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“What do you mean, people like you?”
She glanced away from him, and he didn’t like that one bit.
“Jolie?” he pressed.
“I’m tired. I want to go back to bed. I don’t feel well.”
“That’s eight.”
“What? Why?” That brought her eyes back to his.
“Because you just lied to me.” He cupped her face between his hands to prevent her from moving away again. “Tell me why you don’t deserve good things.”
“I don’t know! They just don’t happen to me, all right? I’m always doing the wrong thing and letting people down. Okay?”
“Not okay. I’ve never once seen you let anyone down. All I’ve seen is a person who works so hard she made herself ill.”
She bit her lip.
“Tell me,” he ordered.
“I don’t… I don’t deserve anything nice, though. Not when… not when I’m not a good person.”
“But you are.”
“I’m not! You don’t understand. It was my fault she died and I’m not a good person so good things shouldn’t happen to me.”
His heart stopped. What was she talking about? He suddenly became aware that they were having this talk in a bathroom. But if he tried to move her, she might clam up, and he had to know what she was talking about.
“What was your fault?” he whispered.
“My mom dying. I was being naughty. I wasn’t supposed to climb that tree without my dad watching me. I fell and broke my leg. My mom was rushing me to the hospital when she ran off the road. They think she hit a patch of ice. She… she died the next day.” A small sob escaped her, and his stomach dropped.
“Baby, no. How old were you?” he asked.
“Eight.”
Fuck. His poor girl. He drew her against him, rocking her back and forth as she sat on the counter.
“Who the fuck told you that it was your fault?” he demanded.
“My dad. He, uh, he didn’t cope that well with her death. He stopped going to work and started drinking. He’d tell me all the time how it was my fault she was gone. Then he’d start crying.”
“Like fuck it was your fault!” he snarled.
She leaned back, staring up at him in shock.
“That fucking bastard had no right to blame you! You were eight, for fuck’s sake.”
“But I?—”
“No buts. I don’t want to hear any buts. There are no buts. You were a child. Children make mistakes, they break rules. Your mom had a car accident that wasn’t her fault. She died. Not your fault either. And your father spiralling like that was not your fault. Where is he? Your old man, where is he? I’m going to teach him a lesson.”
“Um, buried in a cemetery.”
He blinked down at her.
“L-liver failure.”
