Page 125 of Worth Every Risk

If it’s possible, the others sitting on the sofa have gone even quieter. All I can sense is the thunderous beating of my heart and a constriction around my lungs.

Lucie begins flicking through the pages, which are printed with photos Aries must have taken while she was here on the damn smartphone I gave her. She must have uploaded all the photos to her laptop before she handed it back to me.

“When I’m five, I want to have hair just like Ariel.” Lucie strokes the picture of Aries, and I clench my fists to prevent doing the same. “Can you buy it for me, Daddy?”

I swallow, disturbed by the lump that’s risen in my throat. “We’ll see about that,” I say, my voice rough like someone’s hacked the edges off.

Lucie keeps turning page after page. Aries and Lucie in the park, in the garden. Aries doing a handstand, her t-shirt falling and exposing an expanse of skin, her feet cut off because Lucie must have taken it and couldn’t frame the picture. There are even pictures of us all on the boat. I look disturbingly happy, and staring at my smiling face is like looking at a different man.

I can’t do this. I can’t fucking sit here when each picture is ripping at my insides, yanking at my heart, threatening to drag it up my throat and out of my body.

I ruffle Lucie’s hair with one hand and get up. “I have to check something… Outside.” Lamest excuse ever, and I feel everyone’s eyes on me, apart from Lucie’s, whose attention has been sucked into the pleasure of her gift.

Kate gets up off the sofa and sits on the floor with Lucie. “That was when we went to the beach,” I hear her saying, pointing at one of the pictures. “And we threw stones in the sea. Do you remember?”

Their voices fade as I make my way through the house and out into the back garden.Fuck, I can’t breathe.The pain in my chest is so acute, I wonder if I’m having a heart attack.

I lean one hand on the wall and hang my head. I’ve never felt this way. I didn’t give a shit about losing Gemma. Our relationship was long dead, if there had ever been a decent one in the first place. And apart from Gemma, there’s been no one else until Aries.

How the fuck do I get through this?My whole body is poisoned with it. With her. With the absence of her.

“Matt?”

I glance up to see Seb standing on the back step. The wall of the house is covered in a climbing vine, the leaves of which have been vibrant green all summer. But now, they’re turning wine-red. I hadn’t registered the change until I saw him standing there, framed by all the fucking leaves.

“You okay?” he asks.

I push off the wall and drop onto a nearby bench, head falling into my hands.

I don’t look, but I hear Seb step down and come towards me, taking a seat beside me. “What can I do?”

I shake my head. “Nothing. Everything is just… fucked.”

“It’s not.”

I turn to look at him. “I’m thirty-five. Divorced. I’ve got two kids I’m struggling to relate to—”

“Those kids love you.”

I snort. “Sure they do.”

“Don’t be a dick. You’re not a bad father. Trust me, I know a bad father when I see one. We had one.”

“Have,” I correct. “We have one.”

“Yeah.”

We’re silent for a few moments, and I’m sure Seb’s running through a montage of shitty childhood memories, just like I am.

“It’s Aries, isn’t it?” he asks.

Something pinches in my chest, and my feet tingle inside my shoes, toes almost throbbing. I lean forward and stare down at them, my fingers steepled between my knees.

“You miss her.” Seb makes the statement so softly that the pinch in my chest increases.

He watches me intently. Not just my face, but the entirety of me, right down to my feet, as if any movement I make might give something away. Reveal some hidden part of me. I force myself not to move at all.

It’s not exactly silent out here, but it’s close. The breeze rustles the vine leaves, and there’s the droning background noise of cars passing on the street outside. There’s even birdsong in the trees, and the sun hits the top of my head with a pleasing warmth.

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