Oh fuck.
“Mary,” I say and my voice sounds strangled in my own ears, “keep an eye on Cole.”
“Where are you going?” Cole asks in a small voice, and it twists the knots in my chest even tighter.
“To the bathroom,” I say while I get up, my surroundings weaving and dipping as I do.
Mary is watching me carefully. She gives a tight nod.
Why were they both watching me like that? Do they think I’ll bail on them, leave them alone in an unknown town?
Shaking my head, I stride to the back of the shop, lock myself up in the tiny bathroom and lean back against the wall, struggling to breathe, my hands clenched into fists, my head tilted back.
I never cried. When Emma fell sick. When she died. I couldn’t. It’s as if I had no tears. But since then my breathing gets funny sometimes. My lungs just won’t co-operate, won’t do their goddamn job of sucking air.
I don’t know what this is, but when it happens, I need a moment alone to work through it. To re-learn how to breathe. How to exist in this spinning eddy that makes no sense to me anymore.
Slowly the room rights itself, the black dots fade from my vision and my chest expands again. I suck in oxygen, relieved I’m not dying.
Mostly.
I shove that thought right back down where it belongs and splash some cold water on my face. Goddammit, maybe the kids were right to be afraid when I got up. I wonder what they saw in my eyes.
But no. I don’t wanna die. You don’t fucking wanna die, Matt Hansen. Get over yourself. You’re almost thirty, not some angsty teenager, and this ain’t some late-night drama on TV.
It’s just that sometimes… sometimes I’m not sure I wanna live.
Christ.
I flex my left hand, testing the stiffness of my fingers, rub at my wrist, then force myself to stop.
And…. this is my cue to leave this fucking bathroom and these dark thoughts from spinning me in circles so tight I’ll trip over my own mind.
I come out to find someone crouched between my kids, slender arms folded on the tabletop, laughing.
It’s a girl. That girl.
Again.
She shouldn’t be here. Can’t be. She reminds me of so much.
“You.” I point a finger at her. “Go.”
She stands up, the smile slipping from her pretty face. “Well, hello to you, too. I was just saying hi to your kids. Cole here was crying.”
I shake my head and tug on my beard, anger warming my neck. “I said, go.”
“Has nobody taught you any manners?” she whispers, a flush on her cheeks, her blue eyes glittering. She lifts her chin in that way of hers I’d observed the first time we met, challenging. “I was just looking out for your kids.”
“Daddy is looking for a nanny,” Mary pipes up.
Traitor.
I shouldn’t be glaring at a five-year-old for telling the truth, dammit.
“So you lied. You haven’t found a nanny yet,” Octavia whispers, her eyes glittering. “Why did you have to lie?”
I clench my jaw and my hands curl into firsts. This seems to be their natural state. “We’re done here.”
“I don’t want the job, okay?” Octavia says, and I wince. I’ve been trying not to remember her name, because it makes her real. “But Cole’s diaper is soiled. Let me take him to the back to change him.”
“And my dress is wrinkled,” Mary says, but in a small voice, instead of the high-pitched whine that she uses when she’s acting up.
My breathing does that rattling thing again. I unclench my hands. Clench them again.
“Daddy…” Mary starts.
“No,” I say. “We’re fine. We don’t need anyone.”
Then I sit down in my chair, hoping that outward I look calm and composed, not like I’m about to go into some murderous fit—or worse, like I’m about to fucking break in two.
Which is how I feel.
But she doesn’t seem to notice. She puts her hands on her hips, and my gaze is drawn to her narrow waist, the curve of her tits above it.
“You’re lying,” she says quietly but clearly, and it’s a kick to my guts.
How she hit the nail on the head.
How she guessed.
Everything about me and my life right now is a lie.
Seemingly unaware of the blow she delivered, she sends the kids a quick smile, then she shoots me one last look.
Then, shaking her head, a dark, shiny strand of hair coming loose and teasing her neck, she walks away.
I watch as she goes. She’s short but willowy. So determined and trying so hard.
Reminding me of… of so much that I…
She’s gone, back to the table with her friends, and I’m sitting there, staring at nothing, wrapped up in darkness that doesn’t come from the world outside but from inside. So deep inside I can’t even feel the hole through which it seeps like a filthy oil spill, filling me, becoming part of me.
If she knew… fuck, she’d be glad I sent her away.
Besides, I don’t need her. I don’t need her help, or anyone’s.
Yeah, fucking lies.
It’s all I have left.
Chapter Six
Octavia
‘Jasper’s Garage’ says the rusty sign that’s swinging on creaking hinges overhead. A bitter smell of car oil hangs in the warm air, incongruously mixed with the scent of fresh coffee. A man is laughing inside the dim interior, the sound rising over the clang of metal and the rumbling of an engine.
Last time I asked here if they were hiring, a couple of weeks ago when I first started looking, the mechanics catcalled and whistled, and the owner’s only son, Ross, our school’s bully and my own very personal nemesis, leered at me until my face burned and I wanted to scream.
But I’m literally at the end of my rope, the end of the road. The edge of my world. There’s nothing beyond this shop besides the highway east and west, and further north the much bigger town of Springfield.
Though it’s not hard to find places bigger than Destiny.
When I was a kid it felt like a whole country, unexplored and huge. Nowadays it feels no larger than a barn, and no less boring.
No less empty.
If it wasn’t for my family… they fill up all the emptiness, make this small place worth living in.
God, I need to leave, make something of my life. But I’ll come back. I’ll always come back. No road could take me away for long.
“Looking for something, sista?” asks a deep voice, and I jerk backward.
Crap, if it isn’t Ross himself. Just my luck.
He’s giving me a once-over from the shadows inside the shop, wiping his hands on a filthy rug. His icy blue eyes make me shiver. They’re cold—but at the same time way too interested in my barely-there cleavage.
“I want to talk to Jasper,” I say through clenched teeth, planting my feet on the sidewalk and not balking even when he comes out and smirks at me. “About a job.”
“There ain’t no job for a chick here,” he drawls. “’Specially a whore-spawn like you.”
“Says you,” I counter because I won’t let him have the last word.