Chapter 66

Two and a half hours outside of Cedar Harbor, I stopped in a small fucking town with a name I didn’t know. Not that I fucking cared. I just needed gas, and then I’d keep going. To where? I wasn’t really sure. Back to Iron Falls maybe. Or maybe I’d find somewhere else to go. Who fucking knew.

Only I didn’t pass through like I should’ve.

Instead, I ended up in the dingy bar across the street. It was one of those old places where normal fucking regulations didn’t seem to exist. People smoked, the food was absolute shit, and the bar served questionable beer.

But I wanted that. I wanted to drown in questionable fucking beer. I desperately needed a reprieve from the rampant thoughts in my head—just a fucking moment of silence that wasn’t fueled by guilt, grief, or shame.

Fuck, I was a goddamn mess.

I slid onto a stool, careful to keep my jacket tight around me. Should I have worn my gun into the bar? Probably not. Did I fucking care? No, I really fucking didn’t. It’d probably get my ass kicked out, but I didn’t give a fuck. It was my proverbial armor.

“What’ll you have?” the bartender asked.

“Whatever’s on tap,” I said, and she left without a word. Good. It was one of those fucking bars—the keep to yourself kind, not the talk to everyone kind. I couldn’t fucking do the latter.

I needed the simplicity of dropping my cash, expecting no change, and getting my goddamn beer. If I was going to drink and be fucking miserable, I wanted to do it alone.

There was no denying the slight tremble in my hand as I held the chilled glass. Gripping it a little tighter, I stared at the amber liquid in search of some magical answers about what the fuck I should do.

Beer had nothing to offer except the promise of reprieve from how her broken voice haunted me—had haunted me for two and a half hours straight.

“You left me, Killian! Alone and bleeding in the hospital!”

I took a sip and let the cold liquid sit on my tongue. Two fucking years sober and it still felt like nothing changed as I swallowed hard. I leaned into the familiarity of its taste.

“You just walked out of my life and left me there to deal with all of it!”

I took another long swig, trying to chase away the sound of her voice in my head.

“It was supposed to be you and me! You were supposed to be there for me! I only wanted you.”

Another drink, another desperate prayer for quiet.

“You’re sorry?What good does that do me?”

And another.

“You didn’t care.”

I downed half the fucking glass before I took a deep breath. Nothing. That single sentence played on repeat in my head.

She thought I didn’t care about her. About our son. About any of it.

And why should she?

That voice in the back of my head taunted me.

I’d fucking left her at possibly the worst moment of her life to… what? Be selfish? To fucking drink myself into a hole because I couldn’t handle shit anymore?

What a piece of shit I was.

I finished off the glass and gave the bartender a half-hearted wave for another. I was a piece of shit. Selfish and destructive. That was what I was. The selfish, destructive piece of shit who had ruined her life. Her life would be better without me in it.

And it wasn’t just her.

My family too. The ridiculous number of phone calls and text messages I had—particularly from Declan—was a great fucking indicator of how much of a screw-up I was. They would’ve been better off if I had never come home.

I chased that fucking thought with a long drink. And then another. And I kept drinking because I was fucking done trying. I was done convincing myself everything would be okay. I was done treading water and trying to fucking survive.

I just wanted to drown.