Page 185 of Under Your Scars

I open my mouth, trying to buy more time to try and soften the blow, but that would only upset her more. I sigh. “Beth told me three days before I was shot. We were all going to tell you after the bar exam but…”

“Months? You’ve known formonths?” She turns to her father. “And you? You’ve been ignoring me sinceDecember. You didn’t think once to answer one of the thousands of messages I’ve left you to tell me you were dying?”

She stands up abruptly and I reach for her. “Elena—”

“Don’t touch me!” she shouts as she looks between us both before scoffing. “I’ve never felt so unloved and betrayed by the two men who claim to love me most.”

As she stomps out of the room, Elliot tosses the dirty medical supplies in the trash can at his feet before reaching into his pocket and, ironically, pulling out a cigarette. I smack it out of his hand before he has a chance to light it.

“What the fuck was that?” I growl. “On what planet isthathow you tell your daughter that you’re dying?”

“I don’t need shit from you, Reeves,” he grumbles, packing up the spare supplies. “My family is none of your business.”

“Iamyour family!” I shout, my teeth clenched so tight it hurts. “Whether you like it or not, Bethany, Travis, Elena, you, me, Caroline…we are family and I’m sick of your past lingering over us like a fucking storm cloud all the damn time. The only crime I’ve committed is being born a Reeves, and yet I’m living a life fucking sentence having to be tied to the man who stole my entire life from me. The least you could do is not make us all so goddamn miserable.”

Elliot begins cackling like a goddamn maniac, clutching his stomach and using the desk to hold himself steady on his feet. He’s looking frail again. Sweaty. Labored breaths. Wheezing coughs.

He looks worse than Edwin, and Edwin’s got thirty years on him.

He stops laughing abruptly when he sees the unamused scowl I’m giving him. “Oh, you were serious.” He clears his throat. “You really think you’ve done nothing wrong.” He scoffs. “What I wouldn’t give to go back in time to that Wednesday night.” He sighs wistfully as his eyes focus on my torso. “I’m not a good shot anymore. Not like I was when I killed your parents.”

“Hey Elliot?” His head cocks to the side right as my fist connects with his jaw. “Go to hell.”

I quietly open the door to our bedroom. Elena is sitting in the center of our bed, looking particularly small with her knees tucked into her chest in the middle of the California king.

She’s crying. Not sobbing, not wailing, but her face is painted in the kind of sorrow that only appears when someone’s had enough. When she’s been hurting and suffering so long that she’s no longer living—just surviving.

“Do you know when he was diagnosed?” she asks quietly.

“Your mom said it was the middle of September.”

Her face twists painfully and her head falls to her knees. She sniffles and rocks gently back and forth.

“The night of our first date…he called me. He said…he said he wasn’t going to live forever, and he sounded so sad when he said it. I was so excited for our date that I blew it off. All this time…”

I tuck a strand of hair gently behind her ear.

“He doesn’t want to fight it, does he?”

I sigh. “It’s too late for that, angel.” She closes her eyes and throws her head back, as if trying to drain the tears gathered in her eyes back into her skull.

“Mommy?”

Elena and I both look towards the edge of the bed where Caroline has managed to sneak up on us. I beckon her to climb onto the bed. “Come here, baby.”

Caroline crawls up the bed with one arm, the other holding Mr. Bunny. She crawls and sits at Elena’s side.

“What are you doing out of bed, sweet girl?” Elena asks.

“I missed you,” Caroline answers easily, snugging into Elena’s side. “I have something for you.” She holds up Mr. Bunny to show Elena’s bracelet is wrapped around the toy’s neck like a necklace. She takes it off the rabbit and places it around Elena’s wrist. “I kept it safe for you.”

Elena kisses the top of Caroline’s head. “Thank you. Now it’s bedtime. Let’s go to sleep, and we’ll have pancakes in the morning. How does that sound?”

“Can I sleep here tonight?Please?” she drawls out, rubbing her sleepy eyes with her fist. Elena wordlessly nods and we help Caroline under the covers. Elena wraps her arms around our daughter protectively, almost like she’s afraid someone will pluck her right out of this bed.

Caroline looks up at me with sleepy blue eyes, silently waiting for me to join their cuddling session. I tug off my hoodie so I’m left in my t-shirt and sweatpants, and crawl into the bed so that Caroline is in between Elena and I. I use my long arms to pull them both closer to me.

In the milky moonlight coming in from the windows, the scars on my wrist seem to glow. The pinkish skin there has a soft sheen that reflects the light, and Caroline traces her small fingers along the rough ridges. New scars and old.