I couldn’t sleep because they had become a sort of addiction for me. I needed to know what the next one said, and the following one, and each and every line after that. At the same time, I didn’t want CJ to know that I was reading them because I feared he would take them away and hide them from me. He was home now, for a few days while one of the men from another Chapter continued to try to dig around for answers in Canada. It was hitting my man hard that they continued to smack into dead ends in their search for Deck. I feared that eventually, I would end up with another letter full of his regrets. I couldn’t think about the possibility of them never bringing Deck home though. Instead, I moved to immerse myself back into CJ’s letter. As hard as it was to read some of the words he penned from our past, they were also oddly comforting to me.
My dearest Lucy,
My beautiful wife, my partner in life, my everything, please, tell me that one day you will forgive me. I don’t even know how I can ask that of you when I can’t forgive myself. I feel like a piece of me, a limb, a chunk of my soul, has been ripped from me and no matter what I do, I can’t make myself whole again. Part of that is missing you, it always feels that way, but even if you were to come and crawl right into my lap and get as close as you possibly can to me, I don’t think it would take that feeling away this time.
Our boy is gone. He was about to start a family of his own. I still can’t believe it. I can’t believe my little boy had grown so much that he was about to step into the role of father before his life, and that of his baby’s, were snuffed out. How the hell do I even begin to wrap my head around that, let alone get right with the fact that this was all down to me. I may not have run him off the road or took his life with my own hands, but I may as well have.
I never put my foot down about the way things were handled at the club. There was never a moment, even after all we went through, where I questioned how things were done or tried to change them. I was fucking raped, missed out on a part of your life, our son’s birth, and so much more, all because of the filthy fucking whores we allowed to run roughshod through the clubhouse. Had I put my foot down then, do you think it would have changed anything? Do you think the men would have followed suit? I can’t even say for sure. Knowing what happened to me, I don’t even think they would have gotten rid of the whores back then. I don’t think it would have been enough to convince them. Still, it will always hang over my head because I never tried. Not until it was too late. My boy suffered from my slow action. He suffered in the beginning of his life for it and then his life was cut short for the same damn reason.
I can’t get that out of my head. Hell, baby, I know I don’t even have to explain all this to you. It’s the reason I’m not with you right now. You already know all of this. You blame me too. I wanted to be better than the man my father was, but Luce, I’m worried that I ended up worse. My actions, my inactions, they’ve cost us so much more. They cost me you, so many times. Too many times. They cost me Ever, and a relationship with her that I can be proud of and grow. Instead, we just have this constant awkwardness and struggle. Now, they’ve cost us all Toby. How do I get right with that?
The crazy thing is, as much as I want to run back into the past to change things, I can’t. It would be sacrificing one of our children for the other. If I had stood up and done something about the club whores and the party dynamic all those years ago, we might have never added Ever to our family. I can’t regret her. I won’t wish her away. Hell, I did enough of that