Frigid knives slice over my skin as I dive into the lake behind my parents’ cabin. I sink underwater until my lungs cry for air. Then I wonder if I can stay a bit longer…
When I break the surface, the wind cracks across my face like a slap. My lashes ice together as I gasp for a breath.
A shadow crouches at the end of the dock, arms folded, expression carved in stone. Even in winter’s indigo light, disappointment is plain.
“What in the hell are you doing?” Dad’s voice is flat as I climb the ladder, shaking so hard I can barely catch my towel.
“Taking a swim.”
“At five in the morning. On Christmas Eve. In water that could kill you.”
“Got to prove my worth to become that CEO for Cardell Enterprises,” I spit out.
His chest rising is the only way I know he’s angry. Otherwise, he’s as frozen as the surface of the lake. “You already have—Youare.”
“So thentrust my decisions.” My jaw juts forward, but I don’t wait for his rebuttal. “You saw how I handled the Twinston case.”
He nods, pointing toward the house, and I follow his lead back home. “I did.”
“I know what I’m doing,” I say confidently. But he and I can feel it in the air.
I’m lost. Fucked up over a girl I can’t fix.
What have I become? A monster? The way I treated her?—
The way I treated themother of my child.
I don’t deserve her. I don’t deserve anyone.
The dock creaks under Dad’s shoes as he turns. He tightens his lips together and tugs on the back door on the lower deck, waving me inside. “You did what needed to be done, and I can respect it. We need to get you on the board at NU as soon as you graduate. And some of the committees, so we can make the right plays. But that will entailfollowing ordersuntil that happens.” Lower, and tired, he says, “Then we take over.”
Steamy warmth curls around my body until the shivers fade. The bottom floor family room is cozy, the fire still on embers from late last night, where I sat staring at it with a few glasses of bourbon. Trying not to hear my brother and his fiancée fucking in the room down the hall.
“Got it,” is all I can really say in response. My brain is still fried. Still locked up with guilt for not understanding where Ashlyn was at. What she was trying to do.
It’s a muddled mess. I’m unworthy. I don’t fuck up. I’ve never had room for error. But maybe Dad was right…
Ashlyn was my first big mistake.
And perhaps she had a point.
We make each other worse.
Christmas Morning: 0 push-ups
In my old room, I stare at the ceiling. Flat white paint. Bland. It gives me nothing. And I appreciate that.
For some reason, I keep thinking about the races from my first couple of years at NU. They were fun until Moretti showed up in his freshman year. After that, it stopped being a sport and started being a strategy—about taking him for everything he had. Only, I was still so on tilt from losing Ashlyn to him, I lost the race, too. And once that happened, I was done.
Every time a thought wanders toward that golden-haired girl, I bring it back to the blank canvas in front of me. There doesn’t seem to be a solution to the cavern of despair between us. Because I’m not sure what to do.
Festivities ring on through the day. No one notices I’m any different than normal. But the weight of what I learned rests so heavy on my shoulders, I can barely take a full breath.
The second I let myself think of my baby?—
—tiny hand, a box, earth frozen shut?—
—I fucking lose it.