Still, he’s the one I need. He’s my rock, my comfort, and the fact that I’m going through this without him is so painful, that it’s almost impossible to comprehend.

“Nichole,” I finally say, “I know you’re trying to help, but you’re not. I’m struggling with a lot, and I know you have your mama bear pants on, but I just need a shoulder.”

She pauses, unmoving for what feels like minutes before she sighs and sits next to me on the bed. Her arm drapes over my shoulders, and she pulls me in tight. It’s enough to break me. I spend the next few hours crying into her shoulder off and on.

I tell her how lonely I feel without Ryot. How empty my heart is and how bitter I feel. As someone who can step outside the situation and see what’s going on, I know he can’t be here. I get that, I truly do, but it doesn’t make me any less bitter about the fact he’s not.

That baseball is first.

Baseball will always be first.

I tell her that I’ve felt so lost, so confused, so wretched about losing my father, a man who I wish had stood up for me more but I know loved me with all of his soul.

I tell her that because of this empty feeling, mourning my father, and the bitterness, I’ve started to . . . to hate myself. I hate everything about myself. Why didn’t I ask my dad those important questions? Why didn’t I plead for him not to leave me alone with my mom? Why didn’t I confront him later in life to clear the air?

Why didn’t I beg Ryot to stay?

Why am I avoiding him now?

All of it has led to self-loathing, which has caused me to hole up in this house, this toxic, meaningless house that offers absolutely no value to my life. And, worst of all, it’s led me to sink back into a world I never wanted to revisit, a world I thought I was too strong to ever see again.

Yet . . . I’m not.

I’m weak.

I’m defeated.

I’m lost.

And I’m not sure anything will help me get out of it.

* * *

“You were a disappointment to him, you know?” Mom whispers as I stare at the picture of Dad next to his gravesite.

The ceremony is over, everyone has retreated, and because my mom is such a cold-hearted bitch, she canceled the reception because she didn’t think it was necessary. I heard rumblings that a lot of Dad’s friends were meeting at his favorite pub, but I feel frozen, like stone, unable to move.

“Why did he let you do the things you did to me?” I ask, trying to find an answer from the wrong person.

“Are you playing the victim once again?” Mom asks. “You realize it’s your father who died, not you.”

I turn to her as I see Nichole in the distance, pulling up her car. “It’s a simple question.”