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I feel worse.

My mouth fills with saliva, and my stomach clenches a moment before I throw up right there on the street. I didn’t eat much today, but what I did comes up, and I spit a few times before wiping my mouth with my sleeve and leaning against the wall. Tilting my head up toward the sky, I concentrate on inhaling through my nose and out through my mouth, watching clouds slowly pass. It’s the height of summer, and the sun is just now setting. It jars me into action. The day isn’t over yet, and there is still a chance for me to end it the way I wanted.

With Millie in my arms.

I remove my phone from my pocket and call her. She doesn’t answer, so I call again. Text her. Text her again. Call once more.

I’m speed walking to my car when my last call goes directly to voice mail, so I assume she turned it off.

Which I deserve. I let her down tonight, not just once, but twice. And she doesn’t deserve that.

After parking in front of her house a half hour later, I jog to the front door and knock repeatedly. Behind me, kids play in the streets, but Noah isn’t one of them, and I hope he doesn’t know how I treated his mother tonight.

I don’t want to be the asshole who let him down.

I don’t want to be an asshole, period.

Shannon opens the door slowly, not surprised to see me darkening her doorstep. I haven’t seen her in a few weeks, and she’s looking a little better. I read that when terminal patients stop treatment, their quality of life may improve, and since they don’t have to deal with debilitating side effects, they can enjoy their time. But here I am fucking it up for her.

“I’m sorry,” I tell her, though I don’t even know what exactly I’m apologizing to her for. Hurting her daughter, ruining her night, being a fuckup. “I’m so sorry, Shannon.”

She doesn’t say anything, merely pulls me into a hug, and I’m careful not to squeeze her too hard. Even with all the hugs Millie has offered me lately, I haven’t had one from a parent in a long time. Honestly can’t remember at this point, so this embrace with Shannon both heals and pains me. Like stitching an open wound. It’s good for me but aches like hell.

“She’s in the back,” Shannon says once we let go of each other, and I can’t look her in the eye anymore. Because she knows what happened, and I don’t have any excuses.

So, I head through the house and find Millie on the back porch. For a minute, I simply drink her in. She’s done her hair, pulled it back in a bun so it shows off the elegant lines of her throat and shoulders, bare from the shape of the dress that is a nice complement to her skin tone. I should’ve told her earlier, but I was so in my head, I didn’t. I do now. “You look beautiful.”

She doesn’t acknowledge me, but she does expel a noisy breath. I drag a chair over to sit next to her, angling it so I’m perpendicular to her. But she still won’t look at me, face forward, thumb rubbing over her knuckle. I take over, rubbing back and forth, and she exhales again then finally turns. “I didn’t think you’d come.”

“You think that low of me?”

She shakes her head. “You think that low of yourself.”

I lean my elbow on her chair and rub my hand over my face. I’m not sure what I expected when I came here, but this is so much harder than I thought it would be. Having her read my thoughts and speak my worst fears out loud.

“You think if you push people away, that’ll protect you, and maybe it will in the short-term. But eventually, if you keep pushing people away, you won’t have anyone left.”

“I know.” I take her hand in both of mine, cradling it to my mouth, kissing her fingertips. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to push you away. I just don’t know how else to be. I don’t know how to be happy.” The truth tumbled out without permission, but now that it’s between us, I don’t know how to stop it. “I shouldn’t feel like this. I shouldn’t be so ungrateful. Both of my parents are alive. I play professional baseball. I make twenty million dollars a year. I have everything, so there’s no reason for me to be unhappy. But I look at you, and you are…”

I bow my head, press her fingertips to my forehead as the gathering tears in my eyes become too full to blink away, and they fall onto my pant leg. She brushes her lips along my temple, her free hand curling around the nape of my neck.

“Just because you have all those things doesn’t mean you should or have to be happy all the time, but I do wish you’d find what does make you happy.”

Without question, it’s her, and I lift my head. “You.”

She smiles sadly then leaves her chair to sit in my lap, and I immediately wrap her up, arms around her middle, face in her neck. She strokes my head. “There must be other things.”

“No. Only you.”

She pulls back from me, and she’s so strong, so determined, I admire her. Especially when I’m here weeping. She swipes her thumbs over my cheeks, down my beard, traces my lips with her fingers, then holds my face in her hands, speaking to me how I’d imagine she’d speak to a small child. “It can’t be only me. You can’t put that all on me when I already have so much to carry.”

“You’re right. I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to be sorry. I want to take some of the load off your shoulders, but I can’t take all of it. So I need you to try… Austin, I need you to get help.”

I sniffle and clear my throat, clarity finally seeping through the fog. “Yeah, no, I’m good.”

“You’re good?”