The Ending I Want(59)

This is the place where my parents met and fell in love. It feels magical to me. But even more so because Liam is here, sitting beside me.

I force my thoughts onto my parents, and closing my eyes, I let their meeting play out in my head—my mom rushing around on her bike, crashing into my dad.

If they’d never met…then I wouldn’t be here.

I would never have had the privilege of knowing and loving them.

But if they had never met, they would never have had me. I would never have been the cause of their deaths.

I don’t know which I would want more.

To have had my parents as I did, for the time I did…or for them to have never met.

But then Parker and Tess would never have been born.

And that is inconceivable to me.

I can’t allow myself to think those kinds of things. I can’t change what was.

But I can change what is to be.

So, I let my mother’s voice into my head, and I listen to her as she once again tells me their love story.

“You okay?” Liam’s voice is quiet beside me.

“Yeah.” I open my eyes and turn my face to him. “Just thinking.”

“About your family?”

I look away and nod. It’s too hard to stare into his eyes and talk about them.

“I’m sorry you lost them…your parents…and your brother and sister.”

I press my lips together and move my head forward slightly, acknowledging him.

Silence falls between us.

Liam breaks it. “My mother died when I was ten.”

His words surprise me. Because I had no clue. No clue at all.

I turn in my seat to face him. My knees press up against his thigh. I stare into his face.

Liam brings his eyes to mine. “I know what it’s like to lose someone you love, Boston. Maybe not to the extent you have…but I do know.”

“I’m sorry.” I reach for his hand, and he lets me take it. “I’m so sorry that you lost your mom. How did she…die?” I immediately regret asking because I’m prying.

When Liam asked me about my family’s passing, I tore into him.

“My mother was…” He looks away from me, his eyes focused on the grass beneath our feet, and he takes a deep breath. “She was murdered by her boyfriend.”

“Oh God, Liam. I’m so sorry.”

He shakes his head but doesn’t look at me. “The way she died…it was horrific and brutal…but the life she lived…” He brings his eyes to mine. I see the pain buried deep in them. “It was difficult.”

“Difficult how?”

He lets out a breath. “She was an addict—heroin—for as many years as I can remember. I don’t think she was in the beginning though when she met my father and got pregnant with me. I figure she probably used recreational drugs. But, after I was born, I guess things got worse. I know she had a hard time, growing up. She didn’t talk much about it, but she didn’t have anything to do with her family. However, her childhood was…I do know it wasn’t easy. When she met my father, she was twenty-one and working as a stripper.”

There’s clear bitterness in his voice. I don’t know if it’s because of the mention of his father or the fact that his mother worked as a stripper.

“My father liked—probably still does—to frequent strip clubs. Well, any club really. He likes the party lifestyle. My father was…what you might call rebellious. Charles Hunter, the son and only heir of Lord Hunter…had everything a man could want, and my father chose to piss his life away on women and alcohol and partying.”

“Lord Hunter? Your grandfather is a lord? The grandfather I’m going to meet really soon?”

“Mmhmm.” He doesn’t meet my stare.

Wow. A lord. I’m glad I put on a nice dress.

“I’m guessing my mother fell in love with my father,” Liam continues, a hard tone to his voice. “Or she fell in love with his wealth, maybe the life she thought he could give her. My father, on the other hand, fell in lust with my mother. She had a hard life, but she was a beautiful woman. The minute she told him she was pregnant with me, he was out of there.”

“What an ass.” The words are out before I can stop them. “I’m sorry.” I look at him, contrite.

“Don’t be.” He laughs. “You’re right. My father is an ass.”

“So…when your mom died, you went to live with your grandpa?”

“Yeah.” His expression warms at the mention of his grandfather. “My dad wasn’t really around, too busy traveling the world with whomever he was f*cking at that time, moving from party to party.

“My grandpa has been involved in my life from the very beginning. He tried to get my mother out of that lifestyle. He wanted her to move to Oxford to be close to him, but she wouldn’t do it. She wanted to stay in London. So, he bought her a house in a nice part of London. Gave her an allowance to use to care for me. My father never gave us a penny. But I guess…no matter how much money Grandpa gave her or how much I…loved her.”

I hear the break in his voice, and it hurts. A lot.

He clears his throat. “Sometimes…whatever broke someone in the first place is embedded so deeply inside them that nothing can fix it or root it out, and all the love or money in the world isn’t going to change that. Maybe my father tossing her aside was the tipping point for her. And that’s where the drugs helped her…made her feel better when nothing or no one else could.” He looks at me with something so painful in his eyes that I feel his hurt like it’s my own. “She wasn’t a bad mother…not in the beginning…but she lost her way…with the drugs…and the dealer boyfriend who fed her addiction. Along the way, she forgot she had a kid to care for.”