Page 14 of When She Needs Them Most
God, even thinking about it makes my chest tight.
He didn’t give up.
He wanted to get better.
I wonder a lot if knowing about Luna gave him the strength to try. Mr. Smith said his odds were never very good, but he still went through months of painful treatments.
Learning he was dead was one of those strange moments when, at least initially, I was more heartbroken for the moments he lost out on with his daughter than I was upset for myself.
I liked him a lot, and I think we could have had a happy future together, but all of that seemed small in comparison to the knowledge that he would never get to hold his child.
To hear her first words.
To watch her take her first steps.
The unfairness of it could eat me alive if I let it, so I do everything I can to not get lost in the grief that comes when I think about him for too long.
Clark wasn’t perfect, but he was funny, a little socially awkward, and just a really sweet guy all around.
That’s why it was so hard to process when he went no contact. Out of all the guys I’ve dated in my life, he never seemed like the type.
And, honest to God, I don’t think he was.
If he hadn’t been sick, I like to believe that we’d still be together. That he would have chosen to be a part of Luna’s life. It’s a complicated mess of emotions, and being pregnant seems to amplify the pain.
I’ll tell Luna all about her dad one day, and it just really sucks that I only know the basics. We were still in thatget to know you,be on your best behaviorstage of our relationship.
I know his favorite food was Chinese. And that he had a love of old TV shows when he was trying to fall asleep. His favorite pet growing up was an obese cat named Henry who died when he was ten. And none of that feels like the important stuff that I should have asked.
He almost never talked about his family, so I don’t know any of that information to pass on to our daughter. But he did try to do right by Luna. He left us a substantial chunk of money.
Moving wasn’t something I wanted to tackle until after I gave birth, but Emmett wouldn’t leave me alone when he learned his brother left the majority of his estate to me. I mean, I think that’s why he was upset. I never answered his calls to be sure, but something was off with that situation.
The police didn’t take me seriously. Not even when I showed them the doorbell footage of Emmett coming to my door multiple times a week. Not even when I explained he was creeping around outside of my apartment, like he was checking to see if I was home, nor when I brought them the phone records that showed almost nine hundred calls and texts over a two-month period.
As terrible as it sounds, I was searching for places to move before the trust even paid out. Once that came, I rented the first decent house within my budget in a solid school zone, and I ran.
It’s what omegas do.
Alphas may face every situation head-on and with unwavering bravery, but I’m alone in the world.
Every alpha I’ve ever cared about has left me.
My eyes sting as my head shakes. An embarrassing sob rattles out, even with how hard I try to hold it back. Anxiety and pain war in my chest to see which one can hurt the worst as my mind races. If I’m not having a panic attack…it’s damn close to one. The loop of misery is back, and I try to force away the thoughts, but they come back with a vengeance.
I tell myself that I wasn’t in love with Clark. We’d only been together a few months. It was too soon to feel those emotions, but I wonder a lot if that is a lie I spin to protect my mental health. He really was the sweetest. Even all the pain he caused by not warning me what was happening doesn’t erase the good memories.
He loved to cook breakfast on Saturday mornings, and he would work on his laptop while I worked on mine, but he would slide his socked feet over until he could bury them under my thighs. It was the little things, and I miss him a lot.
I would’ve liked the chance to say goodbye, to learn about him and anything he would want me to tell Luna one day.
Some warning that his brother is a full-blown weirdo would have been nice too.
I know better than to think about the past. It always leaves me hurting. It feels like all my milestones in life are marked by grief.
My mom died just as suddenly as Clark did. Thinking about her is even more complicated, because I loved her so much, but I resent the choices she made. She knew she was the only family I had, and she still picked a high-risk career. Ultimately, I know it’s not her fault she died, but I begged her so many times to find something safer. At the end of the day, she raised me to adulthood, and that was all the commitment she had to make.
And I hate mentally vilifying her. She was a great mom. She would’ve been a huge comfort when I was first processing the grief of Clark’s death.
