Page 86 of Take My Hand

A kernel of resolve plants itself into my chest, blooming and spreading from top to bottom as I stride over and grab the bass by its neck. Carter tracks my movements and takes a step back as I approach her, already shaking her head. Already knowing where I’m going with this.

“Do it.”

“I can’t,” she croaks.

“Yes, you can.”

“But it’s your favorite.”

“It’s just an instrument. You’re my future.”

29

HAYDEN

Carter’s mouth parts on a small whimper. “Hayden…”

“Let it go.” I grab her hand and clamp it around the neck, waiting until she grips it with her own strength before releasing it. Backing up a few steps, I give her space.

“But the floors.” She frowns, looking at the cool toned wood panels running beneath our feet.

“Stop stalling. Stop worrying. Let. It. Out.”

Whether it’s the force of my tone or the last of her control has finally snapped, she takes the bass and swings it up and behind her shoulder in a quick move.

In a blink and a flash of dark red through the air, she brings my favorite bass down and smashes it against the floor.

The impact rings loudly throughout the sparsely filled space. The instrument bounces off the floor, vibrating in her hold. But she seems unbothered by the sting of the collision. If anything, that first blow was a test swing.

A beginning, an end, and an unleashing.

She heaves it high in the air again and brings it down again. Her hair falls loose out of her ponytail with each swing but she doesn’t stop. The floor takes the beating, red polish coloring the dents.

With every swing and slam of the bass, I can see through her eyes the demons she’s expelling through it.

The way Daniel belittled her work and made her feel inferior to him in their business.

The way he slipped an insult in with every compliment toward her that kept her hanging on just enough.

The fear of judgment she’s lived with since she made her choice, and the pain she’s carried because of it.

Tears stream down her face, cheeks flushed with exertion. She grunts and cries and screams and each one both rips apart my heart and stitches it back together. Because she needed this. She needed to break and rage and let it out in order for her to heal and mend and pick up the pieces.

“I have never once,” she chokes out between sobs, “regretted my decision.”

Swing, crash. Swing, crash.

“It was the right thing for me and I won’t apologize to him, or you, or anyone for it.”

When she pulls it back this time, the body sags and a splinter in the neck appears. But it doesn’t snap just yet.

“He would’ve made a horrible father. And I would’ve been stuck with him for the rest of my life. A baby wasn’t going to fix us. Fix him. It would’ve sentenced me to him for the rest of my life. It would have broken me.” Her voice cracks as she yells, letting it out.

Another swing, then another, and another before a crack sounds through the air.

Only the neck remains in her hands, the body broken off, barely hanging on by the strings.

“Even though he treated me like shit on the bottom of his shoe, I was just supposed to take that because I got pregnant?” She throws the remnants of my favorite bass aside, casting her arms out wide and turning toward the large glass doors.

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