Free Fairytale Lost by Lori Hendricks

and head home.” Lukas relaxed a bit. He accepted that this was the best option for everyone, but he couldn’t deny the throbbing pain growing in his chest.
    He started the car. She placed her hand on his when he moved to shift the car into gear. “Morning will be soon enough. I really want you and your father to clear the air. He really did think he was helping.”
    Lukas laughed without a hint of mirth. “Let’s just agree to disagree there. But you are right. I need to run through I few things with my Pops before I have to kill him.”
----
    S unny walked into the house and immediately ran upstairs without saying anything to Lukas’s father. Lukas followed her in and closed the door behind him. He took a deep breath before walking down the hallway leading into the kitchen. Lukas found his father sitting at the small kitchenette table that has been in the bay window of their kitchen for more than twenty years. He looked small and tired, holding the same navy blue coffee cup he’d used religiously for years.
    “Why would you bring Sunny here? What could you have possibly been thinking?” Lukas asked the only question that still remained on his mind. He sat heavily in the seat across from his father. He honestly wasn’t sure if he would be able to forgive him for what he saw as a betrayal, but he felt he should at least give him a chance to explain himself.
    “I won’t let you ruin your life with Emmalyn the way I ruined my life with your mother,” was all Pop said as he stood and walked out the room.
    Lukas watched him go. He thought about following him and asking him to explain what he meant by that. Lukas was very well aware that his parents’ marriage was a complete and total disaster. He also knew that his father was left a broken man because of how it ended. His mother’s suicide nearly killed his father, but he was able to hold on because Lukas and his younger brother needed him. And now Lukas felt beholden to his father because his father needed him. He knew the guilt he carried over his mother’s death wasn’t real. He was a toddler and had nothing to do with his mother’s unhappiness. But in the back of Lukas’s mind, he always felt that if he hadn’t been born, his mother wouldn’t have killed herself and his parents could have gone their separate ways, no harm done.
    Lukas had long since understood that his father’s dislike for Emmalyn was rooted in the fact that she reminded his father so much of his mother. She had the same ambitious attitude and need for order (or so he’d been told). And though his father might deny the fact until his dying day, he knew that his father had adored the woman he married and had not loved another woman since. Perhaps the reason he preferred Sunny was that he knew that Lukas would never love Sunny to the extent that he loved Emmy. But the difference was that Emmalyn didn’t want him, plain and simple as that. On the car ride back to his father’s house, he had convinced himself that making a life with Sunny was the smart thing to do. She was a phenomenal woman and would make the perfect wife and mother.
    Lukas rose from the table and walked to the stairs. He took a deep breath and began the climb, prepared to do whatever necessary to make things right with the one woman who wanted him but wasn’t really the woman he wanted.

10
Reckoning, of A Sort
    I t had been two months to the day since Emmalyn had last seen or spoken to either Lukas or Grant. Emmalyn’s resolve to stay away from both men had grown stronger with each passing day. After her interlude with Lukas, Em couldn’t bring herself to call Grant. Eventually, he’d taken the hint and stopped calling. And except for this horrible stomach flu she couldn’t seem to get rid of, her mind and her life seemed to be lightening significantly. Apparently she just needed to accept that she needed to be alone a little longer. She focused on getting herself together, getting healthy, getting —