Wildflowers |h.s|

thirty five

Harry

Walking into Annika's room, I knock on the door. She's sitting on the bed, looking at the book Devon got her for Christmas in her lap. She doesn't look up when I walk in, which has become pretty typical lately. "Hey, petal. Was thinking we could go outside, get Oak and maybe see if anything's blooming in the garden yet."

She shakes her head, still looking at her book. "No thank you."

"You sure? We could get a head start on the gnome king and see what the squirrels have to say." I offer, but Annika closes the book. She pushes it off the bed and lays in bed, turning over as she pulls the covers up.

"Fairies are stupid."

"Hey, we don't use that word." I remind her, my heart honestly breaking as the fact that my daughter is saying that fairies are stupid. She loves fairies. Walking closer to her bed, I sit on the edge, "Annika, you have to talk to me. You can't just mope around all the time."

"I don't want to talk to you, you're mean and stupid."

"Annika Noelle Styles, I'm not going to tell you again to not use that word." I warn. She stands up on the bed, looking at me with an angry expression on her face. "Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!" She jumps off the bed, running out of the room and I'm quick to follow her.

"Annika, come on, you're going for a time out." I threaten, but she's running right for the front door. She opens it and slips through, slamming it behind her. Opening it up right away, I run after her and grab her, picking her up as she yells and screams at me to let her go because she's running away.

By the time I'm back inside with her, Oakley's downstairs, watching on, looking nervous. I sit Annika down on the kitchen counter where she can't jump off, and I gently make her look at me. "You know I don't like punishing you, Anni. Just talk to me."

"You ruin everything! Devon was supposed to be our new mommy and now she's gone and you're mean and I hate you!" She cries, still struggling against me.

Of course. It all comes back to Devon.

If I could go back in time and change everything that I did and said, I would in a second. I did ruin everything, and it took going to see a therapist and grief counselor to realize that.

After New Years Eve, things go really bad. I saw Jamie everywhere I went and even in my dreams when I was able to sleep. She was just there, telling me over and over again how I screwed this up again and how I'll never be good enough. It got to a point where Mitch almost got me committed because he came over and saw me fighting with the air, but I could have sworn Jamie was right there, screaming at me about how horrible of a father I am.

I think it started when Devon said she loved me. Well, I know it started there, actually. It's as if the second those words left her mouth, right after she put my daughters to bed and was talking about Jamie, she just morphed right into her. Of course, I love Devon, and I wanted to tell her, but in my head she wasn't Dev anymore. She was Jamie.

That went away for a while, but every once in a while it would come back. Mostly when she would bring Jamie up or when she was with the girls. Her dad had the same reaction to me as Jamie's dad did, and that just made everything worse. Knowing I wasn't good enough for Dev in her father's eyes, feeling like I was losing her because I was going fucking crazy. But when I saw Devon, like really saw her, things felt okay. It felt like I could breathe again.

I should have gotten help right away after I found Jamie, but I just didn't. I convinced myself I was fine and that I had to be strong for my daughters. It didn't help that Jamie's parents were dead set on taking the girls away from me, so on top of having to deal with an infant and a toddler and the sudden death of my significant other, I had to deal with a court and had home visits to see if I was a fit parent. And god the paternity tests.