A sob tore through her. She was vaguely aware of Xander wrapping his arms around her and pulling her close. All she could focus on were her memories. Her heart was breaking all over again.
And it was all her fault.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Freya’s tears shattered his heart. The anguish of her sobs tore at his soul. He couldn’t imagine the amount of guilt she carried. He would do anything to protect her from this devastation, but there was nothing he could do. It had happened, and there was no bringing her childhood friend back. No way to turn back the clock. So he did the only thing he could. He held her as she cried.
He smoothed his hand up and down her back. No empty platitudes. No words promising everything would be okay. He simply held her as she sobbed.
After a while, her tears eased, and she sighed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to lose it all over you.”
He tightened his arms around her. “You have nothing to apologize for, baby. I’m so sorry about what happened.”
“They said Sarah died on impact.” She sniffed, and her next words were in a heartbreaking whisper. “So at least she didn’t suffer. The man driving the pickup lost a leg, and the woman driving the second car that hit us ended up paralyzed from the waist down. She was a grandma of seven driving home from vacation.”
He closed his eyes. Holy fuck. “I’m so sorry.”
“Me too.” She was silent for a few more moments and then cleared her throat. “They deemed it an accident, but...”
Shaking her head, more tears spilled over, and he tightened his arms around her. He didn’t know how much time had passed, only that her tears finally subsided. Her breaths finally calmed. If it weren’t for her fingers feathering over his skin, tracing over a scar at the edge of his waist, he would have thought she’d fallen asleep.
After a few more moments of silence, she asked, “What’s this from?”
Sensing her need for a subject change, he followed her lead. “Army days. Bullet wound. In the jungles of some swampy hellhole. I was lucky it was a through and through. A couple more inches inside and it would have been a different story entirely.” Both Wilson and Frazier had also been hit during that clusterfuck. Their team had been damn lucky to get out of there in one piece.
“And this? This one looks newer.” She ran her finger over the scar that ran along the left side of his ribs.
“Because it is. About a year ago, I was driving with a client and got T-boned. Intentionally. By an asshole trying to get to my client. Driver’s side door got me.” He grimaced. “Pretty sure the steering wheel got me too.”
She frowned and peeked up at him, meeting his gaze. “Was your client okay?”
“It was a little hairy—he took her while I was out cold—but our team came together, and she was pretty kick-ass herself. In the end, it all worked out, and she was fine.”
He placed his hand over Freya’s as she traced his scar. “But this was intentional.” He moved his hand and traced the edges of her scars. “These? An awful, tragic accident. A deer. The rain and dark. An inexperienced driver. Alcohol. One hundred percent accident.” He saw the denial in her eyes, and when she openedher mouth to reply, he kept on talking. “Were there some poor choices made on your part? Yes. But, baby, that doesn’t make it any less of an accident.”
Her eyes glistened, and she swallowed. “After the accident, my brothers made me go to therapy. For years. Logically, I know it was an accident. But...”
His hand moved to the center of her chest. “But it’s taking longer for you to believe it here.” He traced a heart over her heart.
She nodded, and another tear slipped from her eyes and dropped to the pillow. “Yeah. I’m not sure I’ll ever forgive myself.”
Not knowing how to reply, because guilt’s a tricky bitch, he pressed a kiss to her forehead. “One day at a time, Frey. And I’m here to help you every step of the way. However you need.”
A thought tickled the back of his mind. “Those photos you got in the mail, the ones I saw... Those aren’t the only ones you’ve received, are they?”
Freya took a deep breath, inhaling Xander’s cedar-and-soap scent. Like every time before, it calmed her, grounded her. She’d already told him about the accident, and he hadn’t responded as she’d thought he would. She’d never imagined he’d respond with kindness. With support. With words of reassurance that she wanted desperately to believe.
She’d underestimated him, but never again. So she’d trust him with all of it.
“I got the first photos two months after the accident. December fourteenth. Sarah’s birthday.” Her breath hitched, the giant lump in her throat threatening to suffocate her. “Fourphotos. Three of me and Sarah, happy and smiling. One of me at her funeral, crying at her grave.”
His hand squeezed her hip, and the steady look in his brown eyes gave her the courage to keep talking. “I didn’t think much of them until more photos arrived the following year. They came on the anniversary of the accident and on Sarah’s birthday again. And every year since. Even if I move, I still get a white envelope of four photos. All the photos are different, but there are always three of me and Sarah, and one of me at the cemetery, either from her funeral or from different times I’ve visited her grave. But then...”
A shiver tore through her. Xander ran his hands over her arms, but they did nothing to relieve the goosebumps. “And then?”
Tingles of unease crept up her spine. “Three years ago, on the tenth anniversary of Sarah’s death, the photos changed. There were still four, but two were photos of me and Sarah smiling into the camera, and the other two photos were of me at the cemetery after her funeral. But my face was scratched out in them, and ‘It should have been you’ was written on one of them. It’s been like that ever since.”
She met Xander’s gaze, and the anger that flashed over his face reassured her. For so long, she’d brushed off the unease she’d felt at receiving the photos, chalking it up to guilt. When the tone of the photos had changed, she’d convinced herself she was overreacting.
