Page 93 of Gravity

But when Grayson touches me again and shocks me into looking at him, I see the tears in his eyes and it’s right then that I have no control over my body and everything hits me. Hard.

A deep, gasp leaves me, and it’s like I’ve been hit with a sledgehammer as the nightmare I wish to wake from becomes an ice-cold reality.

I’m sorry. We did everything we could.

“I’m so sorry, Nora.”

“No!” A howl I don’t recognize as my own leaves me, and I lash out at the man who is trying to care for me, hitting his chest repeatedly as he stands there and lets me. Excruciating pain fills me, and I scream at him with a deep, harrowing cry, begging him to tell me it’s not true.

When I have no more strength and I witness his own tears fall, I collapse to the ground taking him with me as my heart breaks. A deep, uncontrollable sob leaves my wrecked frame, and I ask any god who may be listening why they had to take him—why it had to be my dad. I ask why they have been so cruel to our family, taking a man from us who had deserved more from this world.

“I’ve got you, baby.”

“It’s too soon. I never got to say goodbye,” I weep, gripping onto him like I need his strength as he rocks us. “Please. Please, make it stop.”

I can’t breathe.

I want Asher.

“I wish I could,” he whispers, his own tears now mixing with mine. “I wish I could.”

His tight grip never loosens as my lungs roar and hot tears stream down my face. I can hear the cries from my mom, but I’m powerless to move.

He’s gone.

And he’s taken my heart with him.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Grayson

“Hey, this is Ash. I’m obviously not available. Please leave a message and I’ll get back to you.”

“Mother fucker,” I hiss, throwing my phone down on my desk after yet another call has gone to voicemail. I’ve heard nothing from him.

Nothing.

I have been holding my girl tight as she cries herself to sleep at night because her daddy is gone forever and because her brother—who she’d believed would be home soon—is nowhere to be seen.

I need to tell her. I want to tell her, but how can you tell someone who’s already fragile that her brother ran away from all of this to begin with.

Resting my head in my hands, I sit at my desk and close my eyes, Nora’s face immediately in my vision and like a recurring dream: the feel of her beating my chest, begging me to make it stop, and the echoes of her cries haunting me every second since that fretful night.

Pete had been taken to the hospital in a critical condition with what was thought to have been another seizure, only his body had decided to play a twisted game and finish him off with a severe stroke that had no way of keeping him with us. With it being so intense, his body was just too weak to handle the stress that it had caused, even though the doctors did everything within their power to try to save him.

The sound of her scattered breathing after her tears, the whispers to her daddy in the darkest hours, and the look of pure, undeniable pain etched on her face when the sun rises for another day have left a heavy weight in my chest that is slowly breaking my ability to breathe. Never have I felt so helpless. I’m lost for words at a time when she needs me the most, and I feel like a failure as her lover and as her friend.

She needs me—they both do—and having been through this agonizing experience myself, I should know what the fuck I’m doing. But I don’t. I have no words because it’s not just their hearts that are breaking, it’s mine, too.

I miss him.

I really fucking miss him.

The void is unbearable, and if there were ever a time when I needed him it would be now because I’m at a loss of what to do for the best.

“Hey.”

I look up to find Mark entering my office. “I didn’t expect to see you today.”