Page 55 of Doctor Bossy

I hadn’t meant to let things get this far. I didn’t care that he called me an old fool or anything of the sort, but when he spoke about Becca, I could just feel the heated wrath rising inside me.

She could hear him, I thought as the vitriol dropped from his lips. She could hear every ugly word that was coming out of his mouth, and from what she had told me, these must have been things she had heard before, things she feared I would look down on her for. And here he was, using it against her.

All those thoughts were what sent me over the edge.

James’ head snapped back as my fist collided with his jaw, and he fell onto the floor. Blood immediately streamed from the corner of his lip, but I was too angry to care. I had at least withheld some of my strength so as not to seriously injure him, but a broken tooth was the least he deserved for everything he’d done to Becca.

I grabbed him by the front of his shirt, rage still coursing through me. “Apologize.”

He glared at me in shock and fury. “Or what? Are you gonna keep beating me up till I do? Great one, Dad. Mom would be so proud.”

It was a well-positioned strike, and usually, that would be enough to get me to back down. But not this time.

“You will apologize to her, or you will get the hell out of my house. And I don’t want to see or hear from you again until you do.”

“Get off me.” James shoved himself away, scrambling to his feet. His eyes looked a little crazy when he said, “Don’t even worry about it. In that case, you will never see or hear from me again. Fucking traitors.”

And with that, he turned around and slammed the door on the way out.

There was a few beats of silence after he left, during which the events that unfolded suddenly began sinking in.

“Are you okay?”

I turned around to find Becca now sitting up on the bed, the blanket up to her chest. Regret colored her expression.

“I’m not sure,” I replied honestly, still trying to figure out how I felt. I was still mad, but there was something else in there. Not sadness necessarily, but after James left, there was a strange emptiness within me that I couldn’t figure out. “Areyouokay?”

She nodded. “Come here.”

I shook my head. “I need to be alone for a few minutes.”

“Griff, I’m so sorry—”

“I’ll be back later,” I said before turning around and leaving. I needed to clear my head before I said something I didn’t mean.

I immediately headed for the first-floor bedroom, needing space to remind me.I should feel sad, I thought. I had just hit my only son and sent him away, maybe for good. I should be devastated right now.

But I wasn’t. And that, more than anything, was feeding the frenzied guilt that threatened to explode through me.

Especially since I’d just broken the one promise that I made to Heather on her dying bed. In defending Becca, I had cut James off—my one tie to her. And while I didn’t think I had done the wrong thing necessarily, the fact that I had broken my promise sent anguish wringing through me.

I threw open the room door and immediately walked to the painting of Heather on the wall. It was of a picture taken a few months before we discovered her illness, and I’d blown it up to be hung after her death, a constant reminder of the good times between us. She was smiling in the picture, blissfully unaware of the misery to come. It was one of the final moments of happiness she had before the disease stole her sanity.

And with one of her final coherent thoughts, she’d made me promise to always take care of our son no matter what.

I’d broken that promise to her.

“I’m sorry,” I said to the picture, feeling my voice crack. The pain finally hit me like a flood of regret. “I’m so sorry, Heather.”

25

BECCA

Ifelt like the bottom of the earth.

I don’t know how an afternoon filled with so much pleasure and happiness turned into this. It was like going from the highest of highs, feeling on top of the world, and then suddenly crashing into what was one of my worst nightmares come true.

I watched James’ face in horror as Griffin struck him. He stumbled back a step or two before collapsing onto the ground. I gasped.He stared up in disbelief at his father, but Griffin’s expression was remorseless.

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