I’ve never felt more… relieved. More like I could breathe now.
And it’s all because I’ve got a choice.
I never thought I had a choice, actually.
I had a shitty father who wanted to control me, who wanted to treat me like a possession. Who never cared about me or my sister or my mother. Or people in general. So I had no choice but to hate him. I had no choice but to rebel, to fight. To stick it to him.
I had no choice but to go to war with him.
Every action, every reaction in my life has been born out of the fact that I never had a choice.
But then… then she said that I did. That you always do.
No one’s ever said that to me before. No one’s ever said to me that I had a choice, that I could pick the life that I wanted for myself.
So I thought about it. I thought about if I had a choice, what would I want?
What are the things that I want?
Turns out, I want a lot of things. And they were buried inside of me just waiting to come out.
I’d want a mother who cared about me and Pest. Who didn’t love a villain like my father. Who was happy and carefree.
I’d want Pete as my father.
The man who taught me everything about cars and showed me what my passion was. The man who I went to last night, after driving around for hours, and told everything to. And his response was that he was done with the garage anyway. That he wanted to travel now, visit all the places he went to with Mimi, and he was ready to give it up but only if I’d promise to take care of it.
Well, his exact words were, I was waiting for you to wake the fuck up and get your head out of your ass so I could hand you this damn shop and retire.
So I took it. Because if I had a choice, I’d pick working in a garage over playing soccer any day.
It’s mine now. My dream.
Because a dream is something that gives you peace and sets your soul on fire at the same time.
That’s what she said to me.
The girl because of whom all of this is happening. The girl who showed me that I could take my life back from my father, if I wanted. I could build my own life. The kind of a life, the kind of a father that my baby girl would be proud of like I was never proud of my own father.
The girl who showed me that I could be different, good, someone I like – but wait a second.
Wait a fucking second.
She isn’t the girl who finally made me realize that I do have a dream and what it means to have one, no. Or that I could choose to be a different person.
At least, she’s not just that, is she?
She’s more.
She’s my… She’s my dream itself.
Because she gives me peace. And she sets me on fire.
Holy fucking Christ.
Fae does that for me. Every time she smiles at me. Every time she touches me. Or she tells me something that she’s read in a pregnancy book or she bakes for me. Or looks at me with her pretty eyes or blushes for me.
Every time she lets me inside her body so I can worship her, ruin her, sate myself in her.
Every fucking time she dances.
That’s why I used to be so eager to watch her spin on her toes in the woods or back at Bardstown High. Because she gave me peace. Because she took away my stress of soccer and rivalry and my dad.
Because when I saw her, all I could think about was her.
Jesus Christ, Fae is my dream.
The biggest one I’ve ever had. The most precious one.
Isn’t she?
My tight little ballerina who’s glorious and gorgeous and pregnant with my baby.
I’m outside now, in the driveway of my posh house and I have to take a second. I have to plow my fingers through my hair and just breathe.
At the realization.
At the fact that I’ve been such a fucking idiot.
All this time, all this fucking time, Pete kept telling me. My own fucking father kept telling me and I…
I’ve been too bogged down and wrapped up in my own self to recognize it. To recognize that I love her. That I could love her.
I had so much hate inside my heart that I never thought I could. I never thought I was capable of it. But she kept telling me too, didn’t she?
She kept telling me that I could love.
That if I love Halo – I do; I fucking do – then that means I can love other things as well. But I kept ignoring her like I kept ignoring everyone else.
I straighten up then, an urgency flowing through my veins.
I have to go to her. I have to fucking tell her.
She needs to know. She deserves to know.
How I feel. How I’ve been a big fucking idiot. Especially after how I left things with her last night.
I know she’s at school right now. But that’s fine. I’m going to stand outside of those fucking black metal gates and wait for her until she comes out.
But as I begin to stride toward my Mustang, I realize I have a text. My phone’s been on silent all night long and I’ve got multiple missed calls and texts.
From Conrad, Pest. Even Ledger.
And then for the second time in twenty-four hours, a panic like no other grips me. It chokes the life out of me, keeling me over.
But I don’t have the time for that. I don’t have the time to panic or to breathe even because she needs me. My Fae and Halo. And I have to get to them.
I break all speed limits and lights as I race toward the hospital. It’s in the town of St. Mary’s, miles away from Bardstown and my father. Something that would’ve made me happy. To have Fae and the baby away from the clutches of my father.
Not so much now.
Now I’m panicking. I’m angry and frustrated and helpless.
So goddamn helpless.
By the time I reach the hospital, I’m shaking. My body is cold. My bones can’t be contained within it.
I’m not sure where I’m going or who even helps me get there but thank fucking God, I end up at the right place. Because I see the tall form of Conrad, standing, his eyes immediately falling on me as I enter the space.
“Where is she?” I ask, pushing through the panic. “Where the fuck is she?”
Conrad stares at me with grave eyes. “She fell down the stairs at school. It was an accident. We brought her in—”
I don’t think.
I get up in his face and grab his collar. “What do you mean she fell down the stairs at school? Where the fuck were you? Why weren’t you keeping an eye on her?”
“Reed —”
“She’s pregnant, for God’s sake,” I shout. “She can be slow and clumsy and does no one…” Suddenly, the winter in my body becomes even chillier. “Halo. What… Is she…”
“Callie’s in surgery right now. The fall induced labor and…” He swallows and I see the same terror reflected in his blue eyes. “And we won’t know for a few hours if Halo… We won’t know until they come out of surgery.”
We won’t know.
We won’t know if Halo is fine. If my Fae…
My fingers come loose from Conrad’s collar.