“I’m not you,” I ground out. “I refuse to be you.” “You can’t stop it, Joey,” he replied, using my name for impact. It worked. It rattled me. “You can’t fight your nature, boy.” He took another slug of whiskey. “Only way you’re changing the ending of your story is if you walk away from that girl and her kid, and we both know you’ll never do it.” He shook his head in defeat before adding, “God knows I couldn’t.”
