Kayla said, letting me go and walking toward Stryker before putting her arms around him and hugging him tight. “Thank you so much.”
His arms hung limp for a moment, as if he didn’t know what to do. Then, hesitantly, he wrapped them around her waist and returned the hug.
When she let him go, he cleared his throat and looked at the floor.
I walked over to him and he looked up.
“Thank you,” I said.
“You’re welcome.” His voice was so quiet I almost didn’t hear it. Adam came around the corner then, balancing several cups of steaming coffee.
“Here,” Kayla said, handing me one. Adam handed her a napkin and she blew her nose on it.
I should want to cry. When your dad suddenly died of a heart attack, you should want to cry. You should sob until you don’t have any tears left. I should be like Mom, or at least like Kayla. I shouldn’t feel like this was some sort of elaborate joke, and that any second someone was going to tell me this wasn’t real, and then I could go back to normal. I was still waiting.
Stryker watched me as if he was waiting, too.
I held out my hand and he looked down at it as if it was the first time he’d ever seen one. He looked back to my eyes and then took my hand, twisting and locking our fingers together.
“I’m so sorry, Katie.”
“Thanks,” I said, because that seemed like the thing to say. I sipped the coffee because that seemed like the thing to do and talked to Kayla about the ugly watercolor that hung in the hallway and pretended I couldn’t hear Mom sobbing and talking to Becky behind the door.
Kayla and Adam huddled together, talking quietly.
Stryker and I stood silent.
“I don’t know what to say. To make you feel better, or to make this somehow less of a shitty situation,” he finally said as I finished the last of my terrible coffee.
“You don’t have to say anything. I can’t even cry, so clearly you’re not the only one who doesn’t know what to do.”
“You can cry or not cry. You can do whatever you want to.”
I set the empty cup on the floor. I couldn’t be bothered to find a trash can at the moment. “I should cry. I’ve been trying to, but I can’t. How fucked up is that?”
“Like I said, you can do whatever you want.” He pulled our linked hands to his lips and kissed the back of mine. It was a simple gesture, but it made me want to smile. If only I could figure out how to make my face do that.
“Can I do anything? Get you anything?” he said.
I shook my head.
“Unless you know how to travel back in time, no.” Was I joking? How could I be joking? To his credit, Stryker didn’t look shocked.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart. I’m so desperately sorry for you. I wish there was something…fuck.” He took the hand that wasn’t linked with mine and banged it against the wall.
“My dad died. There’s nothing you could do.” I said it again, in my head.
My dad died. My dad died.
Three words. A bunch of letters strung together in such an order that they meant my dad was dead. He was dead. As in gone, lost, far away, never coming back.
My dad died.
“Oh my God. My dad died.”
I said it a few more times and Stryker looked like he wanted to put my hand over my mouth so I’d stop saying it.
“He’s dead,” I said, looking at Stryker. “He’s dead.”
There they were. Tears.
Like I’d somehow tapped into a hidden well, they started pouring out of me. A sound tore from my mouth, and I tried to stop it, but I couldn’t. I started to fall, but Stryker caught me again, yanking me into his arms, whether to comfort me or stifle the noise, I wasn’t sure. It didn’t matter because my dad was dead.
Kayla’s arms came around my back and I was in a hug sandwich, but it didn’t matter because my dad was dead.
And then I didn’t remember anything because my dad was dead.
Chapter Nineteen
Stryker
I’d been waiting for her to break, or do something, and finally, she did. That was almost worse than the shock, because at least with that, I could still sort of reach her. When the grief and reality finally consumed her, there was no reaching her.
I tried to hand her off to Kayla, but she wouldn’t let go of me, so we