More Than Enough (More Than Series, Book 5) (42 page)

A few weeks
ago, if you’d asked me what moment in my life caused me the greatest shame, it would’ve involved a flash bang, a picture of Riley and Dave behind the camera. Now, it’s the presence of my family, Riley plus two cops as they proceed to tell me that my license has been revoked for thirty days—not that it matters with my broken leg. What matters is
why
. I keep my eyes on Riley as they go through the standard process, her eyebrows bunched in confusion. They’d tested my blood alcohol level once I arrived in the ER. I was 0.09. One point above the legal alcohol limit. I lied to the officer that night—the same one standing silently next to his partner who’s doing all the talking. He probably feels guilty—that it’s his fault it happened. That, maybe, he should’ve given me the sobriety test instead of letting me walk away. I’ll keep his secret—I’ve ruined enough lives. None more so than the girl standing by my side, her grip on my hand loosening with each word spoken.

Eric shouts, moving closer to the cops. “My brother earned a Purple Heart serving this goddamn country and you’re going to …” I tune out the rest when Riley turns to me, the tears in her eyes clouding but not at all hiding her disappointment. I don’t look away. I won’t. I want her to see me. To know that I’m sorry. That I regret it. That I love her. That I
need
her.

Every one leaves.
Everyone but Riley.

She doesn’t talk to me. Doesn’t look at me. But she stays by my side, my hand in hers.

And in my mind, in my heart, I can feel it. She’s slipping away from me.

Hours pass. Dad
returns.

He won’t look at me either.

I sit up when Holly walks in, her smile tight when she sees me. “How you doin’ there, Marine?” She smiles sadly as she stands by the bed. “He’s okay,” Riley answers for me.

Dad gets up from his seat and moves the chair next to Riley’s offering it to Holly. She takes it, her eyes on mine and Riley’s joined hands.

Then she sighs, scooting her chair closer to the edge of the bed. “Guys.” She pauses, her mouth opening and closing a few times. Dropping her head, she heaves in a breath. “I know this is bad timing. But we need to talk. Well, I need to. To both you. And I’m just going to say what I need to say and I’d like for you to only interrupt if anything I say is incorrect and if it is, I apologize. Okay?”

I look at Riley, whose eyes are lowered and I nod, my heart racing, making the beeping of the monitor more frantic.

“Maybe now isn’t a good time, Holly,” Dad says.

Holly glances up at Dad, and then at the monitor, and then back to me. Riley stays quiet, as if she knows what’s about to happen. She squeezes my hand, trying to comfort me. It doesn’t work. Her eyes… I need her eyes. She won’t look at me.

“I’m sorry, Mal,” Holly says, “but I think it has to happen now.”

Dad nods.

My heart races faster—so painfully I find it impossible to breathe.

She says, her hand on my arm, “I went by your house to collect some things for Riley because she refuses to leave your side.” She swallows loudly, her eyes on mine. So much like Riley’s, but not at all the same. “I went to your bathroom and I saw the shattered mirror. It looks like direct contact with something, most likely a fist. I’m going to assume that you caused it, and again, interrupt me if I’m wrong…”

She waits for me to say something.

I don’t.

I can’t.

“Dylan?” Dad says, and my entire body goes slack. My head falls back on the pillow and I gaze up at the ceiling because there’s only so much shame a person can handle before it becomes too much.

I’m filled with it.

Holly says, “I’m going to be honest with you. It scared me, Dylan. It made me afraid to think that my daughter was living in a home with someone who would do that—but not just that—it made me afraid to think that she’d be in that situation and not tell me about it.”

“Mom, stop,” Riley cries.

Holly doesn’t. “I know she loves you. I know we all love you. And I know you saw her suffering from the aftermath of a death and that you were able to help her get through it just by being there, so it worries me that you didn’t think it okay to come to us—any of us—if you felt like you were struggling. I’m not afraid to admit that that fear caused me to snoop around your house, Dylan. I saw the bottles of beer in your fridge, which doesn’t make sense because you know my daughter and you allowed that in a home you share with her.”

Her words crush every ounce of hope I’d wished for. Every ounce of dignity I had left.

“And then I went out to the garage and saw a jar on the floor, like the ones she used when she wrote those letters to Jeremy.”

Riley’s chair scrapes against the floor as she stands quickly. “No!” I look over at her, her eyes frantic.

Holly continues, “I didn’t think anything of it at first, but I’m a mother and I care about her. So I picked it up and I read it. I won’t apologize for doing it.”

“Mom,” Riley cries, her hands covering her face. “Please don’t!”

Dad’s on the other side of the bed, his hand on my chest to stop me from moving.

I won’t move.

I can’t.

Holly reaches into her purse, pulling out a folded piece of paper before handing it to me.

My fingers shake as I unfold it, unaware of the devastation it’s about to cause.

To me.

To her.

To everyone around us.

To the lives we’d built and the promises we’d created.

Riley’s watching me, tears flowing fast and free. She’s shaking her head and I don’t know why. Not until I read her words—words written from the hate I created.

Dylan.

I love you.

I miss you.

You left me last night. I checked your online bank statement and there was a payment listed for a hotel ten minutes away. I called the hotel. They said it was charged for two nights. It’s strange—when you’re not with me, I feel the longing swelling in my chest, but when you are with me… I can feel your presence crushing my heart.

I figured you booked a hotel because you hate me and you couldn’t stand to be around me.

That, or you’re cheating on me.

And right now, I don’t know which is worse.

I read the letter over and over, focusing on each and every word until Riley’s loud sob pulls my focus away from the letter and up at her. “I didn’t mean it,” she cries, her hand back on mine. “Please, baby, you have to believe me.”

“Dylan,” Dad says, and I don’t need to see him to feel his disappointment.

“So,” Holly says, standing up. She looks between Riley and I. “Is any of it a lie?”

I drop my gaze, folding the letter before placing it under my pillow. “I’m not cheating on her, Holly. I would never do that.”

“See?” Riley shouts.

Her mom ignores her. “But you hate her?”

“No.” I shake my head, my eyes drifting shut. “I wanted her to hate me.”

“Why?”

The force of my tears cause my eyes to open. I don’t look at Riley. I look at her. “Because I was hurting your daughter. And I wanted her to leave me.”

Holly’s brow furrows in concentration, or maybe confusion. “Can you give us a minute, Riley?”

“No!” Riley shouts, her hand holding mine so tight it begins to hurt.

Dad moves around the bed and carefully pries Riley’s fingers from my hand. He grasps her shoulders. “Come on, sweetheart,” he says, guiding her to the door.

She looks over her shoulder at me. “I didn’t mean it, Dylan!”

Holly waits until she’s out of the room and the door is closed before looking back at me. I keep my eyes on hers, because I deserve to see the sadness, the anger, the disappointment. After a while, she leans down and presses her lips to my forehead. When she pulls back, she’s smiling—a sweet, sad, pathetic smile. “I love you, Dylan. I love you for everything you’ve done for my daughter. I love that you loved her when she’d given up on love, and I love that you saw her when I was blind. I gave you my blessing and you broke her heart.” She takes a breath, her tears matching mine. “You created a fine line between honor and betrayal, Dylan. And you walked with a foot on either side. I’ll be taking her home with me. So, I guess, in the end you got what you wanted.”

There are now
two sounds I’ll never forget. The gunshot that took Davey’s life, and Riley’s screams at her mother, begging her to let her stay, yelling that she was wrong—that she didn’t mean what she said in the letter. But the worst… the worst is when she cried, long and loud—
She loves me
. She’ll
always
love me.

Dylan

D
ad goes back
to work.

Eric shows up less and less.

They assure me it has nothing to do with the DUI.

I don’t believe them.

The guys come by.

So do the girls.

Only Sydney’s a regular and that’s because she works here.

She zips up the bag that Eric brought when he still gave a shit about me. “You ready to get out of here?”

I’ve been stuck in the same room for over two weeks. I’m well and truly ready to get out of here. When I tell her that, she spins me in the wheelchair until I’m facing the door. Two bodies dressed in black appear in the doorway, dropping to the floor as soon as I see them. They both look up, and even though they’re wearing black beanies pulled low on their brows, their faces covered in war paint, I can still tell it’s Logan and Jake.

Logan holds his wrist to his mouth as they slowly army crawl toward me. “All clear for Operation Banks Robbery. Target identified. Do you copy, Juliett Alfa?”

Jake does the same with his wrist as they continue crawling toward me. “Roger that, Lima Mike. Shit!” He looks up at Sydney standing behind me. “Target compromised.”

“Goddammit, Juliett! You had one fucking job!” Logan yells.

I shake my head and ignore how ridiculous they are. “What the fuck are you assholes doing?”

They stand quickly, brushing down their clothes. Then in unison, they grin from ear to ear.

“We’re busting you out,” Jake states.

Logan rolls his eyes. “Obviously.”

“I’ve already been discharged.”

The height of Logan’s repeated eye roll forces his head to roll back. “Obviously,” he says again.

“You know the rules, boys,” Sydney says, moving around me. “He stays in the chair until he’s off hospital property.”

Their cocky smiles drop as they stand straighter, puffing their chests. They salute her, followed by a united, “Sir. Yes, Sir!”

Sydney shakes her head. “Your friends are idiots, Dylan.”

Logan waits until she’s left the room before offering his fist for a bump that I return. He asks, “How you feeling, bro?”

Jake’s behind me now, slowly rolling me forward. I shrug. “Could always be worse, right?”

Logan grabs my bag off the bed and the crutches leaning against the wall. Six more weeks I’ll be using them while the cast is on my leg. “You ready?”

I nod.

Logan walks.

Jakes pushes.

I expect them
to drive me straight home. They don’t. Instead, they take me to the garage where my car was towed. “What are we doing here?”

Logan turns to me. “Perspective.”

The physical details
of what my truck looks like are irrelevant. But the visions, the memories of what happened that link to the damage—that’s why they brought me here.

“Poor Bessie,” Jake mumbles, standing beside me, hands in his pockets.

On the other side, Logan speaks up. “You’re kind of lucky to be alive.”

I look away from the truck, adjusting the crutches beneath my shoulders and face him. “You mean she’s lucky I didn’t fucking kill her?”

Logan’s gaze drops, his foot kicking the dirt we’re standing on. For a moment, I think about Afghanistan, about the seconds right before we entered the house of hell. The seed that planted the events that brought me to
her
. “I know it’s not the same,” Logan says. “But I get where you’re coming from. I understand the guilt. Your girl’s hurt, you think it’s your fault.” He removes his beanie, running his hands through his hair before adding, “I’ve been where you were man, sitting in a hospital room, drowning in guilt, the realization of your lack of self-worth eating away at you until you feel like it’s on you to save her from the pain you created.”

I listen to his words, each one meaning more than the last.

“So you feel like you need to run away to save her. You block her and everyone out to save them all from the destruction you’ll cause.” He sniffs once, his eyes lifting and locking with mine. “It doesn’t work though, D. I spent a year running away and the guilt is a thousand times worse when you’re doing it alone.”

“I don’t plan on running away,” I tell him.

“Maybe not physically, but emotionally.”

I stay silent.

Jake says, “Obviously something happened, man. From the time you came back for Riley’s birthday to now. And we’re not here to get you to bare your soul to us so please don’t think that. We’re just here to let you know that no matter what it is, we’re here.” He picks up a few rocks from the ground and starts pitching them at the truck. “I didn’t want to wait until it was too late like I did with Logan.”

“Shut up,” Logan snaps.

“I’m serious.”

“There’s no way you could’ve known. I didn’t even fucking know,” Logan says.

For a few moments, we stand in silence.

“Is it like…” Jake hesitates. “PTS—”

“No,” I snap. “Don’t fucking say it.”

Logan stands in front of me, his hands on his hips. “There’s nothing wrong with—”

“Shut up!”

I turn swiftly and hobble back to the car. I don’t wait for them to follow me before throwing my crutches in the back seat and getting in. I stare at the clock on the dash, watching the minutes tick by until I can be alone again. So I can drown myself in the guilt and the hate that make it impossibly easy not to see her.

Not to hold her.

Not to tell her that I’m sorry.

So fucking sorry.