Page 46 of Fractured Destiny

Lake: By the way, I love you too.

I read it a few times. Click on the heart.

Lie back on the pillow.

Close my eyes.

For the first time in forever, I feel light.

thirteen

An Hour Later

It’s two-fifteen in the morning.

I’m standing in front of the wall of glass overlooking Lake Washington. A ribbon of red taillights crawls across the floating bridge. Traffic has thinned to truckers, insomniacs, and people who’d rather keep driving than go home.

Somewhere on the other side of the lake, Levi is asleep. Noa probably is too, by now.

Part of me wishes I’d stayed.

The other part needed distance to be with my own thoughts.

I let myself into the condo twenty minutes ago and haven’t done much beyond stand here. Linus talked me into buying the place after the first record took off.

Madison Park. Four bedrooms. A fireplace I’ve used twice. A kitchen designed by somebody who clearly expected me to cook more than eggs. Diego’s wife took one look at the furniture I’d picked out and informed me it looked like a waiting room, then hired a designer before I could object.

The only room I wouldn’t let anyone touch sits at the end of the hall.

Levi’s.

I press my forehead against the cool glass.

She let it slip that she loved me.

Then I confirmed I felt the same way when I texted her before I drove home.

Since I’ve been here, I’ve read those words half a dozen times. In the parking garage. In the elevator. Standing here watching headlights drift across the bridge.

Me: I love you too.

The words should settle me. Instead they leave me wondering what the hell I’m supposed to do.

I turn away from the window and sink into the couch. The room looks exactly the way it did when I left for the studio yesterday morning, but it doesn’t feel the same.

The framed vinyl from my first album hangs above the fireplace. A backstage photograph from London is beside it. Below, Diego and Vanessa grin out from a picture taken on the front porch of the little craftsman I bought them in Tacoma before the youth center opened. Their girls are climbing all over both of them. Nobody’s looking at the camera or posing.

They’re just…together.

My eyes stay there.

Diego built that life one ordinary day at a time. Nothing glamorous about it. He met Vanessa a few years ago and they immediately got married. He’s worked whatever jobs kept the lights on, showed up for his daughters, then got up the next morning and did it again.

Like me, he lost his mom before he was old enough to miss her. Never knew his father. Endured foster homes that would’ve broken most people. None of it stopped him from becoming the man in that photograph.

It’s like he was born to be a husband. A father.

I don’t know if I can be like him.