Page 33 of All the Beautiful Things
Hudson
“You knew,” I seethed the words at Lilly as she stepped foot into Melissa’s bedroom. My anger was a living, breathing dragon and I was ready to level the entire city with fire if necessary.
“I did. He told me Sunday.” She stood so far from me, eyes wide and staring at the hole I’d just punched into the wall like she was scared to be near me.
“So that’s why you’re here.” She either hadn’t answered the questions I asked at the table or my fury had thundered too loud in my ears for me to hear.
What an idiot I was. When I first saw Lilly in the kitchen, I’d assumed it meant she forgave me. The fact she kept her distance should have clued me in. But this?
This was not fucking happening.
“Hudson—”
“Tell me!” Pain lanced my chest, making me bleed from the inside out.
I promised her no more secrets between us, and she agreed—knowing this was coming. It made me a hypocrite of epic proportions to be pissed at her for this but she was in front of me.
The only target I had.
My dad had cancer.
“Yes, Hudson, that’s why I’m here. He wanted me here for you.”
Because he knew I’d tear the house apart with my bare hands if I had to when I learned. Because I’d already lost my mom. My sister. I lost almost every single brother and sister who ever walked through these doors as I grew up and he was preparing me to lose him.
I wouldn’t.
I refused. I would not lose another person I loved. Except, life had already taught me that everyone I loved left in some way, shape, or form anyway.
“Get out.”
“No.” She shook her head, straightening her back and with the most resolute expression on her face, she stepped toward me.
There she was. My fighter. Her strength was incredible. On any other day, I’d admire the hell out of her for it. Now, with my blood pounding in my ears and tightening my muscles, I feared being alone with her.
Instead, I let her stand there, watching me fall apart. Who gave a shit. If I didn’t push her away, someday she’d leave too.
“Suit yourself,” I muttered right before I turned back to the fucking wall Melissa insisted on creating. It’d taken days. Weeks. I painstakingly hung every damn picture on this stupid wall for her, placing each exactly where she wanted. My sister was demanding. Sweet as hell, the purist woman I’d ever met to the core outside my mom. But she was demanding. And she knew I’d do whatever she asked.
I have cancer.
My dad’s word bounced around my brain, shooting fire and heat and pain to my limbs and straight to my soul, to my heart. My hands, still fisted, glared at these pictures of happy, smiling people. Me with Melissa. Melissa with six foster kids we had in our home at one point. All of them smiling. Like they were actually happy and weren’t getting ready to go back to horrific circumstances because courts cared more about families than the safety of children.
I had no idea how long I stared at all the photos I hadn’t yet swiped and destroyed and left tattered at my feet, but I knew Lilly stayed behind me, watching, waiting for me to turn to her.
To need her.
With a sudden rush of another wave of pain and fury, I slammed my hands to the wall, shoved them to the side and sent another dozen pictures and newspaper clippings into the air like snowflakes.
Her soft steps came to me, at my side. “What is all of this?”
Her voice was a whisper. Once soothing, it now grated.
She’d known. She could have prepared me for this. Instead, she did exactly what I’d done to her. Waited until Dad handled it.
What a goddamn mistake it’d all been.
I heaved a breath, trying to expel all my anger into the air instead of at Lilly. I loved her, and none of this was her fault. Not really. It certainly wasn’t her fault that fate sought to tear away all the people I loved throughout my life like some kind of cosmic, sick joke.
