Stephenie Meyer owns the Twilight parts.

Music: "Nothingman" by Pearl Jam

Thanks to Iris for cleaning this up and to M and Nic for pre-reading. Any mistakes left are mine.

"Get up," Jasper says. He kicks the corner of the bed frame hard enough to jolt the bed.

"What time is it?"

"Almost noon."

"Shit." I reach for my phone to see if I hit snooze, but it's dead.

"You need to move, or we'll be late." He turns and leaves the room.

I stop to make up my bed for the first time since December, wondering if Jasper's attitude this morning has anything to do with what happened with Bella last night. I'd left Gibson quietly, hoping to spare her any further embarrassment.

I ruined her night. Hell, I ruined a lot more than that.

She's all I can think about in the shower; long, curly hair pulled to the side and the dress she was wearing, retro and red with full view of her arms.

Dammit.

I need to apologize. I'm not sure how that's going to work, since I'm still not sure where any of that even came from.

Jasper is waiting in the living room, watching a televised preacher deliver the gospel.

"One hour a week isn't going to help you," I say, using the remote to turn it off. We walk out to the parking lot, but his FJ isn't anywhere in sight. "How did you get here?"

"Alice dropped me off. It took fifteen minutes to convince her not to come in with me." The hardness in his voice is back.

"I'm guessing she wants to kick my ass."

"I may have heard her discussing something like that on the phone with Bella this morning." He points over his shoulder when I miss the turn for the interstate. "Where are you going?"

"I need to make a quick stop on the way."

I can feel him staring when I turn onto Poplar and head toward Midtown. "This is not the time to stop at Bella's. Trust me. Alice is there."

"I'm stopping at Walgreens, okay?"

"Fine." He stares out the window. "What the hell happened last night? You were okay when you left."

"Bella was at Gibson."

"Yeah, I know. She was one of the guest speakers at some charity thing for Le Bonheur."

"Thanks for the head's up."

"Jesus, Edward. I didn't know you needed one."

"I don't know what the fuck I'm doing. It's been years since I've had to worry about shit like this. She was dancing with some guy, and I've seen her with him before. I don't know why it pissed me off the way it did."

"You were an asshole to her because you were jealous?"

"I didn't like it."

"Because you were jealous."

"Will you shut up?"

He laughs next to me, and I ignore him and pull into the parking lot at Walgreens. He stays in the car, and I'm glad. The pharmacist eyes my arms and raises a brow when I ask for a box of the nicotine gum.

My daughter is going to be a teenager soon, and I need to cut the habit before she starts it. I was thirteen when I took my first drag. My dad smoked, so I thought it was cool. Everyone smoked in the 90s. The last time I quit was when I found out Charlotte was pregnant. We both quit. The gum worked for me back then, and I'm hoping it will again.

Jasper looks more surprised than the guy behind the counter. He nods to himself and refrains from further teasing about my idiocy.

Of course I was jealous.

I don't know how something nonexistent turned into… whatever the hell this is so quickly.

"How bad is it?" I ask when we're stopped at a light on Airways. "Do you think she'll let me apologize?"

"She's pissed."

"I know."

"But she's also hurt, and that means she cares."

"Did Alice tell you that?"

"She didn't have to."

A sea of FedEx planes appears to our left, and the traffic thins as we get closer to the airport. "I need to talk to her."

"You do," he agrees.

We park in short term and make our way to the terminal. Charlotte is already waiting in the baggage claim area when we walk in. Jasper and I take a spot several feet away near the escalator. She walks over calmly, smiling the entire way.

"You look like shit," she says. "Did you sleep at the bar last night?"

I ignore her.

Jasper doesn't. "You don't get to ask questions like that anymore."

"I see you haven't changed a bit." She had very strong opinions about Jasper, and conveniently forgot to mail his invitations to Mack's first and second birthday parties. He showed up to both with balloons and gifts despite Charlotte's rudeness.

He grins innocently. "Neither have you."

Their bickering fades away when I catch sight of Mack coming down. She's grown a few inches since December, and her hair is longer than I remember. The dark red curls are gone and straight hair hides part of her face where curls used to frame it.

When she sees me, she smiles and yanks the buds from her ears with a tug on the cord at her chest. Her lips are colored darker than her skin tone, and her eyes are shaded in color and mascara.

Makeup.

It's not much, but it's too much.

"Hey, Dad." She walks right into my arms, dropping her backpack on the floor next to us so she can wrap her arms around me. I close my eyes and breathe her in… makeup, scented shampoo, and all.

"Hey."

She looks over my arm at Jasper. "Hey, Jasper."

"Mack."

"Makenna," Charlotte says over his shoulder.

She rolls her eyes and takes a step back. "I need to say goodbye to her and Toby."

I nod. "We'll get your suitcase."

"There are two." She shrugs when I look at her. "I used the pink set that Grandma gave me for Christmas. I need more stuff this time."

Enough said. I don't need to know about girl "stuff."

Peter is busy wrestling a pre-schooler, so he doesn't even glance up when Jasper and I walk past him. We snag Mack's bags from the belt and wait for her by the exit. Charlotte walks over with her, but Peter keeps his distance.

"We're flying out next Sunday, and Mom wanted me to ask if Makenna can come over for dinner Saturday. She'd like to get some pictures of the kids together while we're here."

"Sure," I answer. "I'm working Sunday, so she could stay the night if Carmen can take her to Mom some time that day."

She nods. "I'll text you."

Mack stands completely still when Charlotte hugs her goodbye. "See ya, Mom." She ignores Peter's wave. The earbuds go back in, and she walks outside. Jasper and I follow, and he takes the back seat to let Mack ride up front.

She's tense in her seat until after we clear the parking attendant and hit Airways. The earbuds come out again, and she smiles when I take the downtown loop. "Tamales?" she asks.

"The best," Jasper answers.

"Awesome." She leans forward and changes the radio station to some pop crap. "When are you going to get a new stereo? You can't even hook up your phone to play decent music."

"Tell him." Jasper loves to fan the flames. I give him a dirty look in the rearview mirror, and he shrugs.

Mack picks a table out in the courtyard when we get to Silky's. She likes to talk to the goats. Her phone is in her hand, and she snaps pictures to text to her friends back in Seattle who didn't believe there was a bar with two pet goats on site.

Before we leave Beale, Mack insists on a trip to Schwab's so she can buy old-fashioned lemon drops. On the way back to the parking lot, she's quiet. That's not always a bad thing when it comes to Mack, but this is more awkward than I expected it to be.

I don't want to spoil her first day here with talk of Japan or Charlotte. Things were strained between them, too. We'll get to all of that eventually, I'm sure. What counts is that she's here. That's enough for now.

Jared's Tahoe and Rachel's van are parked at Mom's when we pull up a little after four. Jane comes tearing out the front door like the house is on fire with Elaine and Alec on her heels. Mack jumps out of the car and meets them halfway across the lawn. The girls have some kind of hug fest, and Alec tugs a chunk of Mack's hair.

"You look weird with straight hair," he says.

"He's stupid." Jane glances at her brother. "Don't listen to him. I like it."

Alec rolls his eyes and goes back to whatever game he was playing on his phone before we got here. Mack and the other kids go inside, and I take a minute to pop another piece of gum from the package.

I have a feeling I'm going to need it if Paul's here. I'm not looking forward to admitting that I've already fucked shit up with Bella.

Luckily, he's working tonight. Rachel, Kim, and Mom all freak out as expected when Mack walks into the kitchen. They talk about her height, her hair, her makeup… Stuff I have no clue about. She looks happy and busy, so when Jared nods to the back door, I follow him.

He grabs the basketball from the flower pot next to the step and tosses it to me.

"I talked to Paul this week." He puts his hands on his knees and waits for me to make a move.

I stare at it for a minute, wondering if this is a good idea.

Ah, fuck it.

I dribble slowly at first and try to get past him, but he steals it and shoots. "Two," he says. "I told you Bella was hot for you."

He has no idea.

I drop the ball when he throws it to me. "I fucked up." I stand there with my hands on my hips, shaking my head, and looking at the ground.

"Already?"

He listens while I catch him up on the events of the last few days, and then he's quiet for a long time.

"It was a dick move," he says. "You're going to have to let go of this Charlotte thing if you're ever going to have any kind of a life, man."

"That's easier said than done." Especially when it keeps boomeranging back into my life to deliver random blows.

He shrugs and turns his back to me. "Maybe it's better this way then. For Bella, anyway."

I'm tempted to put my elbow in his back for that remark. The truth in it stings.

I ignore him for the rest of the night and sit near Mack at the dinner table. She talks music and movies with Jane, Alec, and Elaine through most of the meal. I don't recognize any of the bands or titles, and after the meal, they disappear to play some app together in the living room.

When Rachel says it's time to go, Jane and Mack whine and beg for a sleepover soon. Rachel comes to my rescue and tells them to wait a week or so for Mack to adjust to the time zone and get settled in first. The girls agree, and she managed to say it in a way that didn't make anyone the bad guy.

Mack and I leave last, and it's late by the time we get back to my apartment. I carry her suitcases inside and deliver them to her bedroom door. She turns on the light and steps inside. My view consists of her back and a lot of pink and peace signs.

After a minute or two, she turns around and hugs me. "Thanks, Dad."

"I hope you like it."

"I do."

I give her some privacy to unpack and get comfortable, and she ends up staying in there with the door closed for the rest of the night. Occasionally, I hear a laugh or a snippet of conversation, so I assume she's on the phone with Jane or a friend.

Monday morning, I slip out onto the porch before Mack wakes up and take the napkin Tanya gave me from my wallet.

Jeff Jenks is a nice guy, and he listens patiently while I explain the situation with Charlotte, including some background information from our original divorce and custody agreement. When I'm done, he says that in a way, Charlotte was bluffing. My hands are tied as long as she remains the custodial parent.

He recommends filing for temporary custody for the duration of Charlotte's time out of the country or filing for permanent custody. Either way, he would wait to file until the middle of August and include an injunction that would prohibit Charlotte from taking Mack out of the country until a judge can hear the case. The current case log downtown is backed up by four months. That will keep Mack in the states through the holidays, at least.

It would also piss off Charlotte to no end, and I have no idea what that would do to Mack in the process. I thank him and tell him I'll be in touch.

I have a couple of months to make a decision.

Mack keeps her distance most of the week, sitting across the room when we're watching television, or texting and facetiming with her friends in her room. We eat dinner with Mom on the nights that I'm off, since the only thing I can cook is stuff from a box or the freezer section.

By Thursday, I've had it with the cold shoulder. She hasn't said a word to me or thanked her grandmother for making her favorite meal. Her phone is in one hand and her fork is in the other.

"Mack." I wait for her to finish tapping and look up at me. "Put the phone away while we're at the dinner table."

She rolls her eyes. "Josie is having a meltdown, Dad. I can't just put my phone away."

"I'm sure she'll survive the next fifteen minutes without you."

"No." Her chin lifts, and her eyes narrow.

This is definitely new. By nature, Mack isn't defiant. She never has been. The terrible twos never came with this kid. It's a little late to start now.

"Give it to me." I hold out my hand, and she laughs, crossing her arms. "I'm serious."

"I can't believe this." She stands and puts the phone on the table a few inches away from my open palm. "Now you want to be a dad." She turns and marches out of the room.

Mom looks at me, but I'm already on my feet and moving. "What is that supposed to mean?"

I follow her up the stairs and down the hall to the spare that used to be my room when I lived here. She slams the door in my face. "Like you don't know," she shouts from the other side.

"Open the door."

"No."

"Now."

"Why?"

"What is going on with you, Mack?"

"Me?" She throws the door open keeping her hand on the handle. "What's going on with you?" She laughs. "You think you can tell me what to do?"

"I pay for that phone, and I'll take it away."

"Great. Now I can't even talk to my friends."

"If you want to talk to your Mom, you can use my phone or Grandma's. You're grounded."

"Fine! It's not like I want to talk to Mom anyway. I hate her. She's a selfish bitch. All she cares about is her stupid husband. She doesn't care that I don't want to go to Japan. It's important to Peter. I hate him, too. Everything is always about Peter. Everything is his fault. He broke you guys up and took me away from my family." Tears are streaming down her face. Angry tears. Her cheeks are blotchy, and her chest is heaving. "But I hate you the most. More than either one of them."

I take a step back and try to breathe. "Mack–"

"You let them do it."

"I…"

"You what?" She stares at me, waiting for me to say something. I can't. She looks down, shaking her head. "You know what? Nevermind. I don't care. Just leave me alone."

For the second time, she slams the door. This time, she locks it and doesn't make a sound on the other side of it.

I stand there for a couple of minutes, trying to let her words sink in. It's not like I don't feel the same way about Charlotte, Peter… and myself. How can I blame her?

I've never once told Mack that Peter was the reason for the divorce. My entire family was given specific instructions not to discuss any of that in front of her or their kids. They dislike Charlotte, but we all kept her dirty little secret.

Because we love Mack.

The problem is she's always been a smart kid. She's had enough time to put two and two together, and God only knows what she hears at home from Charlotte and Peter.

"She can stay here tonight," Mom says. Her quiet, steady voice shifts the focus from the cracking in my chest. She's standing a few feet away at the top of the stairs. "Let her cool off. She didn't mean any of that…"

I pass her and start down the stairs. "I think we both know she did."

"Are you okay?" I can hear her footsteps behind me, but I don't stop. Not until I'm out the door and standing at my car, unlocking it. "You shouldn't drive like this, not upset."

"I'm fine." Choking on reality never killed anyone.

"Edward, please." Something in her voice stops me. "Be safe."

I don't know how she can even still give a fuck after all the heartache I've put her through over the last couple of years, starting the day I refused to let anyone else show up on her doorstep to tell her that her husband was dead. The chaplain had to stop at a gas station so I could wash the blood from my hands and face, not that it had done much good.

Sometimes I still see it there in those last moments before waking.

"I will."

I need a drink and a cigarette. This was the wrong week to quit smoking. The guilt over stopping to buy a pack is nothing compared to the shitstorm kicked up earlier that's still brewing.

There's a pink lava lamp, lit and waiting for its owner back at my place, but I'd rather sleep in the alley behind Silky's than go back there alone tonight. So, that's where I end up. Same as always.

Bella is working and looks away the moment she spots me. I don't really blame her, either. Sam waves me into the courtyard even though there's a cover for the band tonight. The only open stool at the bar is at Alice's end.

She ignores me for a solid ten minutes, not that I give a shit. I have nowhere else to be. "What do you want?" she asks with narrowed eyes.

"Jim Beam Black and keep it coming."

She turns around long enough to grab a glass and a bottle from the shelf. "Here," she says, setting both of them in front of me on the bar. "Do it yourself."

Tanya is on her before I can reply. "Go inside and send Mary out here to work with me."

Alice looks her up and down. "You can't –"

"If Jasper has a problem with it, he can come and talk to me." Tanya opens the bottle of Black and pours some into my glass without even looking at her. She lets me make my way through half the bottle before confiscating my keys and switching me to beer.

Around 10:30, the woman on stage ends with a Nina Simone cover that earns a standing ovation from the members of the audience that can still make it out of their seats. The stool next to mine shifts, and I glance over in time to see Bella slide onto it. She doesn't say anything, but I can feel her stare after I've turned my attention back to the bottle in front of me.

"I know you probably want to kick me in the balls," I say. "Any other day, I would let you. But today… Today really sucks, and I don't think I can handle any more disappointment, even if I deserve it."

"I've moved past wanting to cause you bodily harm. I think you're safe." The coolness from our early encounters is back, and I don't want to see it on her face, so I study the label on my beer and pull it in strips from the bottle.

Tanya brings over water and inspects Bella when she hands it to her, probably trying to decide whether or not to send her inside with Alice. It wouldn't surprise me. She can be protective. She must be satisfied that Bella isn't out for blood, because she moves on to get another beer for the guy a few seats down.

"I'm sorry for what I said. You didn't deserve that."

"No, I didn't." She opens the bottle and takes a drink before turning on her stool to face the courtyard and lean against the bar. "So what happened?" She looks over at me, but I keep my eyes on my hands. "Today, I mean."

"Mack said she hates me."

She's quiet and still for a minute, and then she laughs. "Welcome to the teens." She's surprised by the anger on my face when I finally look at her. "Come on, Edward. Every kid hates their parents at some point. How many times did you say those same words to your mom and dad?"

"Never." I turn back to my beer. I never had to. I was the third kid in line, and the rules for me were simple.

"Don't get arrested. And if you do, call me instead of your mother."

I knew my parents' limits from watching my brothers, and I did just enough to be average in school. I never had a reason to hate my parents. I've given my daughter plenty.

"I said it a few times," she says. "But I never meant it. Parents know that."

"This is different."

"Why?" Her obstinacy is less attractive when she's using it against me.

"I wouldn't even know where to start," I say, shaking my head.

"I've got all night."

There are three people in this world that I trust. Two of them are my blood, and the one on the other side of the wall in front of me may as well be. I'm not one to spill my guts, and I've never discussed my ex-wife with anyone but them.

I can get up off of this barstool and stumble my way home right now.

Or start at the beginning.

"I started dating Charlotte when we were seventeen." Her legs shift toward me, and I can almost feel her stare on the side of my face. "I'd known her since elementary school, but something changed that year. She talked more, showed up to watch us skate, flirted at parties… Anyway, I asked her out, and we were together through the rest of high school."

"She went to U of M, and I went to State Tech. Jared and I shared an apartment, but she practically lived there on the weekends. She'd been on the pill since we were kids, but showed up crying one morning because she was pregnant. At the time, I was working nights at the FedEx hub, not making shit."

Tanya delivers a fresh beer, and I take a long pull before starting in on the new label. "We'd been fighting over stupid stuff and hanging out with our friends more than each other, but it all seemed trivial once Mack was in the picture. I got a second job and asked Charlotte to marry me. Jasper has always said she did it intentionally, but I never cared about that. At the time, I loved her and figured it was always going to end that way anyway, so why wait?"

"How old were you?"

"Twenty."

"Wow."

"It wasn't that bad. I graduated from fire school right before Mack was born. It wasn't bad at all." I shake my head, trying to push away thoughts of lying on the floor in that shitty old apartment with Mack on my chest when her stomach hurt from colic. "Charlotte took a year off from school. I had a real job. It worked out. We were lucky."

For a while, it was perfect.

"The good thing about my huge family is that it was easy for her to go back to school. There was always someone to watch Mack if I had to work." My dad loved his days with her. He'd take her to the library and then treat her to a milkshake.

"After she got her undergrad, Charlotte decided to go to law school, and she excelled at that, like everything else she tried. Corporate law. She thought it would mean an easier schedule and a job she could leave at work." The thought almost makes me want to laugh now. "She took a position with a medical manufacturing company, and we bought a little house in Cooper Young. The last Christmas we were married, my parents planned a trip to Disney for all of us for the holiday. My brothers and I swapped our asses off and managed to get the time off, but at the last minute, Charlotte said she had to stay to help her team finish a huge project before a deadline."

It's a damn shame Tanya wouldn't let me finish that bottle off. It would make the rest of this easier.

Bella loses patience with the prolonged silence after I kill the last of my beer and thump it against the bar. "So you didn't go?"

"Mack and I went. Charlotte stayed home." I sit back and wait for the familiar ache in my chest that inevitably shows up when I think about that trip. It was the last one with both of my parents and my brothers, though I didn't know it at the time. "The day we came home, she acted completely normal until after we put Mack to bed. Then she told me not to bother unpacking."

"Jesus."

"I thought she was pissed that we went without her. We'd fought since high school whenever I spent time with Jasper or even my brothers. I told her she was being ridiculous, and she told me to get the hell out."

"She made you leave while your daughter was sleeping?"

I nod. "I went to Paul's house, thinking she needed a couple of days to come to her senses. I got hit with papers the next day." Things had already been in the works long before that Disney trip was ever planned. It took me a while to figure that out, years of hindsight. "I figured it was the seven-year itch, so I tried to talk her into counseling. She refused."

"I'm sorry."

"I'm not." Thankfully, Tanya delivers another beer. "My mom offered to watch Mack on Valentine's Day, and I decided to give it one last shot."

I'm the first to admit that I was never the most romantic husband. Our typical date nights consisted of pizza and a movie on the couch. I didn't give her flowers or jewelry or take her to fancy restaurants. She never complained or asked for more, so I assumed she was happy.

"I showed up at our house with flowers and dinner reservations for Paulette's." As much as he didn't like her, Jasper still had called in a favor to hook me up. "She was there with her boss, Peter." The motherfucker who'd shook my hand and looked me in the eye at her work Christmas party the weekend before the trip to Orlando.

I spare Bella the drama of the fallout. There was a lot of yelling, and I ruined their date by packing the rest of my shit. The next day, I called my dad's lawyer. "He's her husband now." She made sure of that by getting pregnant again before the ink on our divorce papers had time to dry. Jasper called that one as well, although she beat his prediction by a couple of months.

"Oh," Bella says.

"I know how it sounds. That's how it felt, too. One minute, everything was fine. The next, my life had turned into a Springer episode. It settled down after the divorce. She kept the house since I couldn't afford to. I got an apartment, and we shared custody of Mack."

Charlotte was fair when she lived here. Mack stayed with me every time I had three days off. We made the best of it. After a couple of years, we had it down to an art. Charlotte was busy with work and a new baby, so I was the one who went on the field trips to the zoo and the Pink Palace. And when her fourth grade class went to the Fire Museum, Dad worked it out so that he could be the one to give us the tour. That one was her favorite.

And mine.

"We were okay. Everything was okay until my dad…" I swallow and close my eyes, letting it all play out again in my head. There are calls you never expect to get – a nursing home fire so big that four stations have to respond and then a dispatch to a serious injury crash involving a Division Chief who was on his way. Every truck in the area was busy with the fire… It took so long to get there.

"You don't have to talk about this if you don't want to." She turns and her knees brush against my thigh so she can lean closer. "I think I–"

"You know what happened," I finish for her. Everyone in this city knows what happened. The story ran on every news channel for a solid week. It was in the Flyer and the newspaper. There wasn't a moment of peace until after the memorial service. "The city forced me to go to grief counseling and talk to a therapist about what had happened at the scene."

I couldn't eat. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't look my mother, my brothers, or my daughter in the eye. My father was alive when I got there and dead when I left. I've had to live with that every day since.

"Three weeks after the accident, Charlotte told me that Peter had a job offer with a prosthetics company in Seattle. Mom offered me a loan to pay for a lawyer, and I filed for custody. Things got nasty after that, and Mack turned into a totally different kid. My happy little girl disappeared, and things got so tense between me and Charlotte that she would leave Mack with my mom and I would pick her up there. We couldn't even be in the same room with each other. She and Peter were fighting, because he'd already accepted the job in Seattle and the clock was ticking."

It wasn't the only thing ticking. And Peter picked the wrong night to show up at Silky's to discuss the situation.

"Peter called the station one night, and when he found out I was off, he showed up here and found me four shots in. Something he said rubbed me the wrong way, and I lost my temper."

"How are you going to take care of Makenna when you can't even take care of yourself?"

He'd asked the one question I'd been asking myself, and the rage and helplessness and grief took over.

"I punched him in the face, and he had me arrested for assault. Then he and Charlotte used that and the counseling to kill any shot I had at keeping my daughter. It was going to be a long, losing battle, and the person who would've been hurt the most was Mack."

"So you let her go," Bella says. "I thought…"

Something in her voice makes me turn to finally look at her. "You thought what?" I ask.

"She made it sound like you gave her up…" I'm not sure who's more confused, me or her. "Rachel said you gave her up."

Rachel and her fucking mouth. No wonder Bella hated me. She thought I was some fucking deadbeat. I ball my fists on the bar in front of me and stare at them to keep from glaring at her. "I may be a shitty dad, but I would never give Mack up. I spend every minute with her that I can."

"I know that now." Her voice is as soft as the hand she lays on my forearm. "Is that why you think she hates you?"

Her fingers slide off when I raise my arm to grab my beer. "I know it is. Peter has another opportunity. A year in Japan this time."

She's quiet for a long time, lost in her own thoughts while I sit alone drowning in mine.

"The last time I saw my mom was my first day of kindergarten," she finally says. "She drove me to school, walked me to my class, and told me she was proud of me. I didn't cry like some of the other kids. She smiled and waved goodbye. Then she went home to pack a suitcase and write a letter to my dad."

The last bit of her guard lowers with her chin until she's staring at her hands in her lap.

"When we found out I was sick, Charlie wrote a letter to tell her and to ask if she knew of any family history. I remember thinking when he sent it that she would read it and come to make it all better." She laughs, but it's sad and bitter without a trace of happiness. "It took a month for her to answer with a get well card. There was a note tucked inside that said she didn't know of any."

Until this moment, I was convinced that her mother was dead. The last bit of anger over her assumption disappears. It's not like I didn't do the same thing to her last weekend.

"Where is she now?"

"Your guess is as good as mine. Charlie keeps tabs on her, but I stopped asking a long time ago. I don't hate her, though." She looks up at me and touches my arm again. "I have every reason to, but I don't." Her eyes water, but she stubbornly bites her lip to keep the tears back. "I promise Mack doesn't hate you."

"I don't know how to fix this." Everything I touch turns to shit. It might be better for Bella that it happened now with her instead of further down the road.

"You're a good dad, Edward. Charlie is a good dad, too. He did the best he could. But the one thing I wish he would have given me was choices. For a while, my life was chaos, and knowing that I had no say in it was the worst part. He was so busy keeping me alive that he forgot to let me live."

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying that you should ask Mack what she wants."

"You want me to make her choose between me and her mother?" I shake my head.

"The alternative makes her feel like you're not an option. You don't think that hurts her?" She leans closer. "Believe me. It does."

I wave Tanya over to pay my tab. Bella sits and watches, and I hate the mix of concern and pity on her face. "I'm good at hurting people," I tell her. "I'm sorry you had to find out the hard way."

"Let me take you home," she says.

"I'm good."

"I've got it," Jasper says from behind her. "I'll take him."

"I don't need a fucking babysitter," I tell them, patting my empty pockets. "Tanya took my keys a long time ago. I'll walk."

Jasper follows me out onto Beale and bothers me until I agree to let him drive me back to that empty fucking tomb on the river. The liquor and the demons catch up to me when his car starts moving, and I have to close my eyes to keep from puking.

What a fucking disaster.

I haven't done right by a single person in my life since the day my father died. I take and take with nothing to give back. And instead of learning my lesson, I'm still selfish enough to want more.

A/N- Rock bottom is an ugly place to be. But sometimes, it's necessary. I love you guys for your sweet words and your frustration. Most of all, I love you for coming back.

Sometimes, I want to share the entire playlist for this fic with you guys, but I think waiting until the end might be better this time.

Take care, y'all. See you soon.

MSC