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own cheeks and I wiped them away with the back of my hand while Drake wasn’t looking. My strong husband was falling apart and now I needed to be the strong one. I could do that. I could be the one to pick up the pieces. I would do anything for that man, anything at all. He owned me, body, heart, soul, and mind. My heart ached from seeing him in such a state. More than anything, I wanted to take away his pain. I made a silent promise then that I would be there to catch him when he fell. I would have the strength to carry on and be there when he needed me.

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter Five
     
     
    Drake
     
    After my father’s death, things look different. The sun doesn’t look as bright, the grass isn’t as vivid green anymore, and the sky is duller than I remember. Food doesn’t taste as good, I’m only eating because Anna keeps cooking and telling me I need to keep my strength up. I go to work every day, do my work, and leave. My colleagues understand that I’m just not the same. The man I’ve spent my life loving, looking up to, wanting to be like, has left this Earth and now we’re all left to cope without his ever-loving presence.
    I’m sad and angry at the same time. I don’t know what to do without my dad. Granted, we weren’t the most tactile of families. We didn’t wear our hearts on our sleeves or show our love for one another in the most obvious ways. But regardless, for all our flaws, we were always aware that we loved each other and that wouldn’t ever change. I was used to being the strong one, but just recently that mantle has passed on to Anna. She is the glue that holds our family together. When I cry, she holds me. When Ayden gets sad, she cheers him up. Meghan is just as heartbroken as I am and she turns to Anna for her advice, her love, and affection. Say what you like about Anna, but she is the most amazing woman I have ever met. How the hell did I get so lucky as to marry her? Before she came along, I swore I would never marry again. Not after that bitch Beth took me for all I had when we got divorced. But there was something about Anna…she made me feel like the only man in the world. Love and devotion shone in her eyes. I was surrounded by love and happiness, something I hadn’t had with Beth for years. We had stayed married out of obligation and we had technically separated for two years before actually getting divorced. So when Anna walked into my life, she brightened it. Everything she did was right. Everything she touched turned to gold. She was a breath of fresh air. She and Ayden had fast become my world. I proposed to her not long after he was born and we were married a year later. But now, she has to hold us all together as I fall apart at the seams.
    Bitterness eats at me every day. Why couldn’t someone have been home to save my dad? Why couldn’t I have popped by to say hi? I might have found him and he might still be here. But I didn’t and he isn’t. That’s what kills me. I was powerless. I’ve always been in control, but this was something I had utterly no control over and now my heart aches. It feels so heavy, like I shouldn’t even be able to carry it around.
    I’ve started going out after work, not going straight home as normal. Anna doesn’t like not knowing where I am, but I have no choice, I can’t tell her the truth. I can’t tell her that I seek comfort somewhere else. She’s the one holding everything together for me, for my family, but that has begun to eat at me. It should be me that holds us together—yet I can’t. So I seek my comfort from the one source I shouldn’t. Anna and I have fought about it before. She’s seen me being secretive over who I was texting, witnessed me taking my phone into another room to talk so she couldn’t overhear. We’ve actually split over it in the past before we got married, so I can’t tell her now that I have a secret I can’t share with her or anyone. I know it’s unfair, and when I do get