Total pages in book: 111
Estimated words: 105748 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 529(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 352(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 105748 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 529(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 352(@300wpm)
Had I closed myself off from my kids?
Seriously?
Cammie would never say anything so brutal without believing it was true. There was also the small matter of my relationship with my children’s mother. Kiera had asked for a divorce three years after Angus was born, and her reasons were the same ones we’d fought about through much of our marriage. She said I was emotionally unavailable, and I didn’t know how to be anybody but myself, so I let her go. Kiera met her second husband Gary when Angus was six and then they’d moved off the island to Oban two years ago. The only painful part of that was my kids being gone. I felt nothing but happy for Kiera that she’d found someone, and that made me realize I’d never really given her a chance.
There was only one woman I truly loved, and I hadn’t been able to let her go.
Kiera knew that. It had hurt her for a long time, which I fucking hated.
But in all that tangle of emotions, had I started shutting everyone out?
I wasn’t afraid of feelings.
I mean, I felt like I was the one bloke in the pipe band always holding a mirror up to their faces when they were fucking around or being emotionally constipated.
Is that why I couldn’t see it in myself?
Fuck. Had I really been that lacking in self-awareness?
The idea that I was the reason Heather was so distant and angry … I couldn’t stand it. My son and daughter were my whole world.
Bracing myself, I took the stairs down to the ground floor. Heather’s bedroom was the only room on this level. She’d wanted it that way for privacy. I found myself outside my daughter’s door.
I knocked. “Heather?”
There was a heavy sigh on the other side and then footsteps. The door cracked open and Heather’s face appeared. She’d scrubbed off her makeup, and I felt a pang in my chest because bare faced, she looked more like my wee girl. “What?”
Ignoring her snippiness, I kept my tone soft. “Can we talk? Please.”
Up until the divorce, I’d been my daughter’s hero. There was nothing like that feeling, knowing that in her eyes, I could fix all her hurts and aches. That I protected her. I was her rock.
Failing Heather had been the second-hardest moment of my life. Even harder was watching her try to blame her mum about the end of our marriage and then having to explain to a twelve-year-old that no one was to blame for the destruction of her family. That the writing had been on the wall from the very beginning. She’d veered between hating us both for a while. Eventually, we found our way back to each other. However, the move to Oban had reignited Heather’s resentment and, unfortunately, I’d borne the brunt of it.
I felt helpless, watching her pull further away from me.
But was I to blame for that too?
I had a rising panic within me that if I didn’t try to fix things between us before she left for university, this would be our relationship—this strained, unfamiliar thing that fucking hurt.
Whatever my daughter saw on my face, it made her frown. Her shoulders slumped and she stepped back, pushing her bedroom door open to let me in.
Even her bedroom at my place seemed to be an act of protest. Heather was going to Glasgow to study architecture. She’d always been creative, and I’d spent many years redecorating her bedroom to reflect her likes and personality. Her room at her mum’s was styled in what she called Hygge.
Her room here was blank. Her duvet set was a generic one I’d bought because she’d told me to buy anything. There was no personality in the room. She treated it like a temporary base, making her point, taking her hits, and unbeknownst to her, hitting right on target.
“Can I sit?” I gestured to her bed. She had her e-reader out, so I’d obviously interrupted her nightly reading.
“I’m at a really good bit in my book,” Heather impatiently confirmed my thoughts.
“It won’t take long.”
“Fine.” She sat down on the stool at her dressing table. It was the only thing that even looked remotely like it belonged to her—all her makeup and perfumes scattered across it. “Is this a lecture about something?”
“No. No, it’s not.” I sat down and leaned forward, resting my elbows on my thighs. “I just … I want you to know that I’m here. If there’s something bothering you, I am here. You can talk to me.”
She lowered her lashes. “I’m fine.”
Definitely not fine. “Is it about uni? You know as excited as you are for it, you’re allowed to be nervous too. It’s a big thing moving away from home.”
Her gaze flashed upward with anger. “Well, I’ve done that a few times now, so I’m fine with that.”