Page 96 of Something Like Sunflowers

Really? I blink at her, exhaling quickly and pressing my lips together in disbelief. It’s uncanny, this woman’s ability to pull information from my brain like a damn siphon.

“I knew it,” she hisses, chewing her bottom lip. “What does Katie say? What are your chances? You know my dad can pull strings if you need him to talk to someone in—”

I cut her off. “No! I cannot ask your dad to help this time.”

“This time?” She inclines her head, arching a brow.

Shit.

“Look,” I hold my arms out to the sides, “this is part of the stuff I wanted to tell you about, but I had an order to it, and now it’s all mixed up. But fuck it, here we go.”

She eyes me suspiciously and settles back onto the bench as I pace across the stable, my boots kicking up straw and dirt as I go.

“After you left, your dad was afraid you’d come back when you turned eighteen, which we can now confirm he was right about.”

“Hunter, do not tell me that your ignoring me had something to do with my father,” she seethes, and I know she’s not going to like the rest of it, but I can’t change the truth.

“I needed help. I was…” I run my sweaty palms down the front of my pants as I think of how to word this. “I was sick, Dev. I was drinking straight through the night and into the next week, skipping work, cussin’ out anyone who’d hire me just so they’d turn around and throw me out like…” I exhale a heavy sigh and shake my head, finally speaking it for the first time. “Like the trash I thought I was.”

“But you still drink now. And you’re okay doing that?” I’m used to this question. I did stop drinking for years after my treatment, but that wasn’t the problem for me. I guess I’m lucky in that way. Garrison, not so much.

“Drinking wasn’t my addiction.” I swallow, unable to keep my gaze from darting to hers every few seconds to gage how she takes this in. “I did it, don’t get me wrong. But it was just pre-game for the main event.”

“Which was?”

“Fighting.”

“Fighting?” She scrunches her nose. “You mean like punching and kicking in little Speedos kinda fighting? You were addicted to fighting people?”

I shrug. “You make it sound like it’s not a thing, but it’s a thing, okay?” I grin at her. I have no idea how she can make talking about something I usually dread opening up to anyone about feel light, but she does. Something about that sweet little southern drawl she thinks she doesn’t have.

“I’m sorry. I just don’t understand, I guess. Was it dangerous, what you were doing?”

I nod.

“Underground fighting was taking over my life. I was intentionally throwing fights for money, a paid punching bag for guys twice, sometimes three times my size, so they could rise in the ranks. So I could take that same money and throw it into another fight and do it all over again. Some nights, I could get two or three fights in before I blacked out. I lived for the nights I was so black and blue that the pain seeped into my dreams. Because those nights, I wouldn’t dream about you… with a pole protruding from your bleeding womb.”

I huff, realizing how messed up that sounds out loud.

“I used to think of those as the good nights.”

Devyn squeezes my hand again, and I squeeze back to let her know I feel her. She doesn’t have the words, but she cares like nobody else ever has.

Except one.

“Your dad is the reason I’m not dead, Devyn. That’s the honest truth.”

“My dad? He’s always hated you.”

“Not enough to watch me waste away, I guess.”

She tilts her head, crossing her arms over her chest, and I can see the moment the pieces click together for her as I tell my story, one she’s long overdue to hear.

“You had been gone a few months. Samuel was in with some shady people, moving heavy amounts of product from the city.” I let out a deep exhale. It still shocks me what people will do for money. Power. Security…even my own brother. I swallow the grief, like always, and go on, noting Devyn’s fingers lingering closer to mine, our pinkies nearly touching. Her eyes shine; that’s how I know she feels the same things I feel. She knew Samuel. He isn’t just some blank-faced felon she can count off in her mind. No, like Dustin and a few others who grew up with Sam, Sammy back then, she understands. Probably asking herself the same question I have.

What went wrong?

Difference is, I’ve had time to think about this. I’ve had nine years to figure out that it’s all interconnected. We’re bigger than we think we are. Each one of us.

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