Part of Your World(92)

My mind reached uselessly for the memory and then finally gave up. It was something that only belonged to Wakan. And you couldn’t have it once you left.

Not even in your dreams.

I took my dressing-down by Dad for the Daniel thing with so little emotion, he lost interest and gave up on lecturing me. I was like a catatonic patient. A zombie.

I didn’t respond to Gabby and Jessica’s texts. I didn’t take Bri up on her offers to go to dinner or come over. I just buried myself in work, kept moving so none of what happened would catch up with me and pin me down.

Mom stopped by a few days after the scene at the hospital. She was hurt I hadn’t told her about Daniel. Then she begged me to apologize to Dad for lying about trying to work it out with Neil.

What he needed an apology for, I couldn’t understand. He was the only one getting everything he wanted.

I wondered, looking at her, if Dad had lured her in once like Neil did to me. If he made her feel like the most special woman in the world, pretended to be someone different, dangled the Montgomery legacy that she valued so much—and by the time he showed her who he really was, it was too late. And even without asking her, I knew that’s the way it was.

The day after tomorrow was the quasquicentennial. It was my chance to network with the board and important investors for the hospital. It was the first time that I’d be operating as a Montgomery in an official capacity, stepping into the role I’d seen Mom play my entire life.

I should have been looking forward to it. Not the party or the schmoozing part, but the beginning of my ability to make a difference. And I couldn’t even muster the energy to care about it. It felt completely meaningless to me. Everything did.

This is what depression felt like.

I thought it had been bad back when I was with Neil. But this was a darkness I’d never experienced before. My body felt atrophied, like the simple act of getting up was a feat.

Nothing made me smile. None of the things I typically loved appealed to me. And it occurred to me that I had drowned. I didn’t save myself. And now I was just floating, weightless, dead inside.

I wondered when it would get better—when doing the right thing would start to feel like the right thing. I didn’t just end this for me, I did it for Daniel. So he wouldn’t leave his life. So he wouldn’t be subjected to the things that my friends and family would put him through, no matter how much I would try to shield him from it if he was here.

If this was the best thing for both of us, why was it so, so hard?

I got off even later than usual. There had been a mass casualty situation at work, a multi-car pileup. A seven-year-old had died, and I’d had to tell the family.

It was one of those days when I wished even more than usual that I could go be in Wakan with Daniel. That I could lie in bed with him, whispering in the dark, letting him brush the hair off my forehead and kiss me. Feel the rumbling in his chest while he told me that it was going to be okay. He’d make sure I ate, even though I wouldn’t want to. Put me in one of his T-shirts while he’d cook me dinner, and Hunter would have his chin in my lap.

But I would never feel that safe and cared for again. I wouldn’t find that kind of love a second time. I wouldn’t even try. I knew how lucky I was to even have had it once.

I would be single for the rest of my life. No kids, no marriage. I didn’t want it with anyone else. I would be my career now. I would finally be what Dad wanted. Nothing but a Montgomery—and a good one too. One without any distractions.

And the legacy would die with me.

Derek wouldn’t be back, and I would never have an heir. In their lack of foresight, my parents had effectively set into motion the destruction of the one thing they cared most about.

I think they still thought I’d get back with Neil. Marry him, have children who’d grow up under the same abusive dynamic I had, with a narcissistic, controlling father and a mother too worn down to protect them.

It would never happen.

This was the price of their prejudice.

Grace would have cost them nothing.

I walked into my dark bedroom and dropped my bag on the floor. I peered around tiredly.

I hadn’t moved any of Daniel’s things. The heart-shaped rock was where I’d left it. The last hoodie I’d stolen from him was still draped over my chair. I stood there now, staring at it.

It would still smell like him. I could put it on and climb into bed and imagine that he was holding me.

And then I wondered if he was holding someone else. Seeing other people already. Trying to move on like he should. I pictured Doug dragging him to bars, getting him on a dating app.

Maybe some other girl was wearing his hoodies now.

It kicked the legs right out from under me.

Most days I was strong. I was able to live with the choices I had made. The choices I was forced to make. I could fight the urge to call him and hear his voice. I could stay away.

But not today.





Chapter 35

Daniel



I felt like a different person.

Like I’d aged a century since the last time I saw her. I felt more like Pops than myself. I was bitter and sick of everything. And every day I got worse instead of better.

Losing Alexis would alter me forever. Like the rings in a tree, you could open me up fifty years from now and see when it happened, see the damage. I was ruined. I’d never be as good ever again.