“Because there’s nothing to tell.”

“Charlie . . .” He sighed. “Charlie, we’re worried about you. I’m worried about you.”

“Why?” My eyes flashed to his. “You got what you wanted.”

I turned and walked toward my room without giving Jagger a chance to respond, leaving him standing at my door, knowing he would eventually leave.

I HATE THIS place, I thought to myself two hours later.

I would never understand why Grey and Jagger loved going there. Keith, I knew, was too young to fully understand what that place meant, and I wondered if he would still love going there as the years went on.

But even though Keith wasn’t with me, and despite the way seeing them made me feel, I’d brought fresh flowers for Ben because I knew my son would have demanded them.

After I replaced the flowers that Keith and I had brought during our last trip to the cemetery, I sat down in front of Ben’s headstone, and just stared at it as if I were staring Ben down himself.

Minutes came and went before I broke the silence in the one-sided stare-down.

“I never figured out why Grey always told me to come talk to you. She thought it would help, I thought it sounded like reopening old wounds. Wounds I didn’t want to feel or see or face. But I think I might understand now. Maybe, I don’t know . . .” I trailed off, and let my eyes wander around the other graves.

“Or maybe I just know now why it sounded like absolute torture to try before. Because before, I was still waiting for you to come back and love me when you never would. Before, I was upset with you and mad at you, but still hopelessly in love with you. Before . . . before, I was too blind to see that you never deserved me or the way I loved you.

“I messed up, Ben. Dea—he and I were probably doomed from the start. We don’t . . . we don’t fit, his life and mine.” My voice wavered for the first time, and I tried to swallow back the emotions that threatened to come pouring out. “But even if we could have worked, I wouldn’t let us. I kept waiting for him to mess up. I kept waiting for him to turn back into the guy I’d grown up with—because the guy I grew up with? That guy would do exactly what you did to me.”

I clenched my teeth against my trembling jaw, and gritted out, “I have let you ruin so many things in my life. I let you ruin my heart, and let you continue to long after you were gone. I let you ruin any possible relationship I could’ve had, because all I wanted was you. I let you ruin the best thing that has ever happened to me, or our son, because of what you did to me. I’ve let you ruin me because I loved you, and you never deserved any of it.”

Slowly, I stood from my spot and brushed off my pants as I blinked back tears and cleared my throat. “You’re missed. You are so missed. Keith looks just like you, and it breaks my heart and fills it all at the same time to look at him and see you. Thank you for him, Ben. A million times, thank you. I will cherish those nights with you for so many reasons, but I hate that I’ve wasted my life loving someone who never loved me.”

I took a few steps back, then paused. “For so many years I’ve wondered how you could give me everything, only to rip it away just days later when I was so sure you wanted it too. I’m done wondering now. Wondering ruined the short time I had with him. I won’t let it ruin anything in my life ever again.”

 

 

Chapter Twenty

Deacon

July 31, 2016

I’D SLEEPWALKED THROUGH the past month.

I couldn’t remember when I’d worked or when I’d driven. When I’d actually slept in my bed or eaten, or when I’d lain down exactly where I was at that moment. I couldn’t remember anything other than Charlie.

I was constantly consumed with thoughts of her.

I wanted to be consumed by her again.

I wanted to go back and take away every conversation with Words so I could have prevented losing Charlie. But at the same time, I’d gotten to know Charlie, and she’d gotten to know me, better than anyone else ever had because of those conversations, so I knew I would never regret them.

I would just always regret losing her; losing Keith.

I stilled when I felt a small body settle in next to mine, and slowly opened my eyes to stare at the ceiling of the living room before looking over at my side.

A huff left me when I saw long, flaming red hair spilling over my chest and shoulder.

“What are you doing?”

“Graham asked me to come since you didn’t show up at Sunday brunch again,” she responded simply, then flopped one of her arms over my chest to try to hug me as tightly as possible.

I squeezed her forearm. “Thanks, Grey.”

“Exactly what you needed?”

“Exactly.”

She rolled onto her back again so she was facing the ceiling as well, and let the silence creep between us for a few moments. “Charlie won’t talk to us about what happened.”

The guys and Harlow said her name constantly, trying to get me to tell them what happened, trying to get me to go back to her and fix it . . . but hearing her name always made me feel as though I’d gotten the wind knocked out of me. I rubbed at my chest and grumbled, “I’m not gonna talk to you about it either. Graham shouldn’t have called you.”

I’d spent two weeks sleeping above the garage at work before I’d finally came home and had it out with Graham.

He’d been clueless about Stranger and Charlie’s thoughts that it might be him. Not that I’d thought he’d ever known—I’d just been pissed off at the thought of her wanting him. But all of it had been made more apparent when in the middle of our fight, Kate came running out of Graham’s room in nothing but his shirt.

Kate, who we’d all gone to school, and grown up, with.

Kate, who none of us had ever touched because she’d wanted nothing to do with guys like us.

Kate, the mystery girl Graham had apparently been in love with for years and was now finally dating.

Love . . . that fucking word.

Grey sighed. “Why did I have a feeling you would say something like that? And why are you both being so stubborn? You love each other, go fix—”

“No,” I said roughly. “No, I don’t.”

She twisted so she could look up at me, her face pinched in confusion. “What do you mean you don’t? I’ve seen you with her, Deacon. I’ve seen the way you talk to her and treat her. I’ve seen the way you loo—”