I dropped the ax and stared down at the small chunks of wood that were now only good for firewood. I’d annihilated it. I would have to go get another piece now so I could fix the goddamn fence.
“Don’t reckon that wood did anything to you,” Momma said, cocking one of her eyebrows.
I didn’t respond. I just dropped to my haunches and started picking up the mess I’d made.
“I’ve had all I can take, Mase Colt Manning. You’ve been a shell of my boy for months, and now you lose your mind and begin yelling and beating the shit outta that log with an ax? You have to talk to me. You’re giving me anxiety attacks. I’m worried about you.”
For nine weeks, I had managed to live without my heart. This wasn’t a life. My life was a woman who didn’t want me. This was an existence. An empty, shallow existence.
I hadn’t told my mother about Reese, but Harlow had. Momma had asked me about her the week after Reese sent me away from her. I had been so overcome with pain from just the sound of her name that I had jumped up and fled the table. Momma hadn’t mentioned her again.
But now I needed her to. I needed to talk about Reese. I wanted to tell someone about her. To fill my emptiness with the memory of her.
“I love her,” I said simply.
She raised both of her eyebrows now. “I kind of got that already, sweetie. When you ran like the fires of hell were after you the day I asked you about her, you gave that away.”
“She’s my life, Momma. Reese. She’s it. My one. But she doesn’t want me.” Just saying it sent a bolt of agony through me. I winced, unable to hide it from my mother.
“Then she’s a fool,” Momma said, with all the conviction of a mother who loved her son.
“No. She’s brilliant. She’s beautiful. She’s like a bright ray of sunlight. She’s . . . Her life growing up . . .” I stopped and swallowed the bile that rose in my throat just from thinking about what she’d been through. How my girl had suffered. “It was bad, Momma. Dark. As dark and twisted as a girl’s life can be. But she’s not a fool.”
My mother’s face fell. I could see her fighting back the tears in her eyes. “Oh, baby. I should have figured when my big-hearted, beautiful boy fell in love, he’d fall in love so completely. You never did anything halfway. You didn’t take your first steps, you took off running. You didn’t say your first word, you sang an entire line of a song. And you didn’t just take up for the underdogs at school, you got expelled for tying a bully to a flagpole. My baby has never done anything halfway. You do it with so much determination it blasts everyone else’s attempts out of the water.”
She walked around my mess and dropped down beside me. I felt the tears burn my eyes as she took my face in her hands and looked at me with so much love and heartache, because that was who she was. My mom hurt with me. She always had.
“You are a good man. The best. I love your stepfather, but even his doesn’t compare to the heart you have. You were the best thing I’ll ever do in this life. I can’t top creating you. Being your mother is a gift that brings me joy every day of my life. I’ll die knowing I left a man on this earth who will leave a trail of good everywhere he goes.” She stopped, and I knew there was a “but” coming. “But for the first time in your life, I am watching you let someone destroy you. I miss your smile and your laugh. I want those back. You’ve never let any obstacle in your life go unconquered. Why are you doing it now? If you love her, then go get her. No woman in her right mind can turn this face down.”
I reached over and wiped the tears from my mother’s determined face. “I need her to come to me. If we have a chance at a future, I need her to come to me. I’ve always taken what I wanted and conquered my trials, but nothing and no one has ever meant what she does. I can’t conquer her, Momma. I love her. I never want to make her do anything. Even love me. She has to love me all on her own.”
Momma let out a sob and wrapped her arms around me and held me to her. I closed my eyes and fought back the emotion threatening to let go. The last time my mother had seen me cry was when I was three and broke my arm falling off a trampoline. Even when Harlow had lain in a coma, I had cried in private.
I would never get over losing Reese. If she never came back to me, I’d be broken the rest of my life.
Reese
Another week passed by, and I managed to survive. It was all I was doing. With every day that went by, I felt like I was losing myself a little more. The horror of my past was slowly taking over. The progress I had achieved over the two years I’d been away was gone. I could no longer push away the memories of my stepfather.
Soon I would have to see a therapist. I wasn’t sleeping much at all now, and when I did, it wasn’t peaceful. The weight was falling off me, and I had dark circles under my eyes that I couldn’t cover up anymore. I needed help.
The only thing holding me back was that I knew I’d have to talk about Mase.