Page 127 of Rebel Hawke

TEN DAYS UNTIL TITLE FIGHT

WREN

The gloomy, dark storm clouds and cold drizzle falling around us precisely match the deep, dark sense of dread and foreboding that has clung to me since Gramps died.

Everything from the moment he took his final breath has feltoff.

I’m constantly on guard.

Looking over my shoulder.

Hairs on the back of my neck standing on end, like something else is coming that I can’t see, that has stayed well-hidden in the shadows that seem to beeverywherenow.

I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Coupled with the utter despair at losing him, this feeling that everything is wrong and will only get worse threatens to swallow me whole. Increasing with each passing minute and hour. Making it harder to function or even breathe.

I told Atlas that he had already survived the worst day of his life, so he could survive anything else that was thrown at him,thinking I had already done the same. But today, it doesn’t feel like it.

What I suffered in that fire, the physical agony and losing Dad so shortly after losing Mom, I thought that was as bad as it could get. Yet, standing here in the rain, knowing that Gramps is gone and what he did, all of it makes what happened so many years ago seem solivable, while this…this is not.

The sole thing that has kept me from giving in to it, from falling completely under its lure and suffocating in its inky blackness, is the unwavering strength of the man standing beside me now.

His arms around me every night.

His assurances that things will be okay, even though I can see he’s spiraling, too.

Atlas does his best to try to keep it together—mostly for me—but he can’t hide the anguish in his eyes.

He tightens his arm around my shoulders as we stand next to the tomb. Holding the umbrella over us with his free hand, he tries to keep us dry when my tears have left me in a permanently soaked state anyway. I rest my head against his shoulder, leaning into his massive, unyielding frame for the support I so desperately need when my body won’t stop trembling.

And it isn’t just about losing Gramps.

Somehow, I know I could have handled that and found a way to keep moving forward without him because I knew he wouldn’t live forever. No one does. And I saw he was starting to show his age and decline. It was coming—sooner rather than later.

His death might have been possible to work through. It might not have left me in this pit of utter misery. But the awful truth he dumped on me before he left this world has set a Tasmanian devil of guilt gnawing at my stomach that’s so much worse than the morning sickness.

It’s our fault.

My family was responsible for bringing such a horrific loss to the Hawkes, one that set off a ripple effect that’s still felt today.

All the horrible things that have happened to them since that night can be traced back to losing Sam. His death, his absence from their lives, it was the trigger, the spark that lit the flames that burned the family so badly.

Bile climbs my throat, and a shudder rolls through me as the priest says the final prayer in front of the marble slab that bears the Jenkins name, where Grandmother, Mom, and now Gramps have all been laid to rest.

I shouldn’t have been surprised by the throngs who showed up to say goodbye to the old man, considering he’s lived his whole life in New Orleans and was a legend in the boxing world. But seeing the sheer number of people who cared about him, who loved him as much as I did, only makes the pain so much worse.

None of them know what he did.

How he hurt the Hawkes.

But they all know the family well and would look at me so differently if they were aware of the horrific secret Jimmy Jenkins carried for so many years.

Most of the men now beginning to file out of the cemetery knew Gramps from the gym. People he’s trained over the years. A few familiar faces from my childhood, as well as newer fighters, all take the time to stop and offer their condolences to Atlas and me, even though I’m barely registering their words.

And when they’re done, it’s time for the Hawkes to make their way to me to offer one more murmured “I’m sorry” and hugs that make me want to scream.

Because they’reallhere.

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