I’d screwed up the minute I drove off, but you have to understand, I just wasn’t in my right mind—”
“I don’t have to understand shit!” I yelled. “How much further could you possibly fall after gambling away your own fucking child? And stop lying, I was at that house for a year before we moved to another one.”
He shook his head. “I’m not lying. I went there but Mitch wouldn’t let me in. He had a gun and—”
“So you just gave up? Are you fucking kidding? All you had to do was make one call to the cops and they would’ve shown up with a SWAT team. But it wasn’t the gun that stopped you, was it? No, you were more worried about going to jail yourself for neglect and trafficking. You’re a bitch and a coward.”
My heart pumping violently, I tightened my grip on the gun so it wouldn’t slip out of my sweaty hand. The rage was so intense, so hot, that it was manifesting itself in a physical feeling of something clawing at my skin from the inside. Thank fuck I was in a hospital, because I was definitely about to stroke out. No question, the tunnel vision had already set in.
But then I heard it.
The sound of salvation.
It wasn’t loud, certainly no louder than the angry and bitter demons throwing a shit fit in my brain, but the comforting familiarity of keys clinking and boots stomping on concrete cut right through everything else.
“Shit,” I heard Torch curse, as he made it up the last couple of stairs and saw what was happening. He quickly rounded the railing and stepped in front of me, but I couldn’t loosen my grip on the gun. Stroking my hair and tucking it behind my ear, he whispered, “Babe… Hey… I know you’re in there. Flip that switch, Liv.” I glanced down at the floor, but he cupped his hand under my chin and lifted it back up. “Sweetheart, you’re bleeding.”
Bleeding? I frowned in confusion.
He pointed at the crook of my right arm, where blood had seeped through a bandage and was starting to trickle out from under it. Between increased pressure and squeezing the grip of my gun like one of those stress balls, I seemed to have reopened the vein.
My chest heaving but my body still frozen, I looked into Torch’s eyes and let their warmth lull my turbulent thoughts. Even amid this emotional hurricane, I knew exactly what he was doing. And it was more than just trying to talk me out of first-degree murder. Mentally, he was using my own coping mechanism; physically, he’d positioned himself between me and the enemy to create a protective barrier which Graham didn’t stand a chance of penetrating.
“I’m here,” he soothed, “I’ll be here ‘til I take my last breath. You’re okay, he can’t fucking touch you.” Torch wrapped his fingers over the barrel of the gun but didn’t try to pry it away. “Listen to me… If you want him gone, we’ll make it happen, but you can’t do this here. I’m not letting you go away again over a heat of the moment thing. I love you, baby, we’ll figure it out. But you gotta give me the gun now, okay?”
I nodded, slipped my finger off the trigger, and let him slide it out of my hand. Torch tucked it down the back of his jeans and wrapped his arm around my shoulder.
I stared at my father, wondering when those wet cheeks and pained expression would start to feel good. Over the years, I’d thought about this moment so many times, looking forward to seeing his eyes twisted up in sorrow, in sadness, in overwhelming guilt. But looking at him now, I realized there was nothing in it for me, no satisfaction to be had from hurling more hateful words or even killing him. Murder had never been part of my reunion visions anyway.
Pulling a gun on him aside, the truth was that I hadn’t once considered knocking off my own father, not seriously anyway. That wasn’t to say I couldn’t, or that one of these days I wouldn’t, I just didn’t see the point in the here and now. Graham Belman was a tragically flawed human being, one who’d fucked up in the worst way imaginable. But if it hadn’t been for his biggest fuck up of all, I never would have ended up with the life I had now.
Tucked into Torch’s side, I was anchored to my