Something scrapes against the tiles of the kitchen and before I know it, I’m choosing not to ignore her. My steps are rushed, or as rushed as they can be when I’m on crutches. She’s dragging a chair across the room. “What are you doing?” I ask, finally finding my voice.

She smiles at me.

She.

Smiles.

At.

Me!

Hate me, Riley. Why don’t you hate me?

“I couldn’t reach something in the bedroom.”

I hobble over to the bedroom, hesitating for a second to prepare my heart for the onslaught my next move will create. I step into the room, stopping just inside and I inhale deeply. It was supposed to be calming. It’s not. The room smells like her. Like us. Like us together.

I stay still as she walks around me, her side grazing mine when she steps in front of me. She faces the wall opposite the bed and points up. “Dylan?”

I shut my eyes, my stomach dropping, my mind fearing my body’s reaction to the way she says my name.

It’s not just the memories that cause the fear.

It’s the longing.

It’s her.

“I just wanted to take these frames with me if you don’t want them…”

My eyes snap open, my gaze on her first, before I follow the length of her arm, her finger pointed to two black and white photographs hanging on the wall.

I’d never seen them before. Never even knew they were there.

I reach up, grab the first frame and hand it to her, then I grab the other. I don’t give her this one. I can’t. Not yet. Instead, I stare at it. And that’s all I do.

My emotions keep me anchored to my spot, my heart heavy, my breaths heavier.

I skim my thumb across the glass. Behind it, there’s a black and white image of her smiling face, a familiar one I’d only seen through the screen of the computer. There’s an inset of me in the corner from when I was deployed, staring back, smiling right along with her.

“I took a screen shot when we spoke once,” she says.

I tear my gaze away from the image and look at her. She’s looking down at the picture she’s holding—identical to mine, only I take up the frame and she’s the inset.

She releases a breath as she sits on the edge of the bed, her fingers stroking the glass. “I kind of just wanted to remind myself that even though we were oceans apart, we were still together, you know?” She looks up at me, her eyes no longer clear but glassy, filling with tears.

I sit down next to her, ignoring the voices in my head that tell me not to—that it’ll just make it worse, but I’m drained—of will and of sense—and I can’t find the strength to stay upright.

“I hung them a few days before you got back. I figured you didn’t see them because you never mentioned it.”

“I’m sorry,” I tell her, my focus back on the frame I’m gripping so tight my knuckles are white.

“It’s okay,” she says quietly. “You had a lot on your mind.”

The room fills with the sounds of our heavy breaths and the silence of our incredible heartbreak.

“Is it true? What you said to my mom in the hospital?”

I inhale deeply, the sound echoing off the walls.

“That you wanted me to hate you?”

I nod once.

“Why?” she whispers. She’s fighting to contain her cry but I feel it. I feel every ounce of pain she’s trying so hard to hide. “Why not just tell me to leave?”

“Because I’m a fucking coward, Riley.” I sit up, my hands stretched behind me as I look up at the ceiling. “I wanted to plant the seed in your head—the seed of loathing. So you were convinced it’s something you wanted. Because I know you, Riley. I know if I’d say that you’d come back. You’ll beg and you’ll plead and I’ll give in because I love you. I love you more than anything. And it’s not enough. It never will be.”

“That’s a fucking lie, Dylan.”

My eyes snap to her, but she’s still looking at the frame. “You know I love you. You know I’d always put you first. Always. If you didn’t want me anymore, I would’ve left. If you were suffering and you wanted to do it alone, you could’ve said that. If you needed time, I would’ve given it to you. You didn’t come to me, Dylan.” She stands up and faces me. Then takes the frame from me. “You didn’t let me be the glue that held you together, and that’s all I wanted to be for you. I’m sorry if that wasn’t enough.”

I find the strength to reach for her, but she moves away.

“My mom once told me that the hardest part of her day was the few seconds her hand would cover my doorknob and…” She pauses, wiping tears with the back of her hand. “…she was so afraid I wouldn’t be able to find the strength to get through the day and I’d do something I couldn’t take back.”

“Ry, I’m not…”

“It must be hard—as a parent—to know that your child might have those thoughts and those insecurities.”

“I don’t.”

“Reach out to your dad, Dylan. Take away the worry, okay?”

I watch her spin on her heels, her steps rushed as she walks through the door. I listen to those same steps move across the hallway, and finally, the front door open and close, shutting me out of her life and out of her world.

Riley

Dylan,

I realized something today as I let the memories of the forever you’d created for us rip my heart in two.

I was wrong.

There’s no emotion greater than love.

No ache greater than longing.

No sound greater than you.

Fifty-One

Dylan

An entire week passes before I work up the courage to take her advice. I shower, dress, and do my best to look presentable. I call a cab to drive me the few minutes it takes to get to Dad’s house.

It’s hard to make eye contact with the people you hurt, especially when they love you as much as my family loves me. There was never a doubt in the loyalty and honor of the Banks men. Not until I went and changed all of that.

I disappointed them.

I disappointed myself.

I look up at my brother again, a man who’s always been there for me, and then over at my dad as we sit around the kitchen table, my leg propped up on the seat Riley used to occupy.

From the corner of my eye, I see Sydney’s arm move, her hand most likely going to Eric’s leg under the table, showing her support.

I hurt her too.

I hurt everybody. Riley especially—but no amount of apologizing will ever make up for what I did to her.

Eric blows out a breath.

I switch my gaze back to him. After a thousand different words run through my mind—reasons, excuses, all of them useless, I decide on the truth. “Fuck man. I’m so fucking sorry.”

“Quit cursing at the table,” Dad says quietly.

Eric shrugs, not giving anything away. Then he leans forward, his forearms on the table. “Remember that time when you were in second grade and you fell off your bike and broke your arm?”

“Yeah…”

“Two days earlier I heard you tell Dad that you’d seen me smoking out in the yard when he was at work and I was supposed to be taking care of you. So, I saw you out on the sidewalk riding my old bike, happy as a pig in shit and I picked up a stick and threw that fucker right at your wheel. I told Dad you must’ve hit a rock. I convinced you of the same. So I guess this is payback.”