Page 16 of Everlasting

I glanced down at the letter in my hands again. I had sneaked it out of the box and brought it in here to read when I couldn’t sleep because they had become a sort of addiction for me. I needed to know what the next one said, and the following one, and each and every line after that. At the same time, I didn’t want CJ to know that I was reading them because I feared he would take them away and hide them from me. He was home now, for a few days while one of the men from another Chapter continued to try to dig around for answers in Canada. It was hitting my man hard that they continued to smack into dead ends in their search for Deck. I feared that eventually, I would end up with another letter full of his regrets. I couldn’t think about the possibility of them never bringing Deck home though. Instead, I moved to immerse myself back into CJ’s letter. As hard as it was to read some of the words he penned from our past, they were also oddly comforting to me.

My dearest Lucy,

My beautiful wife, my partner in life, my everything, please, tell me that one day you will forgive me. I don’t even know how I can ask that of you when I can’t forgive myself. I feel like a piece of me, a limb, a chunk of my soul, has been ripped from me and no matter what I do, I can’t make myself whole again. Part of that is missing you, it always feels that way, but even if you were to come and crawl right into my lap and get as close as you possibly can to me, I don’t think it would take that feeling away this time.

Our boy is gone. He was about to start a family of his own. I still can’t believe it. I can’t believe my little boy had grown so much that he was about to step into the role of father before his life, and that of his baby’s, were snuffed out. How the hell do I even begin to wrap my head around that, let alone get right with the fact that this was all down to me. I may not have run him off the road or took his life with my own hands, but I may as well have.

I never put my foot down about the way things were handled at the club. There was never a moment, even after all we went through, where I questioned how things were done or tried to change them. I was fucking raped, missed out on a part of your life, our son’s birth, and so much more, all because of the filthy fucking whores we allowed to run roughshod through the clubhouse. Had I put my foot down then, do you think it would have changed anything? Do you think the men would have followed suit? I can’t even say for sure. Knowing what happened to me, I don’t even think they would have gotten rid of the whores back then. I don’t think it would have been enough to convince them. Still, it will always hang over my head because I never tried. Not until it was too late. My boy suffered from my slow action. He suffered in the beginning of his life for it and then his life was cut short for the same damn reason.

I can’t get that out of my head. Hell, baby, I know I don’t even have to explain all this to you. It’s the reason I’m not with you right now. You already know all of this. You blame me too. I wanted to be better than the man my father was, but Luce, I’m worried that I ended up worse. My actions, my inactions, they’ve cost us so much more. They cost me you, so many times. Too many times. They cost me Ever, and a relationship with her that I can be proud of and grow. Instead, we just have this constant awkwardness and struggle. Now, they’ve cost us all Toby. How do I get right with that?

The crazy thing is, as much as I want to run back into the past to change things, I can’t. It would be sacrificing one of our children for the other. If I had stood up and done something about the club whores and the party dynamic all those years ago, we might have never added Ever to our family. I can’t regret her. I won’t wish her away. Hell, I did enough of that when I was fucked in the head over that entire situation. I lost enough of her. I’d give almost anything to have Toby back with us, but she isn’t a sacrifice I’m willing to make for that to happen. I’d give myself so that he could be here with all of you though. If God were willing, I swear it to you, I would give myself to bring him back to you.

I don’t know where we’ll go from here, if you can ever forgive me. I can barely stand to see my own reflection right now, so I need you to know that I don’t blame you for hating me. You should. My fuckups have cost us enough over the years. What am I saying? They cost us too much, far too much. I’m so sorry, baby. I’m so sorry, Toby. Please, forgive me.

For what it’s worth, you still have all my love until there are no more breaths in my body and then beyond that.

CJ

I had to get up and go to the bathroom. I tucked the letter into a drawer and hopped into the shower. It was the only way to hide the fact that I was sobbing uncontrollably. That letter. I should have saved that one for while he was gone. I don’t know how long I just stood there letting the water mix with my tears and wash them down, but I was startled to feel a hand on my shoulder.

“Lucy, love, are you okay?”

I nodded my head and then cuddled into his naked body. I often felt a little ill at ease about the way my body had aged, while his had stayed so firm. The tell-tale gray hairs everywhere were one thing, but CJ was determined to stay fit right up until the day he left this mortal world. Then there was me, with the slight baby pouch I never could get rid of and the faded reminders of the people I had brought into the world. Just thinking about that made me start bawling all over again.

“Please, tell me what’s wrong.”

“I don’t know,” I cried into his chest as he just held me there, rubbing my back under the fall of water from our shower. “I was just thinking about Toby and I don’t know why it’s so fresh today,” I lied.

“My lovely little liar, I saw you reading one of the letters. It was about him, yeah?”

“You were awake?”

He didn’t answer, just kissed the top of my head. “You know, I didn’t write those for you to read now. They’re for after I’m gone.”

“What if I’m gone first?”

“That’s never going to happen if I can help it. Do you really want to torture yourself with pieces of our past that weren’t all that great?”

“It’s not really torture,” I told him and when he scoffed, I bit his nipple to get him to stop and listen to me. “It’s usually not. Today, the letter I was reading, it was just hard. No matter how long it has been, that ache from losing our boy is still so visceral when I allow myself to go there.”

“I know,” he agreed. “I love you, Luce. I’d still give up my place here to bring him back to you.”

“There’s no doubt in my heart that you would. It was never your fault, you know? I should have made sure you knew I didn’t think that.”

“Luce,” he started, but I stopped his words and continued on to say my peace.

“No, listen. I know what I said to you back then. There were awful things I put on your shoulders that should have never weighed you down like that. It wouldn’t have mattered. Once you guys got Crow’s confession, that should have been evident. The woman, she didn’t matter. Yes, she was off her rocker, but she wasn’t the one who came up with the plan. That was all on Crow and none of you could have seen that coming.”

“Seems like we focused a lot on what the whores took from us over the years, but we never really acknowledged that the club itself played a bigger part in all that. Every time I lost you, it was a club brother at the head of things orchestrating that shit. I don’t know what it was about our chapter of the club back then, but there was a rot inside of it. That’s part of the reason I need to find Deck and bring him back. He cleaned all that shit up and made it a place those men can be proud to be a part of. Toby would have been so fucking at home there the way things run now.”

I agreed with a nod of my head. “I know you think you have to do this, to keep going out and searching and following leads, but isn’t there someone else in the club to do that now?”

“There are plenty of people doing the same things, and more that would step up,” he informed me.

“But you think it’s your responsibility?”

“Luce, I can’t give up on him. I can’t put it off on someone else either. I’ll forever wonder, if things don’t turn out, if it had been my fault for not trying harder, looking longer, following one more lead. I know that it’s taking me away from you a great deal, but baby, that boy put my daughter back together after I tore her apart. It’s the least I can do to bring him back home to her. He’s been like a son to me too, and damn it, I will not leave our grandbabies without their daddy.”

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