Page 90 of About Last Knight

I shake my head. “No. He’s just spoken broadly about messing up and letting you all down. I never knew if he was speaking in generalities or if something specific happened. It sounds like there was something specific though.”

She nods. “Declan was over at our house. I guess he was high. Scott was at work. Harley was at preschool and Skylar was asleep in her crib. She was just a baby. He was outside playing with Reagan on our playground. She was a toddler, but she was a handful of a toddler. Always on the move. He offered to watch her while I was studying for a law school exam. He passed out. At some point I came outside to him sleeping and Reagan gone.”

I gasp and my eyes widen.

“For two full hours we didn’t know where she was.” Tears well in her eyes. “It was the worst two hours of my life.” I can certainly understand that. “Scott rushed home. The police were involved. The entire neighborhood was searching for her.”

Tears now roll down her cheeks. “Melissa, I thought we were going to find her at the bottom of a pool.” I grab her hand. Obviously, I know the story ends okay, but I also know that scary feeling as a mother.

“Two hours later, she was found in a treehouse like three or four blocks away by a policeman. I’m not sure how the hell she got that far at her age, but she did. She was completely fine, oblivious to what was going on. She didn’t have a mark on her body.”

She swallows hard. “For Scott, that was the last straw with Declan. He told him to get clean or get away from our family. He offered to pay for rehab. Whatever it took.” She shakes her head. “I really thought it was the thing that would scare him straight. He was such a mess over it. Completely blaming himself. Totally freaking out.”

She blows out a breath. “But it didn’t scare him straight. It sent him further in the other direction. I think he hated himself so much for what happened, he decided distancing himself and numbing the pain were the best ways to go. That’s the last time we saw him before yesterday.”

I nod, understanding his self-loathing a bit more. Tears drip down my face.

She squeezes my hand back. “How deep are you in with him?”

I swallow. “All the way. I love him. He’s the one for me.” I whisper, “I’m so scared right now. I don’t know what he’s doing to himself.”

She wipes her eyes and straightens her back with conviction. “He’ll be okay. We’ll do whatever it takes for him to be okay.” She nods at me. “Don’t worry. We’ll fix this. He has no choice this time. We’ll choose for him.”

I nod. “Where are we going, Darian?”

“To my old house. That’s where things really fell apart for him the first time around. I have a feeling that’s where he’d go. I called the current owners, but there was no answer. I think I remember that they have a shore house. They’re probably down there right now.”

She directs me to the house, and we pull up the driveway. It doesn’t look like anyone’s home. The only car I see is Declan’s. I breathe a sigh of relief that at least we now know where he is, though I’m terrified of how we’ll find him.

We quickly walk around to the back of the house. He’s sitting on the ground of what must be a newer playground. His legs are straight out and he’s surrounded by drug paraphernalia. He’s hunched over and has tears streaming down his cheeks. He looks completely out of it and lost.

I yell for Darian to call an ambulance as I run to him. I fall to my knees on the ground in front of him and grab his face. “What did you take? Tell me.”

He’s silent.

“Declan, tell me what you took. I need to know so I can help you.”

He shakes his head. He whispers, “Nothing. I didn’t take any of it. I couldn’t. I can’t even do that right.” He puts his head down in shame.

I look around. I think he’s telling the truth. Nothing looks opened.

I sit down on the ground between his legs, facing him, and drape my legs over each of his thighs. I wrap my arms around him and pull him to me as he sobs into my chest.

I hear Darian canceling the ambulance and gathering the drugs. She throws them in her bag to get them away from Declan.

I kiss his head and rub his back. I whisper how much I love him and that everything’s going to be okay.

Darian sits down next to us. She rubs his arm. “Why were you triggered by seeing us? I told you we forgive you. We’re your family. We want you back in our lives. That’s not what you want?”

He lifts his head and looks at her. His eyes look so sad and haunted. “I’ve failed you so many times. What I’ve done is unforgivable. He didn’t forgive me. I can’t rejoin his family just because he isn’t around anymore to stop me. It’s not what he would have wanted.”

She shakes her head. “You’re wrong. He did forgive you. All he ever wanted was for you to get sober and for you to rejoin our family. You have that chance now. Don’t blow it.”

He shakes his head. “It’s too late. He’s gone. He’ll never know that I got sober. He’ll never know that I have a successful career. He’ll never know that I have an amazing daughter. He’ll never know I met someone and fell in love. I never got to prove myself to him. He died thinking that I’m a scumbag druggie with no hope of a future.”

Darian shakes her head. “No, he didn’t. You’re wrong. He always hoped that you’d show up clean one day. I know he believed it would happen. He wanted it more than anything.”

He looks at her with hardly any fight left in him. “I guess we’ll never really know, will we?”

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