scared. But you surprised me. It was the best surprise of my life, but afterward… I don’t know, I guess I had a little PTSD, but I couldn’t chance feeling that way again. So, we decided one kid was enough.”
I’d never asked why I was an only child before, especially since my parents had always been all over each other. Now that I knew the reason, it made sense. Mom wasn’t the type of person to let emotions rule her, but if she’d felt even half of what I was feeling right then, I knew it must have scared the hell out of her.
Knowing she’d gone through something like me and understood what it felt like, I found myself telling her everything that happened.
“Are you okay now, though?” she rushed to ask. “The bleeding, the pain?”
“I’m good, except this emptiness that I feel deep in my soul,” I confessed.
“I know right now it might not seem like it, but it does get better,” she promised. “It might take a while, but one day it will just be a dull ache and not the painful throb it is today”
“I hope so,” I murmured. “I just want to keep myself busy so I don’t have to constantly think about it. I was going to go into the shop and see if there’s anything that needs to be done, but Mav is asleep and I don’t have a car at the moment.”
“I’ll call your dad right now and make him bring it to you.”
“Nah,” I told her with a grimace. “I’ll figure it out. I’ll just call Mila.”
“River, stop being so adult.”
A soft laugh escaped me. “Mom, I hate to break it to you, but I am an adult now.”
She huffed. “Shut up, little girl. I’m not old enough to have an adult daughter.”
The pout in her voice only made me laugh more, and it felt…good. “Yeah, okay. I’m going to go now. Whatever you’re doing, please be careful.”
“I love you,” she murmured softly. “Don’t ever forget that, okay?”
The smile faded from my face as tears stung my eyes. “I-I won’t.” I swallowed hard. “I love you too.”
After I hung up, I just sat there for a while, letting my tears spill over. I hated crying, but I couldn’t seem to stop it from happening. Being sad was exhausting and made my entire body ache. It wasn’t an emotion I’d had to experience all that often in the past, but it seemed to blanket me at that moment.
Once I had my emotions under control, I decided to call Kingston. Not only did he have a car that I knew he would let me borrow until I either got mine back or bought a new one, but he was my favorite male cousin. His mom and my dad were best friends, and Aunt Quinn and Mom had been roommates before they’d married two of the Hannigan brothers. Kingston was more like my brother than my cousin since the two of us were both only children.
“It’s the ass-crack of dawn,” Kingston grumbled when he picked up after it had rung several times.
“It’s after noon,” I informed him dryly.
“Really?” He sounded dazed, and then I heard him shifting around. “Fuck, it is.” His groan sounded like he was in physical pain. “Shit. I should have been up over an hour ago to help at Aggie’s. Mom is going to kill me.”
“Um, before you go to be murdered, could you pick me up and drop me off at the shop?” I asked hopefully. “I’m kinda without a vehicle at the moment.”
“What?” he yelled. “Why the hell don’t you have a car?”
I squeezed the bridge of my nose as a headache began to pound behind my eyes. “Can we discuss that after you pick me up? I’m sure you want to get to the diner before Aunt Quinn comes looking for you.”
He groaned again. “Yeah, okay. I’ll be there in fifteen.”
I was waiting outside when he pulled up, thankfully in his car and not on his motorcycle. I wasn’t hurting, but I didn’t think riding on the back of a bike would feel all that great to me. I climbed into the front passenger seat as soon as he came to a complete stop.
“Why don’t you have a car?” he demanded as soon as we were out on the road.
I told him about Dad supposedly bringing mine over, but he hadn’t, and I wasn’t sure if he was going to. “I don’t really care if he does,” I