I look back at Victoria, laying in the bed, fighting for her life, and hear her words from before her accident ring through my ears.
You lose 99 percent of the chances you don’t take. I’m glad you grabbed a hold of yours and never let it go.
“You know what they say, Old Man,” I sigh. “Finding what you want most in life is only half the battle. Holding onto it, that’s what separates us winners from the losers. I’m not losing her, no matter what it costs.” Pointing through the glass that separates us from Victoria, I say, “That is my fiancé's sister in there. And I’ll be damned if I let anything happen to either one of them, which is more loyalty than I can say for the likes of you. Do me a favor, Edward, and stay out of my fucking way. Our fucking life. Or trust me, you won’t like the consequences when I do what I have to in order to protect what is mine. And Rochelle is mine, you were just the unfortunate pawn in this game called life that brought her to me.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Rochelle
I sit in silence and stare at the girl across from me. Taking in her features, I wonder how I never noticed it before. Although battered and bruised, her face is so similar to the one I stare back into daily. Picking up her hand, I turn over her wrist and see the same birthmark I’ve lived with my entire life staring back at me. Sucking in a breath, I shiver from the realization and wish I had someone here to pinch me, because how on earth is this actually happening.
It’s been almost three days since my sister was hit by a driver on Main Street, and this is the first time I have had a moment alone with her to digest everything that followed, including my father’s admission of the truth. After giving the blood needed to save my sister’s life, I was making my way back to her room when Edward confronted me in the waiting room. Hunter was with Sylvia, and he took the opportunity when it presented itself to talk to me alone, spilling everything, and leaving nothing out.
A noise sounds behind me and I turn to see Hunter in the doorway. I look into his eyes, and for the first time feel like a stranger. How on earth did we go from where we were just a few days ago to where we are now in what feels like a matter of seconds?
I turn back and look at the girl lying in the bed next to me. Emotion takes over and I begin to cry. A shiver runs up my spine at the realization that I have no clue who I really am, or what in the world I am going to do now that I know the truth? Hunter is at my side in an instant and kneels at my feet. He grabs my free hand and holds it tight before looking back at Victoria in the bed beside us.
“This is like a bad episode of the Jerry Springer show,” I laugh through my tears and look up to see him smile through his own fog. “I don’t know what to think or how to even begin to…”
“Sh,” Hunter whispers. “Don’t think. Not now. We’ll get through this. When we do, it’ll all be Okay,” he says tenderly.
“Hunter I…”
But his lips cut me off as they crash against my own. For the first time since I was hit with this unbelievable truth a few days back, I feel alive. Connected. Whole and perfect as his kiss deepens and his hands tighten around my waist.
Breaking our kiss, his eyes search mine, and a sense of worry fills me. Worry this is all too much. Worry about what it all means. Worry that we may have found the one thing that could break us if we let it.
A scandal maybe neither of us has the strength to face.
I still have yet to confront my mother with the truth. A reality that is quickly approaching. To say I am scared, frightened, worried to death about how that conversation will go is an understatement.
I also have yet to talk to Hunter about any of it. He has given me my space, but I know it is only a matter of time before I am confronted by him. The only person I can think of that could make any of this any better is lying in the bed next to me, unconscious and fighting for her life.
Looking back over at her, a tear falls down my face before I whisper, “I wish she was awake so I could speak to her.”
Hunter squeezes my hand tightly before lifting it to his lips and placing a tender kiss against the inside of my wrist. “She can hear you, Angel. If you need to, you can tell her anything.”
“Is that weird?” I ask before turning to meet his stare. “I only just met her, but I still feel so connected. Kinda the way I felt when I met you for the first time,” I say shyly as my gaze drops to the floor.
“That’s not weird at all. You two were connected, closer than anyone could ever be, once upon a time.”
I smile sadly before turning back to Victoria. “Can you give us a minute?”
He rises and stands silently at my side for a moment. Kissing the top of my head, he releases my hand and walks out of the room. I look around at the cold space we’ve found ourselves in and my bottom lip quivers. The steady beeping of her heart from a machine across the room is the only thing I hear as my tears begin to fall.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Hunter
My eyes find the floor as I exit the room and make my way out into the hall. Not sure where I am headed, but needing a little space between me and the still unfathomable situation in the room behind me, I walk towards the elevator before turning and pacing back and forth. Eyes trained to the ground, I hear the hospital staff rushing past me and don’t even bother to look up at them as they hurry from one patient’s room to another.
All I want, all I need, is for someone, anyone, to change the course of the last few days and make everything right again. Make it perfect. Just like it was when I was sitting with Rochelle and V in that little café on Main Street.
I should have walked V to her car. I should have stalled at the restaurant. I should have ordered that second fucking beer like I was thinking about and made everyone sit there while I drank it just so that we wouldn’t be in this very fucked up situation right now wondering if she is going to live or….
I can’t finish the thought. Instead, I turn suddenly, bumping into someone just coming off of the elevator.
“I’m sorry, I…”
