Page 29 of All I Ask
“Everly.”
“Teenagers will do that to you.” I try to make a joke, but he doesn’t laugh.
“She’s not handling things well.”
“I would assume not. Losing her mother isn’t easy, I would imagine. She’s probably full of anger and then moving…to here…I would be pissed too.”
Derek huffs. “Oh, she’s angry all right.”
“And you’re bearing the brunt of it?”
“Every day.”
I feel bad for him, but there’s a childish part of me, the wounded part, that’s kind of happy he’s getting shit. “Well, I’m here to tell you that single parenting sucks.”
“Gee, thanks for the encouragement.” Derek nudges me a little deeper in the water.
Thankfully, I don’t fall.
“I’m just being honest. I’ve been taking the hits since Chastity was born and it doesn’t get easier. You are always the bad guy and very rarely the good guy. Nothing you do will ever be right because…again…you suck.”
Derek lets out a laugh, but then turns his head. “I’ve felt that way for a while.”
“Welcome to the club. I’m the owner.”
Then both of us are quiet as we walk at a glacial pace. I’m not in a hurry, even though the proverbial elephant is between us.
“Everything I want to say to you right now seems so trivial,” he admits.
“I know what you mean.”
“Do you?”
We both stop walking, and watch each other.
It’s apparent that we’re both dancing around what we want to say, but I don’t know that I’m fully ready to hear it all either. Once I know, I’ll have to decide how to handle it, whatever the outcome. In the past, I haven’t been known for my fantastic decision-making, but when it comes to him, I’m even worse.
I give him an out. “You never said, how did Meghan die?”
Derek’s eyes break from mine. “It was a car accident. She was running late to get Everly to cheerleading. They were arguing because Meghan was overwhelmed since she got her new job and kept forgetting everything. Including when she had to pick up Everly. I was in surgery and couldn’t get her this time.”
The tightness in my chest grows because I already know the ending. The tragic part is coming and there’s no alternate ending.
“Everly was in the car?”
He nods. “She was on her phone, apparently texting her friends about her mother being a bitch, and a car ran the red light. They hit the driver’s side, Everly was in the back passenger side.”
I gasp. “I can’t even…”
“It was horrific. I’ve never seen anything like it. I don’t know how Everly walked out of that wreck.”
“How long ago?”
His eyes are filled with unshed tears. “Six months.”
“I really didn’t know,” I say as I shift closer. “I would’ve called or gone to you. Your parents never said a word.”
He nods. “I asked them not to.”
