I try the doorknob.

It’s locked.

“Harper,” I murmur. “Please open the door.”

She doesn’t answer, and a well of grief fills me.

I can’t even turn to Victoria to help me with this. Maybe she’d tell me that Harper’s just acting out because she’s upset. She doesn’t mean those words. She feels comfortable with me and that’s why she feels safe in misbehaving.

Maybe she’d tell me that.

Or maybe I’m saying it in my own head since there’s no one to say it to me.

I don’t know if I’ve ever felt so alone.

“Please.” My voice cracks as I beg. “Don’t shut me out.”

I turn around, lean on the door, and sink down to the floor as the emotions plow into me.

What if the Callahans really do take her from me? What if she really does want to go there instead of staying here?

What if I lose her?

Heat leaks from my eyes as I mourn everything I’ve lost over the last few months. Somehow not having a different woman in my bed every night and not being able to eat peanut butter pales in comparison to losing Harper and Victoria in one fell swoop.

I don’t know how to manage any of this.

I haven’t come to terms with this whole divorce business just yet, but I’ll find a way to fight for Victoria. I have to believe not all hope is lost since she’s still living in the apartment attached to my house. She’s still in close proximity. She’s still caring for my daughter.

I’ll take what I can get. It’s not like I can start interviewing nannies when I have to be back at camp in the morning.

And maybe that’ll buy me enough time to win her back.

I just need to figure out how.

How do you convince someone who is so certain this life isn’t for her that it actually is? It’s not just me or our relationship that she’s fighting against. It’s the outside forces she was never prepared to deal with. Her picture on the gossip sites. Paparazzi clamoring to get a photo of her, preferably with my kid. Being with a celebrity. Being the target of a jealous ex-lover’s wrath. All of it combines into one package that’s not real attractive from the inside.

How can I make her see the positive side of all that? What even is the positive side of that?

Because if I can’t see it, I’ll never figure out how to make her see it.

I sniffle as I paw at my face to wipe away the emotions, and that’s when the door opens.

I fall backwards into her room, and usually that would make Harper laugh, but I guess she’s pretty mad at me.

“What do you want?” she grits out.

“I want to talk,” I say as I push to a stand, my body still feeling every ounce of pain I’ve put it through over the last couple weeks. I walk into her room and lean against her dresser as she climbs on her bed and sits with her legs crisscrossed.

“I have nothing to say to you.”

I blow out a breath. “I’m sorry.”

She just stares at me and purses her lips.

“I know this isn’t what you want, and to be honest with you, kid, it’s not what I want, either.”

“Then fix it, Travis. You have to fix it,” she says quietly.

I nod. “I know I do. But I just don’t know how.” I refuse to put the blame on Victoria. I can’t do that to either one of them when my girl fucking idolizes her.

She starts to cry, and I move over to the bed and sit beside her. I pull her into my chest and let her cry, and I cry, too.

This fucking sucks.

But one thing is true.

I have to fix it.

I may not know how right now, but I’ll figure it out.

I have to.

Now that I’ve had a tiny taste of what life could be like with Victoria and Harper, I refuse to let it all go without the biggest fight of my life.