Tears well in her eyes as she nods solemnly to tell me she understands what I’m saying although I know she has no fucking clue. No one does.

“I don’t know which way is up right now, what to believe anymore.” I don’t want to talk about anything and yet I keep doing just that.

“Well, everyone’s version of which way is up is different so don’t try to figure that out just yet. Who cares if you’re sideways for a bit? That’s allowed, Hawke, and perfectly understandable.”

I squeeze my eyes shut momentarily. Memories flicker and flame through my mind. The four of us happy. That horrible day, the sound of the gunshot, the blood, the smell, the scream that never came frozen in my throat forever. The three of us mourning. Hunter and me trying to survive as our mom held on to the thin thread holding her to reality. Losing my twin bit by bit. Fighting like hell to keep it all together, protect them, provide for them. The times I’d start to feel that twinge of something in my gut for a woman only to shove her away because she just might make me love her. How hard I fought against so many things, how alone I’ve felt … and it was all a lie.

Every fucking thing.

“When my dad … that day,” I start to say, focusing on the wear patterns of the mid-tom because I can’t look her in the eyes while I explain how stupid I was to believe my dad blindly. “He made me promise that I’d take care of my family at all costs. He told me that when you let someone in, you lower your guard for love, you open yourself up to the worst hurt of all. You prove you’re weak … and when you are weak, you end up like him.”

The sharp inhale of her breath at my comment followed by my name on her lips sends chills over my body. And I don’t need pity for being a stupid, goddamn lemming jumping without thought, following without questioning. And I’m ready to bend over and pick up Giz’s sticks again, deal with how that just made me feel, the fucking acid eating holes in my gut and worming its way into my heart.

“Hawke,” she calls my name again but I can’t meet her eyes. “You were only nine; do you really think it’s fair to judge yourself when what happened probably scared the shit out of you? What normal kid wouldn’t have tried to make him proud by living according to the promises he made you make? You can’t fault yourself for that!”

I know she’s right but it does nothing to abate the years of self-deprecation, the nights spent reliving every moment, the doubt that has ingrained itself into my psyche. “Yeah, but the problem is today just proved my dad right. I let the two people I love the most blindside me.”

“Anyone who loves lets their guard down—whether it be for a pet, for music, for their parent, or for a lover—letting your guard down means that you feel, that you care. And hell yes, you open yourself up to being hurt but my dad used to always say, ‘Hurting is feeling, and feeling is living, and isn’t it good to be alive?’”

I snort aloud, immediately writing off what she’s just said because it hits a little too close to home. I feel alive and numb all at once but the feeling part is so intense I feel like I could sit down and write a thousand songs to get it all out and it still wouldn’t be enough.

And she’s up off her feet in an instant of my nonverbal rebuff and approaches me for the first time since we’ve been in the studio for who knows how the fuck long. She stands in front of me, her face pulled tight with anger, and her hands on my shoulders force me to turn away from the kit to face her. “When you write a song, when you play it on stage, can’t you feel it? Doesn’t it make you feel alive?” She’s not backing down and I’m a little shocked that she’s so in my head she’s confronting me with what I was just thinking myself. “Sure you lose yourself in your music, but you also find yourself, right? It makes you feel so that—”

“Don’t you get it?” I lash out, my anger resurfacing through the haze and unfortunately being directed at her, but I can’t stop myself. “Right now I hate him so goddamn much for doing that to me and in the same breath still love him. How is that not fucked up?” My blood is pumping and my hands start trembling from the rage inside me, my body wanting to shut down but my head refusing.

“Your dad did what he did and it had nothing to do with you.” The quiet calm in her voice stops my mind from spinning for the first time since we left Westbrook. “He may have cheated on your mom, but that’s on him. Your mom may have lied to protect you, to preserve his memory for you, and that’s just being a good parent. It might take a while for you to see it but do you really think she knew what he said to you that day? Do you think she knew by allowing you to keep him as an idol in your life that you’d be left with this burden?”

“It’s easier to live with the guilt.” I don’t know where the confession comes from but it’s out and I can’t take it back.

“Of course it is. You’re human, Hawke. Why should you deserve all of this,” she says, her hands out to the side, motioning at everything in general, “when Hunter can’t get his shit straight, when your mom is fighting with dementia, when your dad took his own life? Of course you feel guilt … but you know what? You worked your ass off to get here, you overcame odds, you do deserve it.”

She might be right but fuck if I want to hear it right now. I don’t care if it was for my benefit or not…. Maybe I do…. Fuck! I can’t process anything right now: good, bad, truth, lies, love, hate. I’ve toed the edge on some of them, but have always held the few ideals to be my grounding truth to find out they were all bullshit principles he never lived by himself. So I’ve lived a life full of empty connections because I was so fucking scared to end up a mess of blood and gray matter and hopelessness that I never allowed myself to love someone.

I just stare at Quinlan in front of me and recall how earlier I thought it was time to rewrite my own life some. I wonder why after all of this time I finally had thoughts of stepping outside my comfort zone and was feeling like in doing so I was going to let my dad down. And then this happened.

Fate’s a fickle, funny bitch sometimes.

“Hawke?” Quinlan looks at me and despite the hesitancy in her eyes she steps in between my legs and puts her arms around me, pulling me into her. I sit, kind of stunned because her touch, her compassion, physically hurts me. It’s like I don’t deserve this from her, don’t want to accept it, yet within moments I’ve tugged on her torso and am clinging to her, have dragged her against my chest, and am holding on for dear life. The need to need someone is so profound I can’t catch my breath.

I fight the ingrained thoughts that want to push her away, to not feel, but that’s all I can do right now is feel. My hand fists in the back of her shirt, my face is buried in her abdomen as I squeeze my eyes shut so goddamn tight because I will not cry but my body shudders with the force of trying to withhold it.

And Quin just holds me tight, giving me all of the comfort I’ve needed from my mom for so many years. I’ve found consolation over the years between the thighs of a willing candidate but not like this, not making myself vulnerable, not needing someone. As unsettling as it feels, I can’t let go, can’t pull away from her and her quiet murmurs of soothing and the silent support of her arms.

“It’s okay to need me …” she says and then falls quiet. I just pull her in tighter and I’m sure she can’t breathe but it’s okay because right now I’ll be her fucking air so long as she doesn’t let go of me.

And that thought … the immediacy of it as it runs through my head almost knocks me as far back as the confession from my mom’s lips.

The funny thing is that even with all the shit I’m trying to process, I don’t know why that one thing doesn’t scare the fuck out of me. Why of all of the revelations I’ve come to today, having Quin here with me feels more right than I ever could have imagined.



Chapter 28


QUINLAN

I watch Hawkin from the couch in the studio. He’s working through the lyrics of a song while I’m on my laptop getting into the heart of my thesis. This feels good. All of it, especially where we are right now when it could have gone in so many different directions after the past couple of days.

I love the opportunity to watch Hawke work. He gets this little crease in his forehead when he jots down lyrics and reworks them on the pad. He also does this thing where he bites his lower lip as he strums out the chords on the guitar with his eyes closed before he brings the words into it. Something about his process is most definitely sexy.

Every time I see him stare off into space in thought, I wonder how he’s really doing, and I can’t help but remember the look on his face as he stared at his mother, the hurt and shock and devastation in his expression. It was so brutal to watch, so heart-wrenching to stand by and not be able to do anything to ease his pain.

He’s shut down still, not really talking about it, and yet I know the truths he learned are making him question everything about what he’s grown up believing. Maybe that’s why he’s poured himself into his music the last couple of days.

After this past week, I know my mom’s old adage describes Hawkin perfectly: Sometimes the strongest people are the ones who love beyond all faults, only truly grieve behind closed doors, and fight battles that nobody knows about. My only hope is that by losing himself in his music, he’s been able to process everything.

Besides leaving the house for his last lecture today, he hasn’t really left the studio much according to Vince. But in Vince’s eyes that means Hawke’s coping, he’s working through it with music, and that’s a good sign.