Written with Regret (The Regret Duet #1)(17)

But hurting him was never part of the plan. After everything he’d given me, I owed that man my life.

It was just… I owed that innocent child more.

“What the hell are you doing?” I whispered to myself, my heart in my throat as I drove through the iron gates in front of a towering gray-stone mansion. The sprawling green lawn was manicured to perfection, and the rich bed of newly blossoming spring flowers bore the touch of a professional. It was the start of a warm spring in Jersey. We didn’t usually see flowers until May. Though, judging by this place, those flowers had been planted specifically for the party.

Her party.

Her birthday party.

I couldn’t believe she was turning four. She wasn’t a baby. Not even a toddler. At four years old, I’d already started taking pictures. I had memories of making mud pies in the backyard with my sister and arguing with my mother over a hideous dress she’d sewn for me.

Keira was four and had no idea who I was.

Guilt slashed through me as I imagined her growing up without a mother. Regardless of how deeply it gutted me, I knew with my whole heart that it was the best thing that had ever happened to her.

The Hadley from four years earlier had had no business raising a child. That woman was nothing more than a shadow of the eight-year-old who’d lost her innocence in the midst of a bloody, heartbreaking tragedy. The gunshots and screams still haunted her even though it had been over a decade. Her demons were unshakable, their claws anchored so deep into her soul that they seemed impossible to escape. Therapy hadn’t helped. Medicine only took the edge off. Self-harm, self-loathing, and self-sabotage had become a way of life. Sure, that Hadley could have kept the baby. She could have tried to be a good mother, but she never would have been able to forgive herself if—and ultimately when—she’d failed.

Not everything was black and white. It was often in the gray areas where the hardest decisions were made. And four years ago, in the darkest gray imaginable, dropping Keira off to Caven had been the only option.

But that was a different time.

A different place.

A different world.

And a different life.

The Hadley of now was a different person.

When the monstrous task of living had begun to suffocate me, I’d considered ending it all. Thankfully, my mother’s green eyes, frantically trying to figure out how to keep me alive even as she took her dying breath, flashed on the backs of my lids, convincing me to give therapy one last try.

And, this time, it changed my life.

I explained to my doctor that I was in the prime of my life, as some would call it, but most days, it was all I could do to pry my lids open. It felt like I was walking through life, dragging two cement boulders tied around my ankles and a semi-truck strapped to my chest. How was I ever going to survive the rest of my life if I couldn’t even climb out of my bed?

He looked me straight in the eye and said, “If you objectively look at life as a whole, it’s a daunting and impossible process. There are just far too many obstacles for one person alone to conquer. The world sucks. People are judged rather than accepted. Hate spreads far more easily than love. Power and money are valued more than morality. Insecurities are preyed upon rather than quelled.” His intense gaze never left mine when he asked, “Why would any of us want to live like that?”

I didn’t have an answer for him because I sure as hell didn’t.

And then he set his folder aside, leaned back in his chair, crossed his legs, and saved my life. “Because life isn’t lived as a whole. You aren’t given a hundred years all at once. Time is doled out one very manageable second at a time. Stop looking at the big picture and find happiness in the seconds.”

I’d always loved photography—before and especially after I’d lost my parents. It was my escape. But it wasn’t until that moment that I realized why.

A camera could capture a million different emotions.

But only one at a time.

One second.

One snap.

One memory forever frozen in time.

When I looked back on the picture of my parents taken exactly one second before my father was killed, they were genuinely happy.

There was no pain.

No terror.

As a family, it was our final second untouched by such brutal violence and staggering fear.

And it was beautiful.

My parents hadn’t lived their lives trembling because of what could have happened to them.

They’d lived their lives for moments like that picture.

And from that day forward, with my camera at my side, one second at a time, I started my uphill battle to do the same. To live my life the way my parents had. The way they would have wanted me to as well.

It had taken a while, far longer than I would have liked, but I could finally breathe again without pain. I was able to find warmth in the sun again and stare up at the night sky without wishing it would devour me.

For the first time since I had taken back control of my life, I wasn’t living in the gray anymore.

But I feared that was where Keira would always be.

I should have called. I should have turned myself in to the police. Caven would have been notified that I’d been arrested and he’d have had time to process my return. But that would have given him time to plan for it.

There was a good chance he was never going to let me see Keira. And rightly so. After everything that had happened, I couldn’t fault him for that.