Thick Love (Thin Love, #2)(106)

Arturo had wrestled the gun from his boss and Warren’s face had reddened in the exertion. “You come to my home after what you did? Disrespectful, arrogant…”

He was right. Head in my hands, I realized how this looked, how he’d see me as nothing more than a begging kid. You don’t win back your honor by forcing your hand. I knew that. I should have taken my lumps and moved forward. It was Warren’s choice to make here, not mine.

“Please,” I tried again, slowly leaving the safety of the oak tree when Warren took a step toward me empty-handed. Another step away from that tree and I faced the man, only twenty feet separating us. “Please hear me out before you do something we’ll both regret.”

Warren was out of breath and angry—his splotchy complexion was pink and those eyes had darkened, filled with a frustration I could understand. He’d lost something precious because of me. I got that. If I’d been in his shoes, I’d want to strike out, destroy whoever had taken from me.

I held up my hands, walking toward him, my steps cautious. “Nothing I say will make up for what I did.”

“You’re damn right.” He didn’t move, let me come to him.

“I…I loved her.” That anger on his face, the same expression I’d seen from him that day in Tremé dimmed a little bit then, though he still looked ready to strangle me. I exhaled and stuck my hands in my pockets. “She was my first love.” He waited, eyes tight and I slipped my gaze down to the driveway. “I should have protected her.” I’d take his hatred. I’d take whatever he wanted to give me, but I wouldn’t do that looking at the ground like a coward afraid of his anger. Instead, I lifted my head and stared right into his eyes. “I wished…for a long time I wished it had been me that day, not her. Not Emily.”

“That would have been my preference.” Warren took a step forward, brushing off Arturo’s hand on his arm. “If I could get away with it, I’d put you in the ground.”

My jaw felt tight, but I tried to push down my anger, tried to understand the threat for what it was—loss, desperation. I relaxed the clench of the tight muscles around my mouth. “And then?”

“What?” Warren asked, still glaring at me.

The fear from minutes before came off of me like I’d stripped it away. When I spoke, my voice was calm, level. “Then what else would you have done? What would you do after you killed me because you lost your daughter?”

“Because you murdered her!”

“No!” I shouted, wanting to push the man back, to deflect his hand on my collar when he grabbed me. I didn’t. I could only clamp down my anger. “It was an accident. It was careless and stupid and it was my fault, but it was an accident. And I have spent every day for the past year and a half punishing myself for what happened.”

“It’s nothing to what I’ve felt! What we’ve all…” Warren said.

I let the man scream at me, but wouldn’t let him push me again. Then, I repeated something that Kona had told me after the accident. I hadn’t understood it at the time, I hadn’t wanted to hear it, I hadn’t wanted to hear any kind of advice or counsel from anyone, the hurt was too deep, too fresh, too huge. But now, I understood. Now I could see the truth in it.

“Grief joins you closer to another human being more than love.”

“Yes,” Warren shouted, eyes closing tight, “but grief hurts less.”

“I know that.” I touched Warren on the back, careful, slowly and the man did not jerk out of my reach. Warren kept his eyes on the ground. “It’s a burden I’ll carry with me, always.”

“Words. Those are only words,” Warren said.

“But I mean them.” Warren didn’t want to believe me, I knew that. He only wanted my blood on his hands and his daughter back at his side. But I couldn’t give him what he wanted and I wouldn’t live in the past. Not anymore. “Mr. Warren,” I said, holding his gaze again, “She…she was my first love, no one else will ever get that.” I swallowed, wishing that my voice didn’t break, that I could clear that clot from it. “Part of me died that day too. I…I wanted to die, I prayed so hard it would be me instead of her. I wanted it to be me and I…” I sniffled, encouraged by how Warren’s features began to relax. “I am so sorry I took her away from you. I am so…so unbelievably sorry.” And right there, standing on that perfectly manicured lawn, I cried in front of Pat Warren because I had loved his daughter more than breath. I cried because I had let her die. “I’m sorry, there’s nothing I can do to bring her back, but if there was, I’d do it. You could kill me if you want but that wouldn’t bring her back and it would only reap more sorrow on the family you do have, which is the last thing Emily would want. But Mr. Warren, with everything I am, everything I’ll be, I’m so very, very sorry.”

When I couldn’t see anything for the tears clouding my vision, I wiped my eyes, covering my face in my hands.

Warren knelt down, picking something off the lawn that shined and glinted in the sunlight. “I…I can’t ever forgive you.”

“I never expected you to.”

“I’m just not that good of a person, Ransom,” Warren said, staring down at Emily’s chain. I looked up at him, but didn’t say anything. Forgiveness had nothing to do with whether a man is good or bad. If Warren needed to hold on to his anger, I couldn’t argue with him. It was his burden to shoulder.