“Like a parasite,” I admitted. “Couldn’t get rid of her if I tried.”
Will looked around, making sure we were alone, and turned back to me with a resigned grimace on his face.
“I didn’t leave her. Avery left me.” He’d dropped that bomb and waited for it to explode, but I saw the look on his face when I brought her up. He still cared about her.
“You love her still?”
He narrowed his eyes at me. “Not like that. Not anymore.” He sighed, his shoulders slumped, and he ran a hand through his blonde hair. “I would have given all of it up for her, if she had asked. That’s how much I loved her. But she didn’t ask. She made the trip to see me and went to every home game. I thought I’d marry her when she was ready. You know Avery and her rules, though. She wanted to make sure our life was perfect, first. She wanted to get a start teaching.”
Hearing Avery’s life planned out with another man cut even deeper, and I wanted to fucking run out the door. I kept my ass planted on the stool, though, and forced myself to listen to the information I’d so desperately wanted.
“We got into the accident all because I was an idiot. I picked a fight, again, about her moving in with me down in Boston. But she didn’t want to. And when the drunk driver came at us, I didn’t have enough time to swerve, because I’d been glancing at her while we fought. I got this,” he said as he rubbed the scar on his face. “Avery though ... lost everything she ever wanted.”
I didn’t get it. The scar on her abdomen.
“Oh shit.” Every single time I had seen Avery rub her scar flashed in front of my eyes. The longing way she stared at little kids. Or when she talked about her future. Or when I brought up having babies. “I think I fucked up.”
“You get it now, don’t you?”
What kind of cop was I? I couldn’t even see the pain she must feel, and I had rubbed salt in that wound by talking about children she couldn’t have. I had chased her away. No wonder she’d ran. “I can’t love her. Not the way she deserves.”
Will’s eyes flashed, and he slapped me harder than I’d expect from a shortstop. “Shut your fuckin’ mouth, jackass. Don’t you dare say that shit to me. You don’t get to decide how she deserves to be loved. That’s her decision. Not yours. Not mine. Not anyone’s, but hers. Do you understand? That’s how I lost her. I tried to force her into my fuckin’ bubble. I tried to force my life on her. She’s a strong woman. Determined and willing to fight when she thinks she’ll win.”
“I told her I wanted to have kids with her,” I whispered, unable to say it any louder.
“She left you, didn’t she?” Will steepled his fingers around his beer. “She left, because you told her you wanted something she could never, in a million years, give you. She did the same thing to me. And then, because the world knowing she couldn’t have kids was a worse thought than having her heart broken, she let everyone think she was heartbroken.”
“I’ve gotta fix this,” I told him honestly. “I don’t give two shits about having a biological child. We can adopt. Hell, I’m already a foster parent. I don’t care about having a kid. I care about Avery.”
Will opened his mouth, but my phone started to ring with an emergency alert from dispatch. I held up a hand for silence.
“Malone,” I snapped into the speaker.
“There’s an incident at Birch Elementary.”
My heart dropped out of my chest.
Please don’t say it. Please. I’ve never prayed so hard in my life.
“It’s Avery.”
21
Avery
It’d been a week of complete and utter misery.
“I miss you being there at night, Miss James.”
I looked up from my depressing lunch of a salad to see Lucas standing in front of me, biting his lip.
“I know you guys are adults and all that stuff, but Carter isn’t happy with you gone either. He lets me eat as much ice cream as I want for breakfast, and he doesn’t know how to make waffles the right way. And the house doesn’t smell like strawberries.” Lucas rambled, making sure to give me his sternest expression. “So, when are you coming home?”
Even as he said the words, I had already realized that I’d messed up. Carter didn’t know that I couldn’t have children, and I shouldn’t have just run out when he said he wanted to have them. I should have given him the chance.
“I’m going to talk to him today,” I reassured Lucas. “Maybe when you’re in your meeting with Mrs. Keller this afternoon.”
We didn’t get to talk anymore. Since the last bell for lunch went off, and his classmates started to filter in, all chatting about different things.
Once the last student came in, I clapped my hands. “I have an idea for something we can do this afternoon. Something that Lucas inspired in me.” I smiled at the boy who now sat in the front row next to Ciara, and he beamed from the attention.
“I want all of us to write a paragraph about one thing that we can fix. One thing that maybe we’ve done wrong, something that we’d like to fix. And then, we’re going to separate into groups, and we’re going to help each other come up with an idea on how to fix it.”
Ciara’s hand shot straight into the air. “Do they have to be bad things? Or can we pick something like leaving our bikes outside even though our parents told us to bring them inside.”
“That’s perfect, Ciara.”
I’d just turned away to write the assignment on the whiteboard when my classroom door slammed open.
Karen Zucker, red-eyed and shaking, walked inside with a gun held high. Immediately, I stepped in her path, with my arms held up towards her, showing her that I was her target, and not the children behind me.
“Mom, what are you doing?” There was a tremble in Lucas’ voice. One that I’d do anything to take away.
I couldn’t, though. I couldn’t even turn around, because that would draw attention to the classroom full of targets for her.
“You.” She waved the gun in my face. “Make him shut up!” Karen screamed at him, the gun in her hand pointed straight at my face.
“Mom?”
“I told you to shut up.” She kept screaming. “You’re nothing, you pathetic, worthless piece of shit. Just shut up!”
I turned my head as slowly as I could, shaking it slightly when I saw him staring at me, silently asking if he could help.
“No,” I mouthed the word, keeping all traces of my voice out of it.
His eyes flashed with pain, and he looked at me with tears starting to pool in his eyes. I wanted more than anything else in the world, to take away that torment. But I couldn’t. Nothing I could do would make it better.
“It’s going to be okay,” I told my students, taking the chance to reassure them with what little I could. I kept my voice down, and then turned back to the disheveled woman who reeked of garbage and alcohol.
Her skin was dirty, bruised, and she looked like shit. Gone was the beautiful woman I’d faced at Rett’s birthday. Karen didn’t look like she’d even slept in a month. Her eyes darted around the room, expecting trouble from every corner of the room, even though there wasn’t anyone else there, but me and the students.