Something had broken in me when Deke was talking about my parents. I don’t think anyone understood why I’d just disappeared inside of myself, but I didn’t expect them to, not really. Only I knew what I had tried to ignore, what I’d pushed back so far that I’d rarely thought about it anymore. Only I knew that I’d been building those walls between my memory and myself so that almost nothing could breach them.

No one had hidden with me inside that tiny space, listening to my parents die and their killers calling my name. Only I knew that horror.

Asa was the only one who could’ve guessed where my mind was, we’d had a vague conversation about it years before, but for some reason—he wasn’t there. If I had been feeling anything, I think I would have been sad about that.

I lay there, listening to Gram yell at the psychologist as I thought about the water stain on the ceiling. I wondered if anyone noticed it or if it was only patients that ever had that view and they just never said anything.

“You’ve been doing it your way for three weeks and this shit isn’t helping,” Gram thundered. “I don’t give a shit what you think. I’m going to do this my way, and if you’ve got a problem, I’ll just take my granddaughter home with me!”

The pretty-haired psychologist murmured something soothingly that I couldn’t hear.

“Oh fuck you and your fancy degree!” Gram shouted. “I know her! I’ve wiped her ass and bandaged her cuts. I’ll do what I think’s best!”

I didn’t hear anything for a while after that.

“Callie,” Gram snapped, hours later, pushing the button on the side of my bed until I was sitting up. “You look like shit and you’re ignoring your son who’s been crying for you for weeks.”

I watched her, detached as she opened the curtains in my room, making me squint as the bright sunlight filtered through. She rearranged my bedding so it was lying flat on my lap, and brushed the hair back from my face as I watched her silently.

“You’ve got a visitor,” she informed me as she strode out the door.

When she came back in, she was carrying my beautiful son in her arms.

His face lit up when he saw me, but it fell when I didn’t react to his presence.

“You hold your son. He misses you,” she told me firmly as she placed him in my lap.

He snuggled into my body, pressing his head against my chest, and all of a sudden I felt like I couldn’t breathe. He smelled really good, like baby shampoo and chocolate, and the warmth of his body seeped into mine until I wasn’t sure where he ended and I began.

“Mama,” he sighed, reaching up to pat my breast like he’d done a thousand times since he’d stopped breastfeeding almost a year before.

“Come on in,” I heard Gram call as I stared at Will, forcing my arms to move around him until I knew he wouldn’t fall off the bed.

The emotions overwhelming me were too much. Hope and fear and love and horror and grief—so strong that I clenched my jaw against them, begging for my brain to send me back. I’d almost succeeded, my vision going gray at the sides, when I felt him reach the head of the bed.

“Hey, Sugar,” he whispered gently, reaching out to run his hand down my hair. “We’ve missed you.”

My entire body jolted and I raised my eyes to his, the tender look on his face opening the floodgates as I began to cry. I cried in loud, obnoxious, gasping sobs that made Will start screaming in fear, and even then I couldn’t stop them. Gram came to get the baby, tears on her face as she kissed me on the head, and in the next minute, Asa was in the bed with me, wrapping his entire body around mine.

“You’re okay, Callie,” he murmured over and over, never once letting go as I let out years of pain by screaming at the top of my lungs and pummeling my fists against his back.

When I’d finally calmed down into sobbing quiet hiccups, he pulled his face away from my neck.

“If you ever scare me like this again I’m going to paddle your ass,” he rumbled, his voice sounding gravelly and raw. “Our boy needs you, Sugar. I need you.”

I nodded once as he rubbed my back, and stuffed my face into my favorite spot between his jaw and shoulder.

My emotions were all over the place, but I let him have that moment. Once my body had relaxed, I noticed that his was trembling, and some place deep inside me wouldn’t let him go uncomforted. I loved him so much, and guilt piled on top of grief when I thought of all the things I’d put him and the rest of my family through over the month I’d been gone.

I didn’t know where I could go from there. I felt too exposed, too overwhelmed to just go back to my day to day life. The walls I’d built to keep me safe, to keep my world sane and ordered, had shattered around me and it felt as if I was standing in the middle of a war zone with no help in sight.

I loved Asa. I loved him so much, and I reveled in the way his arms wrapped around me and held me tight against him. I loved the scruff of his beard against my chin and the way he always smelled like smoke, Armani cologne, and leather. I loved the way he looked at me and our son.

I loved him, but that didn’t seem to make any difference, because the moment he crawled off my bed, I was going to tell him I didn’t want to see him anymore.

I couldn’t bear to look at him.

Chapter 74

Grease

Leaving Callie after her breakdown was the hardest thing I’d ever done. I wanted to protect her, to save her from whatever demons she’d been fighting.