Page 13 of Dare to Need

My mother—the person who had held our family together through years of fighting over stupid shit. She needed me and I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak any words of solace to calm her down.

Frozen. I was completely and utterly frozen as vivid memories flashed before my eyes. Moments in time that I now regretted with every fiber of my being. Arguments and fights with my father that now seemed so incredibly trivial, I wasn’t sure why they happened in the first place.

More memories of special moments that were tainted with my bull-headedness. Pieces of our lives that we would never get back. All because I wanted to be different from him. I wanted to forge my own path instead of taking the road that he built for all of us.

As the images of my mistakes played over and over in my mind, a sudden jolt of fear hit me in my chest like a freight train.

What if he doesn’t make it?

The realization that I might never see my father again had my knees buckling. Somewhere in the distance, I heard the shattering of glass as my phone hit the ground. I should have felt the pain of my knees hitting the hardwood floors, but my body was numb—stricken with terror.

Every foul thing I ever spoke to him assaulted my mind in waves of vengeful regret. Words that I could never take back, even though my heart ached to go back in time and prevent myself from ever uttering a single hateful word toward him.

Suddenly, warm arms embraced my neck and the sweet scent of lilac filled my nostrils as Eva pressed herself against me. In the swiftest moment, my mind switched again, tormenting me with all the little arguments my father and I’d had over the past few months. Fear gripped my throat as I struggled to breathe against all the guilt building up in my heart.

I had been an ass.

I was a selfish ass who didn’t take into consideration what other people wanted and now I might never get the chance to tell my father how sorry I am.

“What happened?” Eva’s voice cracked the last bit of strength I had left as tears slowly rolled down my face, landing in tiny pools on her shoulder.

As she leaned back, I craved her closeness, but still could not speak. She cupped the sides of my face with her small hands, rubbing both thumbs along the stubble of my cheeks.

The worry in her eyes sent a shiver up my spine and knowing that I was the cause for her worry made my stomach coil.

“Baby, what happened?” A tiny river creased the skin between her brows.

I swallowed against the raw tightness of my throat as I slowly gained some clarity. Acute awareness triggered my mind as I glanced down at my shattered phone, glints of the sunlight hit the pieces of glass and formed small rainbows on the wood floors.

My mother—oh god, my mother.

Rising panic settled into my chest as I realized that my mother was still crying into the phone as I’d dropped to the floor.

“We need to call my mom,” I managed to say.

Eva’s head slowly bobbed up and down in agreement as she rose from her crouched position. Through blurry eyes, I watched as she looked around the loft, her cheeks hallowing in where I knew she was nervously biting on her cheeks.

I stayed glued to the spot on the floor, the ache in my knees a subtle reminder that I should have been moving—packing a bag to fly to New York, calling my brother, doingsomething.

But I couldn’t. My arms and legs felt heavier than lead and I hated myself for it. I hated myself for every mean thing I’d ever said to my father. I hated myself for all the times he wanted to train me to take over his company—the company he built for our family—and I turned him down. I hated myself for not trying harder to be a decent son. To spend time with him when he had the time to spend.

For so long, I thought I was doing the right thing by standing up to him and my mother. That by forging my own path, I was showing the world what I was capable of. When in reality, I was just another selfish asshole who only cared about my own aspirations. All the while, I shoved my family away. Never letting them in to see the truth. That I just wanted their approval.

Eva must have found her phone because she was kneeling in front of me again, her hand outstretched as the phone screen showed my mother’s name across it. When I didn’t take the phone from her, Eva pressed it to her ear, her bottom lip quivering as her eyes darted back and forth between mine.

“Mrs. Walker?” Her voice cracked as she said my family name.

“Yes, I’m with him right now. I...I don’t know what to do.” A single tear fell from her right eye and before it could roll down her cheek she wiped it away quickly, as if she were trying to hide it from me.

“I think he’s in shock, Mrs. Walker. He hasn’t moved.”

Eva nodded her head once and extended the phone up to my ear.

“Garth, honey.” She was no longer crying, but I could tell my mother was trying to keep it together for me. Always the strongest of us.

“I know you’re scared, honey. I’m scared too. But I promise we will get through this together. Just like we always do.”

I wanted to believe her words. That our family was capable of overcoming anything. But as I thought back to how the last several years had gone where we hardly saw one another and our holidays were often spent quarreling, I couldn’t accept what she was saying was true.

---