Page 44 of The Fragile One

“He’s a bit sensitive, that one.” He nods toward Jackson’s departing form. Liam was never one to mince words and doesn’t always understand why some people find that offensive.

“Listen, Aiden. Think about it. It may be a couple days before I have a precise location on the girl, but the sooner I know who I have coming, the better. I know it’s a big ask, but I wouldn’t have tracked you down if I didn’t need you.” With that, he finishes his beer and heads out, leaving me sitting at the bar by myself. And with his tab.

Fucking Liam.

Chapter sixteen

Lindsey

Kaseyiswringingherhands the entire way to my mom’s house, nerves apparent on her face as she continues to glance at me in the side mirror with a furrowed brow. The car is uncomfortably silent. I’ve seen her take a deep breath a few times to start speaking, but she seems to think better of it every time she’s about to say something. She doesn’t want to say anything to set me off. Great, back to tiptoeing around my feelings, I see. Maybe she just doesn’t want to stay anything in front of Donovan, or maybe she realizes how fucking raw I feel today so she’s giving me a break. Who knows?

God, what did I do? I ruined everything, like usual. The pounding behind my eyes from all the crying and screaming I did between last night and today is just another reminder of the pain that will always follow me. Why did I think going to a bar was a good idea? I was in no way ready for that, as proven by my epic meltdown. I’m not ready for life. Who knows when, or even if, I’ll ever be. It’s better Aiden knows that now. He would stick by me, sure, but I can’t do that to him. He can’t spend his life tiptoeing around my emotional pendulum swings.

The memory of the devastation on Aiden’s face is playing on a loop in my mind. I’ll never forget the way his eyes pleaded for me to stay with him, but he deserves someone who doesn’t have public freak-outs in bathrooms. Someone he doesn’t have to constantly worry about anytime they’re around crowds. Someone who isn’t me. God, that idea knots my stomach, and I feel sick just thinking about it, but it has to happen. He’ll move on one day, and I’ll do my best to be happy for him. That’s the future we have ahead of us. Separate.

“Okay, ladies, here we are,” Donovan says as we pull into my mom’s driveway.

“I have to run a couple of errands, then I’ll come back to pick you up.” He leans over and gives my sister a very inappropriate kiss that obviously melts her and leaves me rolling my eyes at their display.Ah, my old friend, jealous asshole, there you are.

Donovan opens his door to help with my luggage.

“That’s okay, I got it,” I tell him.

“Sorry, Lindsey, that’s not how I was raised,” he replies with a kind smile.

“Suit yourself then.” I’m tired of people always having to help me. Yes, it’s just bags and Donovan is a gentleman if there ever was one, but dammit, can I not always feel like I’m putting everyone else out?

We walk toward the house where my mom is waiting on her front porch. Donovan bends and gives Kasey another peck on the lips, this one parent appropriate. I still have the urge to roll my eyes, though. After saying hello to my mom, he gets in the car, leaving my sister with a dopey grin on her face.

Stupid love, I almost had you, too.

“Hey, sweetie,” my mom says, as she opens her arms for a hug. I go to her and when she wraps her arms around me, it’s a struggle not to lose it. Sometimes a hug from my mom is all it takes for me to feel like it’s okay to fall apart, but she can make it all better. As much as I hate feeling like a burden, my mom is my soft place to land. Like maybe she has the power to fix me. I’ve never wanted to be fixed so much in my entire life.

“Let’s go in and have some coffee, girls.” She keeps her arm around me as we make our way into the house, leaving my bags by the door. Walking up the stairs to my room seems like a major feat I just don’t have the energy for right now.

As my mom busies herself with getting out coffee mugs, Kasey and I have a seat at our old kitchen table.

“Lindsey, what happened last night? I thought you were going to take it slow like your therapist talked about. Why did you decide to go to a bar of all places? Especially without Aiden?” Kasey asks. If only my sister could understand my need to feel normal again, but she wasn’t stuck in a basement with a psycho for a week. Her ordeal lasted only a few hours, and she worked at figuring out how to get free the entire time. It was terrifying for her, but she hadn’t reached the point of thinking—no, knowing—she was going to die at the hands of a psychopath. I’m the one who fell apart down there, not her.

“I thought I would be okay. I wanted to prove that I’m not broken. Turns out I was wrong.”

My head lowers to my chest as the tears fall onto my lap. My mom comes over with three cups of coffee and sits down next to me, putting her arm around my shoulders. When I look up, she has tears in her eyes.

“My love. You are not broken. You can’t be broken unless you decide to sit down and stop trying.” She brings her other hand to my face to wipe the tears away that won’t stop falling.

“Mom, you don’t know what this feels like. Every two steps forward I take, I get knocked back three.”

“No, baby. That’s not how this works. Every step you take forward is just harder than you thought. It’s all different now. You have to accept that it’s going to take time and you can’t push yourself. But, sweetheart, this is new. You aren’t the same girl you were before the basement, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t still you. Life threw you a curveball. It was an awful one at that, but you survived. And I thank God every day that I get to see my girls.”

She reaches over and takes my sister’s hand, who now has tears streaming down her face.

I look to my sister then back to my mom and whisper brokenly, “I lost something down there. That part of myself that made me think I was invincible. The part that let me take chances—consequences be damned. I can’t get it back, no matter how hard I try. And God, I have tried so hard.” My voice cracks, and my chest feels like it’s caving in on itself. For the first time, I’m admitting true defeat. How is it possible to get up and fight like everyone says I can? There’s no coming back from this. There just isn’t.

“Helen took that from me. She took everything that made me who I am, and it died with her.” The tears won’t stop streaming down my face, and honestly, I don’t care. I just want to sit at this table and mourn the life I’ll never have. The life with Aiden I so desperately wanted, but now feels like just a shot in the dark. I have no business drawing anyone else into the hell I live in every day.

“I refuse to believe that, sweet girl.” My mom sounds so confident, but she can’t see what I see. She doesn’t know what this is like.

“When your dad died, I wanted to lie down and be buried right next to him. They say if you have children, you can find the strength to move on. They were so wrong, though. I hate to admit it, but I couldn’t find the strength in myself to want to keep going. Not for a long time. I used to pray that God would take me.” My mom squeezes her eyes shut and lets out a shaky breath. “It’s shameful to admit, but it’s the truth. I love you girls with everything, but not having your father here shattered me. It took away everything I knew about myself and my future and destroyed it. I never thought I would be able to move on. God, I used to go into a blind panic when your sister would get in the car. I was convinced I would get another knock on my door telling me someone else I love had been ripped away too soon.”

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