“That wasn’t your decision to make,” I said quietly.

“Well, obviously, you’re wrong about that because it was.”

“I needed you, Preacher.”

“That isn’t true, and I know that shit because you told me that shit. You said it straight up and I’ll never forget it. You said you didn’t need me to live your life and you were right.” He threw his arms out again to indicate our surroundings. “You didn’t need me. And that’s good. That’s healthy. But more, you didn’t need to drown in my shit.”

“Yes, I said that, but I also said I needed you. And I thought you got me but it’s clear you didn’t get me.”

“Lyla,” he said slowly, obviously losing patience, “you are not seein’ this from my perspective.”

“And you aren’t seeing it from mine.”

“That’s the only thing I can see,” he retorted.

“They were all gone,” I said. “All of them. Except you.”

His body gave a jerk.

“You don’t know, and I hate it that you don’t know because I’ll take what I’ve got and what I lost rather than what you had but let me explain it to you. You do not just,” I lifted my hand and snapped my fingers, “get over losing the foundation that lay under you your whole life and move on. They were all gone. Mom. Gram. Gramps. Everyone who kept me safe in an unsafe world. You’re right. Gramps died locked in the prison of his mind, but somewhere in there, I know he felt all right. He felt good. At least about me. He did because he left me to you.”

His throat convulsed with his swallow.

“Of course I was lost,” I continued. “Of course I was floundering. I’d sustained blow after blow after blow. But you were my foundation, Preacher. You were the only thing solid in my life. They were all gone, but before that, Gramps sat at our kitchen table with a euchre hand in his fingers and watched you form a shield between me and my dad, and it became you. He left me to you. That’s what I meant about needing you. I don’t need you to exist. I don’t need you to breathe. I don’t need you to survive. I just needed you to be there. Because I loved you and my grandfather trusted you and I knew down to my bones I’d be okay after they were gone because the one solid thing I had in my life I’d have the whole of my life. And that was you. And then you left me standing on a fucking beach.”

“Baby,” he groaned.

I saw his pain.

I felt his pain.

But I could not be swayed by that pain.