Beneath the Stars (Falling Stars #4) - A.L. Jackson Page 0,124
they’d done it in secret, and now that they were finally back in South Carolina, they were gonna surprise his parents with the announcement.
“What is she gonna lose her mind about? That her wild boy finally got reined?”
He smiled, too. “That’s exactly why she’s gonna lose her mind. She woulda thought it’d be impossible.”
A wry smile ticked up at the corner of her pouty mouth. “Hmm…didn’t seem all that hard to me.”
“That’s because it took a special girl to make it possible.”
She blushed, and Rhys tried to ignore the flashes of anxiety that kept lighting up inside him.
The dread he felt every time he came face-to-face with his father. The man barely grunting. Barely eating. Barely breathing. While Rhys’ guilt had built exponentially.
Coming home only amplified the feeling.
The memories of those walls.
The ghost of that day that he was sure was going to haunt him his entire life.
His mama had tried to convince him it wasn’t his fault, but Rhys knew. If he had just listened, minded what his dad had instructed, it wouldn’t have happened.
They drove through his small hometown while Genny peppered him with a thousand questions about what it’d been like when he was growing up. He told her stories about the way he and Richard had run that town as teenagers, earning their reputations.
He also did his best to prepare her to meet his father, his voice rough and thick as he explained more about what to expect.
That his father might not even acknowledge them.
Or he might scream at them to get out of his room.
Maybe throw a bottle against the wall.
Wasn’t the most ideal of circumstances to bring his new bride home to, but that was his dad. Rhys might be ashamed of himself, but he wasn’t ashamed of his father.
But he guessed he hadn’t prepared her at all when they finally made it to the other side of town and hit the two-lane road.
He saw his childhood house in the distance up ahead.
Red and blue lights flashed through the night.
He rammed the accelerator to the floor, flying up the road and skidding as he cut a left into the bumpy dirt drive.
Dust billowed like the scream of demons as he flew up that tiny lane toward the circus of ambulances and police cars, and he was out the door and running for his mama who was running for him.
His guts coiled and sickness had already taken him hostage by the time she threw herself in his arms and buried her face in his chest. “He’s gone, Rhys. He’s gone.”
A roar of agony tore from his spirit.
“What happened? What happened?” He tried to break away from his mama and run for the house. “Oh god. What happened? Dad!” He screamed it and started for the house. “Dad!”
Tears blurred his eyes and streamed hot down his face as he struggled to push through the officer who tried to hold him. His mama jumped on him from behind. Her torment making her stronger than he ever knew she could be. “Stop, Rhys. Stop. You can’t go in there. Please. Stop. Listen to me.”
And Rhys knew.
He knew what he’d done all those years ago had finally ended his daddy.
Had destroyed their family.
He roared and his knees quaked. He wasn’t even strong enough to stand.
He dropped to the ground.
Love, love, love.
He’d crushed the truth of it beneath his feet.
Then he felt her behind him, her panic, her disgust, Genny shaking her head frantically as she backed away. “No. No, no, no.”
She kept shaking her head, stumbling as she floundered backward, before she turned and ran back for the idling truck.
He could feel her horror as she jumped in the front seat, though Rhys wasn’t sure he could process it through his grief.
Through the pain.
The sickness.
The truth of who he was.
He should have known he’d never be enough.
That Genny would see right through to the ugliness of him, too.
He moaned, torn between running for her and running into the house like he could stop it from happening.
Change it.
Fix it.
Maybe he could run so fast that he could get back to the time before it had begun. To the time when he was just a child and he’d believed he could save a small piece of the world.
Back to before he’d made the biggest mistake of his life. When his daddy was whole and right and the strongest man he knew. Back to when his daddy believed in him.