Let Me (O'Brien Family, #2)(81)
Again, the silence returns, swallowing the room whole and cementing everyone in place. Including me.
“What do you want people to take away from your experience?” a deep voice asks me.
The voice is so loud, and appears so suddenly, it cuts through the quiet like the voice of God talking down to me. But it’s not God. Not even close. It’s the president of the UFC, standing at the podium waiting for an answer.
He smiles like I’ve seen him do when a fighter makes him proud. He’s known me for a while because of Killian, and we’ve spoken a few times following some highly publicized matches and at parties. But I never expected him to look at me with this level of respect. I hoped it would eventually come with a belt win, but not for something like this.
“What?” I ask. I heard his question, but there’s more to what he’s asking.
He realizes as much and rephrases his statement. “There are millions of people watching you right now, Finn,” he says. “Lots of them are kids who have probably been through what you’ve been through. What would you like them to know?”
I glance down at my folded hands resting on the table, taking a moment to absorb everything he said. There are millions watching, and because of it, chances are there are several thousand who’ve been hurt like me, watching, too.
I think I should say something smart and articulate like Declan would, or answer in that crowd-pleasing way Killian always manages. But I’m not them so I say what I feel, and what I wished I would have believed long before now. “That it’s not their fault,” I say, once more catching sight of my face on that giant screen. “That there are a lot of bad people they’ll encounter in life. But that doesn’t mean life can’t be good, or that you can’t be happy no matter what happens to you.”
“Are you happy, Finn?” a female reporter asks.
It’s weird for someone in this circle to call me by my first name. “I’m working on it,” I answer, grinning because I mean what I say. “Because I want to be, and because I think it’s something everyone deserves.”
There are a few smiles and approving nods my way before the conference resumes full swing. But it’s what happens at the end that I don’t expect. It starts with Amarato clapping my back as we stand to leave, then Griffith telling me I did a good job. But when our opponents on the opposite end walk over to shake my hand, I’ll admit, it gives me one hell of a pause.
It’s not a pity thing―at least, that’s not how I take it―especially with how pissed some of them appear, and how more than one seems to understand where I’m coming from, and maybe where I’ve been. We start to pile out. I’m not saying what I did wasn’t hard. In fact, my chest is tightening in anticipation of the inevitable shit storm that’s coming―from social media―everyone who knows me, and from the haters who are going to be *s just to be *s. Most of all I’m dreading those questions I may not be ready to answer. Yet it’s my family, and how they look, that halts all thoughts of anyone but them.
Sofia is teary, Tess, Curran’s wife, is too, but they’re sweet like that. Sol, she’s my girl. I knew what I had to say would make her cry. That doesn’t stop her from throwing her arms around me when she sees me and meeting me with a kiss.
I smile against her lips as I lower her to the floor, happy she’s with me, and out of my mind that she plans to stay. My smile leaves town as the rest of my family makes their way forward. Wren . . . no matter what she says, and how hard she’s been denying it, I know she’s had it rough lately and that something is going on with her. So when I see her wiping her eyes, I’m not completely shocked that she’s crying. But to see Angus break down, to watch Seamus and Declan drag their hands down their reddening faces, and for big bad Curran to pinch the bridge of his nose like it’s going to somehow plug those leaky tear ducts, I’ll confess, it’s hard to watch.
Yet it’s Killian―my closest brother, the guy who did what he could to make things right―that I swear to Christ almost makes me crack. Almost.
I meet his face as the first of his grief releases. “I should have been there,” he tells me.
He should have been there to protect me he means. I frown, keeping Sol glued to my side. “You’ve always been there for me,” I tell him truthfully. My eyes scan each member of my family. “All of you.”
I mean what I say, trying to make them understand that like Sol, they’re everything to me, and that I appreciate all they’ve done and sacrificed for me―their youngest brother who never kept quiet and always found trouble. Instead I make them release more of their pain, and some of their pride too. But that’s my family. And that’s why I love them.
The thing is, now it’s time to get better, to show them I love me, too. Hell, I owe them that much.
Mostly though, I owe it to myself.
Epilogue
Finn
Ever ride the crazy train and wonder how you’re going to get off? Let’s say me spilling my soul on national television was the ticket on and I got promoted to conductor. Like I thought, social media exploded. Yeah, yeah, there were trolls saying shit I didn’t need to hear or want to know. But what shocked me to hell and back was all the love that came from it.
That’s right, God damn love.