Page 85 of Trusting You

“Why not? You see her as this angel when in reality, she didn’t plan this shit out. When was she diagnosed? How much time did she have to figure out a future for Lily? And why the fuck didn’t she do it?”

“Stop—”

“Months, right?” Locke barrels on. “Months to contact me, or hell, secure your custody of Lily, instead of dying and leaving it to us and a delayed court system to figure it out.”

“We were going through a lot during such a short period—”

“She didn’t get her affairs in order. That’s her fault, Carter. Not yours, not mine.”

I’m half out of my chair. “Maybe it’s because she thought she’d live, Locke. Did you ever think about that?”

That shuts him up.

I continue, “You have no idea! None, on what she—we—went through. You think there was time—?”

“There shoulda been.”

I nearly screech. “Stop speaking about this like you have any idea what went on during the last months of her life!”

“Then don’t minimize my six months of sobriety because you found a full bottle of pain killers.”

I choke on a scoff. “That’s your argument? You’re maligning Paige because you don’t think I understand your personal demons?”

He crosses his arms, annoyingly relaxed while I’m practically melting with contained rage.

“I think it’s very on point,” he says. “We both think we know a lot about the other when we don’t know the half of it.”

This time, I scoff perfectly. “When that girl fell out of bed with you? You were still half drunk. The fact you’re calling yourself sober—”

“That’s…look, I’m not an alcoholic.”

“Isn’t an addict still an addict, by any other name?”

“No. You do not get to do this.”

“What? Call you out?”

He whips out a pointed finger, then balls his hand into a fist while his lips turn white. “You don’t get to sit here and put all my hard work, everything I went through, into a few seconds of worthless sarcasm. You have every right to be mad at me right now because I didn’t tell you about this stupid test I made for myself. That’s on me. But you do not have the right to strip all I’ve worked for, the night sweats and the shaking and the agony of being straight-up sober after undergoing two more knee operations, away from me.” He takes a breath, and I remind myself to blink in front of his brimming fury. “I did it all for that little girl at your feet. Somewhat for myself, but my dreams, my hopes, my life, is now for that child. And I will keep fighting to keep her; don’t you dare doubt that.”

His last words, their visceral tone, rock me.

“In the grand scheme of things,” he says, still furious, “you’re not anything I have to deal with.”

I can’t help the flutter of hurt in my heart, and I look away before Locke catches on.

He adds, “And yeah, I felt it was worth proving to you anyway. Not just to redeem my ego, either. Because you mean a lot to Lily, and even more to Lily’s mother. You, Carter, were not deserving of how the government treated you. The way you hated, the way you despised, was all for one reason.” He glances down at Lily who’s distracted by banging the whisk against the table leg. “And out of respect for her, I wasn’t about to treat you the same as them.”

My mouth twists.

“So excuse me for thinking that adding a pill addiction to your first impression of me wasn’t the best choice in trying to win you over.”

“You’ve been hiding pills, Locke,” I manage to say. “That act takes everything we’re talking about to a whole new level.”

“See for yourself—count them. Look at the quantity listed on the bottle, then count them out. They’re all there.”

I shake my head. “That doesn’t matter.”

“Fine.” He stands, swiping the pill bottle, opening it, then dumping them in the sink. He turns on the tap. “Consider them gone.”

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