Page 109 of The Life We Left Behind

Delaney sensed the change in me. Her hand came to my cheek as she moved so I was looked into her eyes.

“Hey. What just happened?” she asked softly.

“I think I’m just as bad as they were. I think I care about myself far too much to be any good at this. What if I’m a terrible father because all I know is how they act?”

“Oh, Trace. The very fact that you’re worried about this means you’re nothing like them.”

“You don’t understand.” I shook my head, stepping back away from her, but she followed me as I went, not prepared to let me even think this way about myself. “I wanted him to have had something missing in this life. I want to know that he missed me. That he knew he was lacking something because I wasn’t there.”

Saying it aloud, especially to her, made me realize just how awful it was.

Delaney stepped back and my heart just about leaped out of my mouth with how scared it made. “I’m going to tell you something,” she said quietly, looking up through the path of trees to make sure that Cade wasn’t close by. “I’m not telling you this to make you feel bad. Only because I want you to understand that I know what I’m talking about.”

I nodded, afraid to say anything because I had a feeling that whatever she was about to say was about to completely shatter me.

When she saw that I wasn’t going to say anything, she nodded, nervously glancing for Cade again before she sighed and turned back to me.

“When I first went to the city, I was in a really bad place. And all of those bad feelings about myself, about what was happening, they turned against you. I hated you so much back then. I’m not proud of it. But I had all this stuff going on, and it felt like there was nowhere for it to go, and it twisted up inside me.”

I couldn’t take this. I thought I could. I thought I could at least have the guts to stand there and listen to what she had to say. But I was wrong.

“Delaney.” I stepped closer, but she held up a hand to stop me.

It took everything in me to stand where I was.

“Adelaide got me a therapist. If she hadn’t, I don’t know where I’d be right now. But it was really good, Trace. Theyhelped me see that whatever I was feeling was just a normal reaction, and then they worked me through it. I forgave you a long time ago. I’m not saying that you need to forgive your parents. I’m not sure I’d ever be able to. But I think you’d really benefit from speaking to someone.”

I knew the reaction she was expecting. Denial. Rage. Probably some puffing of my chest as I tried to tell her how I was too much of a manly man for therapy.

But there was none of that inside me.

Because she was right.

It wasn’t just what had happened to Delaney and me. It was everything. It was the shitty childhood, the abusive marriage, the feelings of loss and guilt I couldn’t escape whenever I thought of my brother.

Damn. It was honestly a miracle that I’d made it this far without having therapy.

“Okay. I think that’s a really good idea.”

“Wow, I thought you’d fight me on that, and then we’d do this whole thing where I tried to convince you, and you’d get upset with me, and then we’d get all awkward with each other for a bit before I finally set Blake on you.”

I had a feeling setting Blake on me was something I didn’t want to experience, even if it was to try to persuade me to go to therapy.

With a wry smile, I stepped back to her side and grabbed her hand as we went to find our son.

Our son.

“I don’t know how I feel about you going for the nuclear option of Blake quite so quickly. You do realize that I’m going to have to go for mutual destruction and counter with Dex, right?”

Delaney laughed and then waved as Cade came back into view with the biggest armful of sticks that I’d ever seen.

“Dex? Please. The man loves me like a sister. You have no chance.”

She was right.

And I was so happy that she was.

CHAPTER FORTY

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