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I’m damned either way. I’ll live with the horror and regret and the self-loathing if I do nothing and she gets hurt, or I’ll live as a piece of trash and a slick of scum on the bottom of my family’s boot if I debase myself enough to save her.
Either way, I’m nothing.
But at least if I go home, I can help my mother and maybe one day she’ll straighten out.
Maybe one day.
I wish Ford were here.
But that’s never going to happen.
Chapter 25
Ford
The apartment feels like a prison, but it’s one I can’t make myself leave.
Everything reminds me of her: the colors, the pillows, the smell of her shampoo, the way the mugs are stacked in the cupboard, the decorations on the walls. It’s Katherine, every bit of it is Katherine, and it’s killing me as each day passes and she’s still not here and I’m still stuck.
“You’re a mess, you know that, right?” Carmine stands next to me at the windows overlooking the city. It’s night, a little after eight, and Brice is cooking dinner in the kitchen. I sip my whiskey and grunt in response. “Come on, I’ve never seen you like this before, Ford.”
“What do you want me to say?”
“Tell me you’re all right.”
“I’m not.”
“Tell me you’regoingto be all right.” Carmine tilts his head. “Maybe you need to get out—”
“I’m not going anywhere.” I finish my drink and suck on my teeth. “You know the sickest part of all this?”
Carmine shakes his head. “What’s that?”
“I told Evander the truth a while back when I went to visit him. Don’t give me that look, he’s better at keeping a secret and he doesn’t have a wife to provide him a moral compass.”
“I’m insulted but not surprised.”
“That’s fine. But here’s the thing. Evander told me that if I was going to hurt her, I’d better make it fast. Don’t make her suffer.” I reach out and touch the cool window. “And he was right.”
Carmine swirls his drink. “I don’t know about that.”
“If I wasn’t going to come clean, I needed to steal her phone and get that ugly shit over with right away. Instead, I kept going back and forth, back and forth, and dug myself a deeper grave. I made it a thousand times harder by holding back.”
“That’s a bit dramatic.”
“But I’m not wrong. I couldn’t have fucked this up worse.”
Carmine glances over his shoulder and watches Brice for a moment. Her hair’s up in a messy bun and she’s wearing a conservative dress with an apron over top. She’s moving between pans, chopping ingredients, sipping the smallest glass of white wine, and the look on Carmine’s face sends a spike of agony into my chest. He looks at her like he’d die for her. Like he’d do anything for her. And I recognize some of myself in those eyes: that’s how I looked at Kat.
But Kat’s gone.
“I almost lost her once, you know,” Carmine says quietly. “I thought she was better off without me.”
“You didn’t though.”
“It was still an ugly chapter in my life.” He lets out a long breath. “I figured she’d be safer without me, but I was wrong. It only made everything so much worse.”
“This isn’t the same thing.”
