We headed home that night, not stopping longer than it took to refuel. I was surprised when Cody didn’t take the exit when we rolled through Sacramento, but it wasn’t like I could ask him about it. I’d wanted to stop and see Will on the way through, but I was afraid that it hadn’t been long enough between visits, and I didn’t want to upset Callie by stopping in when I wasn’t expected.

The doctors had told Gram that they thought Callie had PTSD. They weren’t sure what the cause was, she’d refused to talk to them about it, but the rest of us knew exactly when it had started. Thankfully, she’d found a doctor that week before I left that she liked enough to start telling her story. I only hoped that the guy would be able to help her, because time kept passing and I didn’t know how long I would be able to live the way we were without losing my mind.

I spent the next months the way I had years before, working as much as I could and taking any time I had to drive to Sacramento. But those days, I was seeing my son. He was growing fast, and every time I saw him, he’d know more words that he’d recite to me like a little dictionary. It was cute as shit, and I wished that I could joke with Callie about it.

I hadn’t seen her in months because anytime I went to spend time with Will, he was at Gram’s when I got there, and Callie was locked firmly in her apartment until I was gone.

I’d promised to give her space, but that didn’t mean I liked it, and one of the hardest days came almost nine months later. Poet’s daughter Brenna had come home one day out of nowhere, and she’d brought a kid with her that looked exactly like Dragon. I tried to stay out of their shit—it wasn’t any of my business how they chose to deal with things—but fuck if they didn’t keep pulling me back in.

One afternoon, I stopped by the house and found Cody sitting outside while the house was quiet. He hadn’t felt comfortable enough to check on Brenna that entire morning, but the silence had finally made him anxious enough to unlock the front door and step inside.

I was right behind him when we’d found her, and the swelling on her cheek took me instantly back to a different time and place, filling me with rage. She’d calmed me down as best she could, and proceeded to tell her pop, Vera, and me the entire story. I’d understood it. I’d understood how it could have happened the way she said it had, but I hadn’t been able to clear the red haze from my vision. Dragon had hit a woman I’d thought of as a little sister, and I’d wanted to fucking kill him.

But the time I’d wanted to hold Callie the worst, the time I’d had to give my bike keys to Tommy so I wouldn’t be tempted to climb on and drive to her, was the day we’d found Brenna beaten bloody by her ex-husband and Cody shot in the shoulder, lying in the doorway of her house. He’d been trying to protect her.

I’d thought they were dead when we’d found them. For a guilty second, I’d thanked God that it wasn’t Callie—that she’d survived and was somewhere in Sacramento living her life—even if that life didn’t include me.

I’d felt so guilty for bringing Cody into the mess he was in, that it took me three tries to get up the nerve to call Rose that night, letting her know what was happening. She’d taken the news well, like I hadn’t just told her that her grandson had been shot, and I was amazed all over again at the strength of that woman. But even as I spoke to her, worried about her reaction, I was still fucked up enough to be disappointed when I didn’t hear Callie’s voice in the background as Rose thanked me for telling her and hung up the phone.

I’d wanted Callie so bad that night. I’d wanted her to come to me and run her fingers through my hair so I knew that she was okay. I’d needed to know that she was safe.

But I forced myself not to contact her—because if she was getting better, and she needed time away from me, I was going to give her that.

Chapter 75

Callie

It was almost a year after I’d told Asa that I couldn’t be with him anymore, and I was finally ready to speak with him again.

My time in therapy had been the hardest thing I’d ever done, and I’d probably never be able to go without it. I’d had a lot of guilt hanging over me from my parents’ deaths, and though it wasn’t going away, with Dr. Howell’s help, it was getting easier to understand and manage.

Dr. Howell was an old, grizzled war veteran, and I’d liked him instantly when we’d met. He not only told dirty jokes when he knew I needed to take a step back for a few minutes, but he also knew how guilt and blame could royally fuck up someone’s life—he’d lived through it when he came back from Vietnam.

I learned to let things out, and we worked on facing my demons head-on in a way that I’d never let myself do before. He’d told me something, and I’m sure he’d stolen it from someone else because he was always quoting self-help calendars and coffee mugs, “Demons come out in the dark because they’re afraid of the light. We need to smash those motherfuckers to smithereens with light.” Okay, I’m pretty sure he paraphrased, but the result was the same.

We brought everything out into the open.

I was ashamed that I’d blamed Asa and the club for a lot of things that they couldn’t have changed, but I finally understood that my jumbled emotions had been totally normal.

My life had been a series of unfortunate events for a long time, starting with my decision to sneak out of my house to go to a party and ending when I’d kicked Asa out of my life completely. Looking back, I don’t know that I would have been able to get my shit together, knowing that he was there to protect me. It would’ve been too easy for me to slide back into old habits.