He clears his throat. “The treatment available to me is chemo and radiation. I don’t want to live out the rest of my days sick all the time.”
I throw a hand out in his direction. “What do you call this? You’re sick now!”
He nods, unable to argue with the truth. “I don’t feel that bad. Just tired.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” The anger behind my words fuels my body, and I push to stand then pace. “So that’s it? No one else gets a say. You’re choosing to die?”
Why the hell do I care? This guy hasn’t given a shit about me my entire life, and now he’s dying and still proving he doesn’t give a shit. Fathers who care fight for their lives, if not for themselves, for their kids, for their grandkids.
I grip the sides of my head to avoid putting my fist through a wall. Braeden knew. This is why he insisted I come home, why he wanted me to see The General. Fuck, I have no explanation as to why this news feels like an A-bomb to the gut, but it does.
“It’s my life and I’m given a choice on how I want it to end.” Even though he’s sick and clearly weak, his voice still carries an authority that demands attention. “This is it, and honestly, I’m surprised you care as much as you do.”
He’s not the only one.
He took everything away from me: my music, the trust I had in my mom. He belittled me and locked me up in military school to make sure I stayed away from the thing I loved most in the world. He did that. He never believed in me, never gave me permission or the freedom to follow my dreams and cast my own future. I was ashamed of my music my entire life until Layla. That’s all because of him. So yeah, why the fuck does it feel as if I’m swallowing a golf ball and my eyes are burning?
The room feels too small. I need to get the fuck out of here.
Without another word, I move to the door, throwing it open so hard I’m sure it left a dent. I avoid the car out of fear that driving might be the end of me. Some of us make staying alive for our kids a priority.
As soon as my feet hit the sidewalk, I look left, then right, and take off running.
Fourteen
Layla
After Braeden got back from the store with Rice Krispie treat ingredients, I insisted I needed a trip to Baby Mart to shop in an effort to get out of the house. Knowing that my phone is stashed in my sock drawer is too much of a temptation because that conversation with Trip has me more curious than I’d like to admit.
He made the night I got pregnant with Axelle sound like something completely different. I don’t know Trip at all. After that night at the party, he basically ignored me, and I was too caught up in the stress of becoming a teenage mother to give a shit about him. A few months into our senior year he disappeared. Rumors around school said he went to juvie, others that his parents shipped him across the country to live with an aunt. Either way, my days of crushing on Trip were over the morning I woke up naked in the back of Stewart’s 4-Runner.
I mindlessly flip through newborn onesies while lost in my thoughts.
Did I really tell him I loved him? My face heats with a fire so intense that I already know the answer to that. I’m sure I did.
Enough of this! I’m shopping to keep my mind off this crap, not to dwell on it.
I move to the next aisle and find Brae studying the silicone cups of a breast pump on display. He turns it in his hand, sticks one cup to his eye, and then the other. What is he doing? I cover my mouth to avoid him hearing me giggle as he presses the cups to his swollen pecs.
In his black cargo pants and long-sleeved gray thermal, he looks all military badass and gets the attention of a few women nearby. He has no idea he’s gained an audience as he flips the cups around in his hands one more time before facing them out, holding them like guns. He makes realistic explosion noises with his mouth while fake-firing the breast pump cups at random items throughout the store. An unflattering, guttural giggle bursts from my lips.
He turns toward me, a half smile pulling at his mouth. “You think this works?” He presses the cups back to his pecs, his eyebrows dropped low in genuine curiosity.
I roll my eyes and head toward him, laughing. “Why, you thinking of getting one?”
“I don’t know.” He studies it some more. “Looks kinky to me.”
I rest my hand on a hip, cock my head, and glare. “I bet a soccer ball would look kinky to you.”
He closes his eyes, bites his lip, and moans so deep a few of the women watching lean in toward him. “God, Layla . . .” He groans. “Don’t mention soccer balls when we’re in public. They get me so hot.” He lowers one cup to his crotch, but I rip it from his hand before he’s able to follow through. “Hey, I was playing with that,” he says with a childlike pout.
I swear I hear a woman swoon. I swat his bicep and shove him to move on down the aisle. “You’re disgusting.”