No, Waylon. I’m the furthest thing from happy right now.

“Your dad?” I say equally quiet.

“No, the fucking mailman. Of course, my dad,” he says scathingly. He scoffs and looks away. The guitar makes a whining sound, the strings priming to snap if he doesn’t ease up. “I should have fucking known you wouldn’t be able to keep your promise. You just had to go and open your mouth. You almost ruined everything, and you most definitely ruined us.”

“Ouch. Okay. See,” I say through my teeth, “that’s what I don’t fucking get. I never told anyone it was your dad, because I didn’t even know it was your dad. I believed you when you told me it was Billy,” I tell him raggedly. Regret curdles the whiskey sitting in my belly. “Fuck, I wanted to believe you.”

Waylon’s mouth tightens into a hard, grim line.

“How long?” I barely manage, yet he reads the question easily off my lips. Knows immediately what I mean. Was it just that one time? How bad, Waylon, how bad?

He sucks in his cheek, watching me carefully as he seems to weigh his response. Little does he know, that’s all the fucking answer I need.

I turn to watch the rain streaming down the window, willing away the angry tears clogging my throat. Stinging my eyes. Without looking, I grab the whiskey. At the rate we’re going, we’ll be finished with the bottle in record time. Passed out before the storm even reaches its peak.

Maybe that would be for the best.

I think about what I learned the other night, when I could no longer pretend Ivy didn’t take a fucking meat-cleaver to the last thread of denial I’ve been hanging on to all these years. The truth I took great strides in keeping at bay anytime a memory of Waylon tried to creep forward. Anytime I found myself starting to wonder what he was doing, if he was happy, if he still thought about me sometimes...

It’s like some part of me knew not to look too closely.

It didn’t take long at all to dig up what happened to the former Shiloh Chief of Police, Seamus McAllister. The asshole’s in prison for killing a little girl with his cruiser. Drunk driving.

I can’t get to him even if I wanted to. At least not for five more years, unless they decide to let him out on parole.

There was little to no mention of his son, though, so it made me wonder—made me hope that it wasn’t as bad as I thought. That the scenarios keeping me up at night this last week were nothing more than my imagination’s way of torturing me.

Maybe it was just that one time.

Maybe Waylon really was a sick kid.

But his silence now speaks volumes.

It’s deafening.

Heart-shattering.