“I’m sorry,” I said thickly, my eyes on hers, and meaning it.
I never thought she’d let go of the briefcase. And when she did, it landed on the porch with a bang that echoed in the overhang and the next thing that happened was her open palm meeting my face. She hit me fast, a quick draw, one side of my cheekbone, then the other with the back of her hand, catching the corner of my lip. It stung like hell and I sucked in my breath. Because getting angry would do me no good – getting angry was the reason she was my ex-wife.
“I deserved that,” I said quietly, avoiding her eyes.
“Shut up!’ she cried out, spittle falling out of her mouth. Ben, bless his innocent heart, whimpered and hugged his mother tighter, refusing to cry. “You shut up. You ass**le! You …”
She trailed off and just when I thought all of this was too much for her, she hit me again. Then she burst into tears, her head hung down, briefcase at her feet. I couldn’t help but look at Ben, my son, who was looking up at me like I was not only a bad man, the bad man that made his mother cry, but a total stranger. I was a stranger to both of them and it didn’t matter how many letters I wrote. We were all lost to each other.
“Hey,” I said softly and wrapped my arms around her. She stiffened but let me hold her. I stretched one hand down and placed it on Ben’s head and we stood there for a good few minutes, a family by blood not heart, while she continued to cry.
“I don’t even know where to begin,” she said, her voice muffled into my tear-soaked chest.
“I did a stupid thing,” I told her, figuring it was better to attempt it or not.
“I know,” she said, the edge returning to her voice. She raised her head, her face inches from mine. I remembered how hard it used to be for me to not kiss her and how easy it was now. The bruises around her eye and cheek where someone – Javier? – had hit her were blooming. It made me feel sick all over again.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered and she pulled out of my grasp. “I had the best intentions for Ben in mind throughout all of it. I wanted to escape this life, the life your … brothers … put me in.”
She wiped hard at her tears like they burned. “You put yourself in that life. You—”
“I hit you,” I said and even she looked a bit shocked at the way I admitted it after all this time. I placed my hands on her shoulders and held her firmly, lowering my head, eyeing her closely. “I hit you. There’s no excuse. I’m done excusing myself. I hit you and I hate myself for it and I hate that it ruined what we had. A family. I can never take it back and I have to live with it. I’m sorry, Sophia. Really, truly for what I did to you.”
She sniffed, seeming to take it in. I didn’t expect her to forgive me and I didn’t even care if she did. As I said to Ellie once, I didn’t regret the consequences of my actions but I did regret the action. And I had been making excuses for it all this time, blaming Sophia for something that was entirely my fault. My temper, my anger, my old friend rage – I wanted to finally kick it to the curb. I wanted to own it, destroy it. Wasn’t that what second chances were about?
I crouched down and pulled up the briefcase. I put it in her hand. “I didn’t earn this money. I didn’t ask for it. I hate what it stands for. If it can give us a second chance, then maybe it’s not all for nothing.”
“Who said I wanted a second chance with you?” she said. She was right. I never assumed she would.
“Because it feels like the right thing to do, to try. Listen, Sophia. I can’t let you go back to the way things were. Your brothers … they turned you over to a f**king madman. That life, that wasn’t a life, that’s not a family. I can be your family.”
“Even though you’re in love with another woman,” she pointed out. “Who was she? Who was this woman who was worth all of this?”
“An old friend,” I said simply, ignoring the nails in my heart. I didn’t even want to say her name, not now while we stood there in Palm Valley, where I could almost feel her getting farther and farther away. I had to focus on what I had right in front of me: Ben and Sophia. Money for a new life. I had to make sure they were safe first before I could even indulge in thoughts about Ellie.
I hated that I had to choose.
“Please, let’s just get out of here. Somewhere safe. We can lay it all out, discuss our next move.”
She turned and looked behind her at the shop, my beautiful shop, built on lies and ink. “This isn’t safe? It’s your home.”
“This will never be safe. And it’s done being my home.”
She nodded, seeming to understand. “So what, you’re going to leave right now, like this? Your father …”
“I’ve already left, Sophia. I shouldn’t even be here.” I shouldn’t have been so careless to think a man like Javier wouldn’t go after me and take the things I loved. He gave some of them back to me and I had to make it work.
I looked at the GTO, the car that Ellie named Jóse, sitting in the driveway. It had seen so much already. It was time for it to see more.
I grabbed Sophia’s hand and tried to grab Ben’s but he pulled away from me. Would he recognize himself inked on the back of my leg? Would he one day realize how much he meant to me? I wanted to feel like a father again. I wanted him to feel like he had a dad.
We had just reached the car when I heard someone call out from the street.
“Camden!”
“Shit,” I swore under my breath and turned to look. It was Audrey Price, one of my clients. Her pale skin glowed under the hot sun like skin cancer waiting to happen. On her arm was the sleeve of cherry blossoms I had partly filled in a few weeks back. The day I met Ellie. The same cherry blossoms I would later add to Ellie’s leg.
“Who is that?” I heard Sophia whisper.
“A client,” I said and put on my most charming smile as Audrey approached us. “What’s up, Audrey? How’s the tat?”
She stopped in front of us and quickly glanced at Sophia over her retro shades. She took her in first, then Ben, who was still as quiet as a mouse. Finally she looked to me.
“I came to see you the other day. You were closed,” she said uneasily, and slid her shades back on.
I shrugged as casually as I could muster. “Going on a vacation with my family.”