Page 9 of A Fighting Chance
Alistair looks like he wants to say more but remains silent. I feel like the two of us, being here like this, may be good for us going forward. We may never be as close as we once were, but it would be nice to at least be civil.
“Are you going to tell me what happened?” he asks quietly, and I sigh.
“There isn’t much to tell. I was sick and now I’m not,” I turn to walk away but he grabs my wrist and pulls me back.
“Mercedes,” he says softly, staring at me, imploring me to tell him everything.
Even when we were children, he would do this. I never could keep a single thing hidden from him.
“I had cancer.”
“Had?”
“Yeah,” I fight hard to keep the tears at bay that spring up every time I have this conversation. “I got the surgery and some chemo, and now I am in remission.”
“When?” he asks but he already knows the answer.
As someone that prides himself on his art and probably covers hundreds of scars, he can guess how old the scar is.
“It doesn’t,” but he cuts me off with a glare. “It’s why I moved to the city,” I say softly.
“Jesus Christ, woman!” he yells, and I jump at the anger in his voice. “You left your home, the only family you had, to go through this alone?”
He is seething with rage as he runs his hands over his face, pacing the length of the living room.
“I didn’t want to be a burden,” I try to explain.
“Fuck off with that shit,” he roars. “We love you even if we don’t always know how to show it.”
“Alistair,” I try to calm him down.
“You could have died,” I hear the pain in his voice, and the tears I have been fighting off finally fall down my cheeks. “I can’t be here right now.”
He doesn’t give me a moment to explain the logic I was following when I made my decision. He doesn’t want to hear that I know I made the wrong choice back then or that I picked up the phone to call him a million times but never did. He’s hurt and angry and I don’t know if anything I say or do will ever undo the harm I caused years ago.
Chapter Six
Alistair
Iam so pissed off I can barely see straight. How could she do that? She left us, left me, so that she could run off and go through the hardest time of her life alone. What the fuck is that? Did we not show her how much we cared?
I know I can’t drive my Harley with how I am feeling right now, I’m liable to end up wrecking my bike and myself. Instead, I stomp down the street to my own house where I can at least take my frustrations out on the punching bag in my garage.
Zeus, my rescue pitbull, comes bounding at me from the backyard, simply happy to see me again even though I have only been gone for a few hours. I steady my stance as he jumps up and lays his slobbering, wet kisses all over my jaw. I feel myself release some of the tension I have been holding and my anger starts to fade.
Sitting on the porch step I stare at the night sky. Zeus takes a seat beside me and silence envelopes us. I think through my conversation with Mercedes and instead of feeling angry, I feel the emotion my anger was masking.
Fear.
Even with her standing right in front of me all I could feel was fear. The fact that we — no I. The fact that I could have lost her forever and not have even known is enough to paralyze me. She needs to know the truth. She needs to know that no matter what, I will always be there for her, supporting her, and holding her hand.
But I also know I fucked up.
I can’t just walk back into her house and try to make what I did tonight better with words. I took an already fucked up situation and made it worse. I took her pain and made it all about me and I feel like a complete douchebag.
“I don’t know how I am going to fix this, buddy,” I say to Zeus. “But I have to give it a shot.”
Zeus stares at me with confusion and I smile. At least he isn’t pissed at me. Standing, I make my way into the house and change into some workout gear before heading to the detached garage off to the side of my house. I need to work off some of this extra energy before I can even try to think of a plan.