“Shit, no. I don’t know! I told you, it just all came at me at once and I freaked. Don’t f**king judge me. Your cunt of a wife refused to let you see her or your kid, and you jumped through hoops to be able to see him. Dropped your career, bought a house, did everything she demanded of you . . . and at the time, you couldn’t have even been positive he was your damn kid!”
“Don’t f**king spin this around onto me. I’m not the one who just ditched Reagan and Parker! With my situation, I manned up and took responsibility. You’re starting to see all the responsibility that comes with being with them, and you left.”
“I’m not putting it on you, I’m trying to tell you. You handled it your way, even though we all thought you were f**king insane. Now I’m handling this my way. Just because we chose to handle situations differently doesn’t mean you can chew me out for this shit.”
He huffed and started laughing, but his tone wasn’t amused. “You can’t begin to compare what I did and what you just did. I knocked my girlfriend up. I wasn’t about to let her go through that alone, no matter what was going on between us. You willingly went into a relationship with Reagan knowing she had a son and trust issues. Then when it started getting serious and you had a moment of panic, you left. Totally. Different.”
Of course they were different. I just needed something . . . anything to try and justify what I’d just done.
“What happened to ‘I will never quit,’ huh?”
My brow furrowed when I realized what he was saying. It was from part of the Soldier’s Creed.
“So you’re saying,” I began, my voice dark, “that no matter what relationship I got into, if I broke up with the girl, you’d use that shit against me? Question me as a man and soldier? Fuck. You. Saco.”
“No, and you know I’m not. From what you and Hudson have said, and what I’ve seen . . . I know this isn’t just a relationship for you. This is your future, and you’re being a bitch because you had a moment where you let your fears and insecurities get to you. Do you think I don’t have days where I’m terrified that I’m gonna f**k up? That Tate could have a better dad than me? Just because I worry, doesn’t mean I’m going to leave my son.”
“Parker isn’t my son.”
“Wow. Coming from the guy who not even a week ago claimed Parker as his son without a second thought. Hudson told me about that too, ass**le.” There was a beat of silence before Saco sighed. “He’s not your blood, but that’s your son. From the way you said that, I know you don’t even believe the shit you’re saying.”
I didn’t, and I wanted to die for even letting the thought cross my mind.
I’d spent that night, and the next day, in my studio trying to edit. Trying to do anything to get my mind off Reagan and Parker. Nothing was helping. I’d been the one to get scared and leave them. I’d been the one to call it off before any of us could get more invested. But now I felt hollow.
I couldn’t go back to my place without seeing them there, and here, in the studio, flashes of Reagan and I together were hitting me hard.
I hadn’t slept for more than thirty minutes last night before I’d woken in a panic, completely drenched in sweat. And this time, it hadn’t been flashbacks of my time in the army. There hadn’t been a flashback, nightmare, or dream . . . just the sense that I’d physically lost both Parker and Reagan and couldn’t find them.
Hudson was calling me every few hours to yell at me, and though I’d grabbed my phone to call Reagan over a dozen times, I hadn’t gone through with it and she’d never tried to get ahold of me.
My phone rang, and I grabbed for it quickly. Disappointment and regret poured through me when I saw Saco’s name instead of Reagan’s. My thumb hovered over the red button before I gave in and hit the green.
“Hello?” Nothing came from the other side. “Saco, you there?”
A pained cry sounded, and I looked at the screen on my phone to confirm it was Saco, before I tried talking to him again.
“You there? What’s wrong?”
Silence greeted me for long seconds, and just as I started to say something again, his strangled voice came over the line. “He’s gone.”
“What? Who’s gone?” Panic filled me thinking about Parker. But I tried to calm myself, knowing Hudson or Reagan would have been the one to call me about that.
“He’s gone—it’s all my fault—he’s gone.”
“What happened, Saco, who’s gone?”
“Tate,” he finally choked out.
When he didn’t say anything else, and all that met me was hard sobs, I asked, “She took him from you? How can she do that?”
“No!” he yelled, and a groan that didn’t even sound human left him. “I killed him. I killed him—it’s my fault—Tate’s dead. Oh God, he’s dead! I killed my son!”
I almost dropped the phone as I struggled to find my couch to sit down. This had to be some sick, twisted joke because of last night.
Right?
“Fuck!” he roared until more sobs choked off his words.
Wrong.
“What happened?” I finally managed to ask.
“I was driving, and he died. I don’t—I don’t—why couldn’t it have been me?” he yelled, and somehow, I knew he wasn’t asking me that question. “This can’t be happening, he needs to be okay, I’ll do anything. Anything, you hear me? God damn it! Take me instead!”