The next couple of days were a blur.

A complete and utter fucking blur that I wished I could erase. I barely knew if I as up or down. I was going through the motions and keeping myself together by sheer force of will. It was a miracle I hadn’t lost my shit on more than one occasion and my memory from that day was scattered at best.

When Jack eventually arrived back from the hospital he looked like he had seen a ghost. He was a shell of himself, a literal walking zombie. He hadn’t breathed a word to anyone. It was just as well, because the fucking outcome would still be the same…Avery was gone. Isabelle and Annabelle were jumping up and down at seeing their dad like it was any other day. They didn’t have a clue that their world was about to be turned upside down. Jack scooped them up in his arms, both of them hanging onto him like little monkeys, giggling all the way as he carried them up to his bedroom. It hadn’t taken long for us to know the exact moment Jack told the girls what had happened. The crying and pleading for their mother could be heard a mile away. And from where I was in the kitchen, it was fucking torture hearing the twins wail as their hearts were breaking. If I went the rest of my life not ever hearing my nieces crying like that again, it would be too soon, because it broke me too.

After a stretch of time that was too quiet, honestly, I couldn’t remember if it was an hour or two, or maybe more than that, we all thought it would be a good idea if someone checked on Jack and the girls. Between us, we thought it was best if Trev was the one to do the checking. When he came back downstairs, Trevor hadn’t said a word. He grabbed a hold of Veronica and hugged her to him. She started crying again and then Trevor was crying. I couldn’t remember the last time I had ever seen either of my brothers in tears.

It turned me inside out.

I felt myself slowly losing it, so much so, that I ended up walking straight out of Jack’s house. It was the only thing I could do to keep myself together at that point. I kind of remember walking around Jack and Avery’s Upper West Side neighborhood and eventually, I stumbled into Central Park. How long I sat on that park bench and stared out into the void, I had no fucking idea. I had shut off my phone and wouldn’t dare turn it back on until I could get the thoughts in my head straight. That was the problem though…I couldn’t make sense of any of this craziness. Why the fuck would this happen to Avery?! Out of all the people in this world, why her?!

It wasn’t fair.

Not even by a long shot.

Somehow I ended up back at my apartment that night. I couldn’t recall how I arrived exactly, but once I was there, I let every emotion go that I had been holding onto. I cried for the first time that night since I was a little boy. I cried and cried like a fucking baby wanting their mother. And that’s when it had hit me. Losing Avery made me feel like I had lost my own mother. Yes, our parents were still around, but they were never “parents” in the true sense of the word. They would probably be more concerned about how their “friends and acquaintances” were going to respond to the fact that Avery was working in a hospital in Queens when this happened to her, rather than express true compassion and remorse over her loss.

The closest thing to family I had ever known were my brothers of course…and since she came into our lives, Avery. She was like the mom I never knew existed growing up. She always watched out for all of us. She made me feel like I wasn’t just the littlest Allen brother; the runt of the asshole litter. No. She made me feel like a part of the family and that someone was looking out for me even though I was a grown-ass man.

But all of that was gone. And my nieces…when they popped into my head, it was like the pain started all over again from fucking scratch. That pain stayed with me through that first night and into the second day, carrying it with me in my chest like my fucking heart was literally breaking.

In those first couple of days, I would be forever grateful to my soon to be sister-in-law, Veronica, Trevor’s fiancé. She was the glue that held us Allen boys together while we rode out the storm. And it was Veronica who showed up at my apartment on my second day of zombiedom and forced me to adult. Actually, what she said to me was something I’ll never forget.

“Avery would be so fucking disappointed in you, Max. Your nieces need you to step it up and be the uncle they deserve. And your brother Jack needs you now more than ever. I don’t give a damn if I’m hurting your feelings. I don’t give a damn that you have this exciting television career and you’re semi-famous around here. What I do give a damn about is Isabelle and Annabelle…and how they’re wondering where the hell their mother is while you’re over here feeling sorry for yourself. Suck it up and get your shit together because those girls need you. Your brothers need you. And dammit, I need you.”

Yeah, that speech was enough to shake the fucking cobwebs out of my head and see what was most important right now: family.

My family always came first for me. And Veronica was absolutely right; family should continue to come first for me. So, I sucked it up and started to make like I was going to leave right then and there with her and head over to Jack’s place.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Veronica said with a hint of a smile. She delicately placed a manicured fingernail in the middle of my chest. “You’re going to have to at least take a quick shower or something before hitting the road.”

She had a point. I hadn’t showered in two days. I hadn’t eaten anything other than a bowl or two of cereal during that time either. I quickly gave myself a whiff, and yeah, I was pretty damn ripe. My stomach also picked that exact moment to start grumbling and cave in on itself.

“You haven’t eaten either, have you?” she asked me.

“I was just about to make a—,”

“Stop right there, Max. I’m going to have to ask you not to lie to me since I know you probably weren’t going to be making yourself anything to eat any time soon.”

She was good. Too good. It was kind of scary how “on” Veronica was. At that moment I both envied Trevor for having found someone who could keep him on his toes. But I also kind of felt sorry for the poor bastard.

During our cab ride, Veronica was combing through her cellphone. Angrily, she turned to me and said, “You can turn your cell back on at any time now, too. We’ve all been trying to get a hold of you for the last couple of days.”

“Oh shit, sorry. I just—,”

“No, I get it, I do, Max. It’s just that I don’t want you to be freaked out when you see all the missed phone calls and messages on your phone, okay? You’ve been warned.”

She went back to scrolling through her phone as I picked my ass up a bit to slide mine out of my back jeans pocket. Sure enough, once it was turned on, it kept on vibrating over and over as notification after notification was received in the order they had been sent. It was fucking crazy how many missed calls I had. Not to mention the text messages from people I hadn’t heard from in years expressing their condolences.

Within the deluge of messages, I saw that Adam had reached out to pass on his condolences as well as Oliver. Thank God, because I had totally blanked the fuck out when it came time to being fucking responsible. Daphne must have stepped in and gotten in touch with Oliver herself because his message said he wouldn’t expect me in the office until next week.

Daphne…

That was another person who had left me messages…quite a few of them.

“Daphne’s tried to get in touch with you…with Jack too,” Veronica told me as she spied over my shoulder. “I told her that you’d be calling her soon. Sorry, I didn’t know what else to tell her.”

“How did she get your number? Or Jack’s even?”

Veronica worried her lip a little. “She didn’t. Daphne went to Jack and Trevor’s office. Jessica, their assistant knew who she was —she watches your show, big fan, by the way. Anyway, she gave Daphne the phone number for Jack’s house and our place too.”

It wasn’t sitting well with me that Daphne had done any of that. From what we were told, if it wasn’t for Daphne’s little brother and his friend, Avery would still be here. It was their fault she was dead. The friend may have pulled the fucking trigger, but maybe if they weren’t in the goddamn hospital to begin with, Avery would still be alive.

“She called Jack?” I asked.

Veronica shook her head. “No, but she called our apartment late yesterday afternoon.”

“What did she say to you? Did she say talk to Trev?”

“Trev wasn’t home…he was with your brother. And it wasn’t bad or anything like that. She’s been really worried about all of us. She wanted to talk to you herself but—,”

“To hell with that. Maybe she ought to concern herself more with her little brother because that little piece of shit ruined my family.”

“Take it easy there, Max. You don’t really believe that, right?” Veronica asked. I couldn’t bring myself to even answer her. It had been pissing me off by the second thinking about how Avery was put in the crosshairs of a situation that she shouldn’t have been in the first place. “Never mind. Listen, I don’t know what was going on between you and Daphne, but it sounds like you need to talk to her yourself and straighten things out.”

Veronica went back to checking her phone while I sat and stared out the taxicab window getting more upset. Leaning forward, I rested my head against the glass and closed my eyes. I wanted to hate Daphne and her brother for what had happened…and was still happening to my family. I knew it was a visceral reaction and not her fault, sure. But it made my blood fucking boil over thinking of how that juvenile delinquent murdered my sister-in-law in cold blood. Avery was gone and never coming back. Yet Daphne’s little brother was able to live and breathe and go on with his fucking life.

It wasn’t fair. Not by a long shot.

And as far as being together in a relationship and picking up where we left off, I couldn’t imagine it happening for us now. I couldn’t begin to fathom how that would affect Jack and my nieces. How would I explain who she was to my nieces or anyone else for that matter? Yeah, the television show was how we “knew” each other and it was a once in a lifetime opportunity just as Oliver had promised me. But I wasn’t so sure I wanted any part of the show or Daphne after what had happened. It was giving me a fucking headache that wasn’t being helped along by riding in the back of a New York City taxicab. I was feeling too raw right now to contemplate anything, much less Daphne or the show.

“I’ll talk with Daphne later. I’ll call her or something, I don’t know,” I told Veronica.

She mumbled something like “okay” back to me and left it alone after that. Just as well. I knew I sounded like an insensitive and arrogant asshole. But I couldn’t be bothered to give one single fuck. I mean, that’s who I was known as: the asshole Allen brother, right?

Right.

Time to start living up to my reputation.