Page 50 of Keeping Score

I hadn’t meant to hurt him. I really hadn’t. I thought it would make things better. I thought enough time had passed. I thought this was what he wanted but was too scared to say himself.

I thought I knew best—and it bit me in the ass.

“I’m sorry, Liam,” I whispered meekly, tears stinging my eyes. “I just thought you would regret it. Regret not giving him another chance. Now that you’re a dad, I thought you’d realize how much it hurts when your kid cuts you out of their life.”

“Becoming a dad has made me realize he never was one.” Liam retorted. “He made his own choices in life. And I get to make mine to hold him to them.”

“You’re just bitter,” I said. “Someone screws you over once and you write them off forever. It’s not healthy.”

He grabbed his face in his hands, eyes clenching shut as if he couldn’t believe what I was saying.

A part of me wanted to apologize, to take it all back. He was right that he got to make his own choices, even if I didn’t think they were the right ones.

But admitting I was wrong had never been easy for me. It was easier to dig my feet in and die on the hill of my choosing than apologize and face rejection anyway.

I looked to Liam, praying that he would relent first. That he would tell me he forgave me and we could leave this whole mess in the past, never to be brought up again.

But he didn’t.

“I can’t keep doing this, Maggie.” He shook his head sadly. “I can’t. I get emotional whiplash from all these grand ideas you force me and everyone else into.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m done. I don’t want to be involved anymore. I can’t take it.”

And then he started to walk away, rain beginning to pour down from the sky as he got farther down the sidewalk.

“So, what?” I yelled shrilly, as the rain plastered my hair against my forehead. “Are you going to cut me out now, too?”

He paused, only turning halfway as he dealt the deathblow to our relationship.

“I love you, Mags,” he said, “but you need to learn how to figure your shit out without dragging me into it.”

And then he was gone.

The Bolter

Maggie

Five Years Ago

The first time I pulled away from Brody, it was out of pure jealousy.

I hadn’t consciously known I was doing it, or even why. It was just an instinct. A knee-jerk reaction that I hadn’t quite wanted to analyze too deeply.

All I knew was that I had to.

To stay safe, the voice in my head told me I needed some distance.

It had taken a few months before I realized what caused me to spiral the way I did after seeing Brody beside his family.

I was scared of being left.

He’d had this perfect family with corny jokes and easy smiles and a miraculously stable upbringing. And what did I have? A brother who didn’t really need me? A mother whose emotions dictated her life?

A father who had just made contact for the first time in fifteen

years?