Love You Anyways Read Online Free Page A

in for two minutes, that’s all it could have me for. We were still all here. Alive, breathing, able to figure out a way to live through the hurt, rebuild our lives. Collin Abraham didn’t have that choice.
    I walked up the stairs and covered my little girl with Bingo and she didn’t stir. She did smile in her sleep and pull that blanket up to her nose, the silky part, just like she did as a baby.
    ~
    I was in the basement when Ava came down the stairs wrapped in Bingo. I was on the floor knee deep in memories and she sat next to me.
    “What are you doing Dad?” Ava called me Daddy when she was upset, or trying to get out of trouble, but right now I was Dad.
    “I was trying to find Bingo for you.” I tore my eyes off the pile before me and looked at her and smiled. “Did it help?”
    She nodded, “Yeah, but I thought we sent this to Aunt Ally when she was pregnant?”
    “Yeah, apparently she sent it back,” I winked.
    “So you lied to me?” Ava raised her eyebrows trying to act surprised.
    “Not lied, no, never.”
    She laughed, “Then what do you call it?”
    I leaned back against the bench , looked at her, and smiled. “As your father I thought it was in your best interest to not walk into the third grade with a blanket. Didn’t want you to get picked on.” She laughed. “So I devised a plan.”
    “You devised a plan huh?”
    “Sure did. Very strategic and well thought out plan. When I mentioned to you that you’re Aunt was having a baby and really needed a blanket you weren’t as receptive to the idea as I thought you’d be.”
    “I loved Bingo, still do.”
    “I know but sometimes you just gotta move on.”
    “I know.” She looked at the pile of sports awards in front of me and laughed.
    “Okay fine, maybe you just have to shelf it.”
    “So you shelved Bingo.”
    “I did. I wanted to make sure you could someday have it again if you wanted.” I reached over and tugged at Bingo, “You came to me three days later and handed her over. Tears in your eyes and a smile on your face you said to me, ‘Okay Daddy we can send it. Maybe her baby can love it now. I can’t take care of it all the time maybe the baby will love it like I used to.’ I swear you almost brought a grown man to his knees. But it was a great life lesson.”
    “How’s that?”
    “If you no longer have the time for something you love, maybe someone else can love it better.” She leaned against me. “Ava, Harper, is going to be okay. She has that Rock Star boy and you. She will hurt but she’ll be okay.”
    “I can’t imagine lo sing you.”
    “You won’t baby girl. Not yet anyway.”
    “Why didn’t Collin wait for the police? Why didn’t he…”
    “I would have done the same for you. I would have risked my life to save you without a second thought. No way in hell could anyone have stopped me from trying to protect what I loved. I admire him so much for what he did. He’s a damn good man.”
    “Maybe I should give her Bingo.”
    We sat there silently for a long time.
    “You wanna go out to lunch with your Daddy , Ava girl?”
    “No. Maybe we can order in.” She leaned over and started going through the pile.
    We were actually having a good time looking through all the boxes. She was finally smiling and asking a bunch of questions. Ava decided I should keep all of the junk but maybe in digital form.
    She took pictures of everything and we were going to download them and put them on a disk. Clear out the clutter, I had said. Organize the memories, she smiled.
    “Grandma K kept all of this stuff?” She laughed when she held up the blanket of all the t-shirts made into a quilt.
    “Kept well huh?” I didn’t want to tell her my mother didn’t keep shit. I did. And I didn’t want to tell her the quilt was a graduation present from my first love, Tessa Ross.
    “This is so cool.” She stood and flung open the quilt and sat on it. “Give me that bin.”
    Ava was tearing through all the bins and having a