Hands at her mouth.
Moisture gathering fast in her eyes.
She dropped to her knees.
I followed suit.
I guessed all the tears I’d bottled for years had been unleashed. Because it felt as if I hadn’t stopped crying for days. Because my heart was broken yet somehow in this moment made whole.
Love filled me everywhere while the hollow space Lyrik left ached.
She grabbed me by the face, her touch gentle and encouraging. Firm and unyielding.
“Tamar. My baby girl. You came home to me. You’re here.”
My father rushed out from the end of the hall, fumbling to a stop when he found my mother and me kneeling on the floor, the breath visibly knocked from his lungs.
I felt like the prodigal child, on my knees and begging forgiveness for what I’d wasted.
Their love and belief and undying support. I should have always known it would be great enough to hold me strong. To see me through. But I was coming to accept not every bad choice was the wrong one. That maybe I’d needed that time to grow before I’d ever be strong enough to stand.
“You’re here,” she said again.
Yeah.
I was there.
Because of a boy.
A boy who reminded me I was brave.
WHAT DOES IT TAKE to define a person?
How many moments?
How many choices?
How many mistakes?
Maybe it’s the first time you step out on your own when you realize you’re getting there. No longer in need of that comforting guidance of your parents.
Maybe it’s the day you’re struck with what you want to be. When that spec of ambition blossoms within you and you know you’ll do whatever it takes to achieve what you want most.
Maybe it’s the first time you fall in love.
Maybe it’s the last.
Maybe it’s the sum of them.
What I did know was walking out on Kenzie and Brendon had become my definition.
Didn’t know if my doing so was the result of years of bad choices or one fatal mistake.
Because losing them? It’d felt like a death penalty.
My soul cursed to a living hell.
I’d left that hospital bitter and hard. Sentenced to a life of regret and self-hatred. It didn’t take all that long for it to shape me. Reshape me. Shallow and selfish and lashing out. Only good things I had were my family, the guys, and my loyalty to the band.
My songs my single true joy.
Along the way, I’d allowed myself two vices. An endless string of women and bottomless bottles of booze. Of course, both those things only served to leave me a little more hollowed out than before.
That hollow space? That’s where I shored up all that hate and hostility. Where I festered with memories of what I had done.
Figured that definition would be forever unchanged.
That was until Tamar had come on like a hurricane. A rising storm gathering in the distance. Stronger than anticipated. Fierce and savage in the most beautiful way.
Blowing over me with the force of a gale wind.
Reshaping and rewriting and redefining.
Eclipsing all that dark with so many hues—reds and blues—and that brilliant, blinding white.
Until I no longer recognized who I was. Because somewhere along the way, without my permission, I had become hers.
A gentle breeze rustled through the trees, just shy of being cool. Brimming with an innuendo of the approaching winter and dimming the heat of the warm California sky.
I’d lost them then.
Just at the cusp of winter.
That’s when all things had gone cold.
Five years later, it was when I lost Blue, too.
I scrubbed a weary hand down my face.
Fuck.
I no longer knew how to live through the loss.
So here I waited like some kind of twisted stalker.
Waiting.
Watching.
Wondering if this was the right or wrong thing to do.
But I’d done so many damned wrongs in my life, I needed to make something right.
And I’d be willing to lay down bets this moment would be defining, too.
Chills spread like a crippling freeze when I saw the silver Toyota Highlander approaching then slow.
Innocuous.
Yet something about it felt absolute.
It pulled into the drive directly across from where I sat in the small neighborhood park. Red brake lights flashed as the SUV eased into the garage before the engine shut off.
My pulse spiked and sped.
God. What was I doing? But I couldn’t stop what I’d already set into motion. What my heart had already proclaimed. So I stood, drawn across the road when the driver’s side door opened and Kenzie climbed out.
Knew it’d only be her.
Just like it’d been the last three days when I’d sat in this same spot studying her routine. Because as damned much as I needed to see my son, knew I had to get her approval first. Knew I couldn’t come forcing my way back into his life if there was no chance I fit in it. And sure as hell not if it hurt Kenzie any more than I already had.