We wouldn’t be broken.
“Ashton—” I don’t notice I’m crying until Jamie drags his thumbs over my cheeks, wiping away my tears as he tries to bring me back to the present. “Don’t go there.”
I swallow, trying so hard to keep it together. To keep quiet. To not wake Kyrie. To not let the darkness bury me, but it’s too late, and I’m too raw. And it’s all right there. The shattered glass. The pool of blood. The metallic scent of the gun firing...
The nightmare I can’t wake up from.
“I go there every night in my dreams,” I whisper, blinking between the present and the past. “Every. Night. I remember every single second. Can see it—us. Like it happened in slow-motion. Walking into the store. Walking into your back when you and Evan stopped in front of me.” I try to blink away the tears, but now that they’ve started, they won’t stop. “The way the scream was ripped from my throat like glass raking its way through my flesh when I saw the gun swing our way.” I swallow down bile, unable to stop myself. “Before you tackled me to the floor. Before you covered me so I couldn’t see or breathe or do anything to stop Evan from stepping in front of us.”
I drop my hold on Jamie’s wrists and flatten my palms against his chest, then ball them into fists just like that night. Counting the beats of his heart against my hands as the world around us stops making sense. “I see it every night...”
“Me too,” he admits softly as his arms wrap around me, dragging me impossibly closer against his chest. Until there’s no space left between us. Until my cheek is pressed against hisheart where my hands just were. Holding me so tightly, I can barely breathe. “I’m so sorry, Ashton. I wish I could have done something differently, but there wasn’t time. I didn’t think. Just acted. I needed you safe. You had to be okay.”
The most horrific thought I’ve ever had crashes into me like a boulder, crushing me beneath the weight of it. “Jamie,” I gasp, horrified. “Tell me you don’t blame yourself for Evan’s death.”
His chin rests on the top of my head as his fingers tangle in my hair, the silence settling between us that hurts my heart in ways I didn’t know it could ache. Stretching on for what feels like an eternity.
“I know it’s not my fault as much as I know it’s not yours or Finn’s or Evan’s. It’s no one’s fault but the man who pulled that trigger. Evan wanted you protected. He always did. If he’d have been the one right in front of you, he would have been the one to throw you to the floor instead of me.” He falls silent again, and I let him. I don’t push. I don’t even try. I just wait, knowing that night... the worst night of our lives, shaped us. It shaped all of us. Broke all of us in different ways. “That night... in the locker room... I told Evan I was going to ask you to Homecoming.”
Air whooshes from my lungs, but I don’t dare lift my head. I wrap my arms around his waist and wait as my heart breaks again for everything that was stolen from all of us that night.
All the unfinished business.
All the memories we never got to have.
All the life Evan will never get to live.
“He told me to stay away from you.” He drags a gentle hand over my head reverently. “He was so pissed I’d even consider asking you out. Pissed I wasn’t asking permission. He told me I wasn’t good enough. I wasn’t serious enough. That I wasn’t ready. That you weren’t ready. I never saw him so pissed, Ashton.” I feel his muscles tense and tighten against me as heforces out every word, and I can’t stop it. Stop him from— “He died protecting us both, and he did it pissed at me.”
Oh. My. God.
Jamie’s shoulders shake with silent tears as my world splinters.
“No,” I force out and lift my face to his, cupping his cheeks in my hands. Needing to give him this. “He loved you.”
“He did. But that last conversation?—”
“Jameson Murphy, I’ve spent a decade in therapy working through that night, so listen to me when I say this. Evan loved you and me and Finn. He was a protective bastard, and if he’d have dropped to the floor the way you and I did, he might still be here, but he chose to stand in front of us. That was his choice. Not mine. Not yours.His. You have to let him have that choice.”
“But that choice made you hate me.”
The agony in every word rocks me to the darkest depths of my soul, and I force those brilliant green eyes to look at me. “I’ve hated you for a long time, Jamie, but I never blamed you.”
I drag the tips of my fingers along his jaw, knowing hate was never the right word but unsure what actually was.
“Bullshit,” he bites back. “You can’t rewrite history, Ace. Everything changed that night, and you never looked at me the same after.”
“You left,” I sob, wishing I could catch the words and shove them back down before he can hear them, but it’s too late. They’re out, and I can’t take them back.
I can’t unsay them. Can’t unhear them.
And I can’t stop the ones that keep tumbling from my lips.
“You. Left. You were there, and then you weren’t. It was like I lost you both with that bullet. You stopped talking to me. Stopped looking at me. Stopped making me laugh. Stopped caring. You just... stopped.” I let go, my breath catching in my chest, and ignore the tears burning behind my eyes while Iembrace the pain. “I came up with a million reasons why in my head. I worked through it for years with my therapist. Did you think it was my fault? Did you somehow blame me the way I blamed myself? Did you wish you’d saved him instead of me?”
“Jesus, no. Ashton?—”
“I was young and didn’t get it. It took years to accept that it wasn’t my fault. Losing Evan and losing you. You made your choice just like he did, and it was your choice. Not mine. I couldn’t control it, and I didn’t cause it. But I hated you for it because—” My voice cracks, and I turn to make sure I haven’t woken up Kyrie. My sweet girl is sleeping soundly with that giant dinosaur, and just seeing her calms my broken heart.
