Then…she loses it.
“DADDY!!” she screams at the top of her lungs and drops to her knees, crying for him to wake up. She does this all through my call to 911, and when the police arrive shortly after, she’s still wailing and begging for him to wake up.
I don’t even remember what happens next. Everything is a blur. I remember crying—a lot of crying. Halle is what I heard someone callhysterical. Nothing anyone says can calm her down. We talk to the police because we were the only people in the store, and we watch as they load Dad and the other man and woman into the ambulance in black bags with their faces covered. Halle screamsDaddyover and over again, and then my mom shows up, and she’s hysterical now, too. We’re both in her arms, and even while all of this happened, Halle still hasn’t let go of my hand.
She doesn’t let go on the way to the hospital, or when we talk to a lady who tells us it’s okay to let out however we’re feeling, and that she would be in touch with Mom next week about something called “therapy,” whatever that is. She didn’t let go of my hand on the way home or that whole night. We both slept in the bed with my mom, Halle’s tiny body between us. I didn’t sleep a wink, and I don’t think my mom did either, but Halle slept with one hand wrapped in mine and one wrapped around a teddy bear that was a gift from Dad on her last birthday. She’d cried herself to sleep, muttering something aboutDaddyandcoming home.
This went on for days until one night, after Halle drifted off to sleep, I heard my mother’s quiet voice. “She hasn’t talked very much. Is she talking to you?”
I turn my head toward my mother, who’s staring at the ceiling. It’s not pitch-black because Halle doesn’t like sleeping in the dark.I don’t either.So I can see the tears on my mom’s face, and it makes my heart hurt that she’s so sad. My grandparents are here, staying in one of the guest rooms, as well as my aunt and one of my dad’s brothers. So the house is full, and I can hear noises of them shuffling around, cleaning and cooking, and doing what my grandma says is “what you do” when someone dies.
I can’t believe I know someone who died. It just means…they’re gone? Forever? He was just here. How can he just be gone?
Remembering she asked me a question, I answered, “That she misses him. And…she asked me not to leave her.”
She lets out a breath and rubs her forehead. “Would you be okay with her living with us?”
Doesn’t she already live here? Would she leave?Are we leaving too?“What do you mean?”
“I mean…I would take care of her. And I just wonder…if you’re okay with that. If I don’t, she’d go away and live with someone else. Maybe relatives or another family altogether.”
“What other family?” I frown because Halle is a part of my family.Did she want to go somewhere else? Somewhere without me?
“I don’t know.”
“So we wouldn’t know where she is?”
“Maybe not.”
“No. I want her to stay with us.” I squeeze Halle’s hand, hating the feeling that she could be ripped away at any moment.
“Okay,” my mom says, then turns to her side away from me and lets out a sniffle. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t protect you from this, Sebastian, but…you did so well. Protecting Halle and keeping you both safe. She’ll never forget that.”
Even then, at five years old, I hoped she would.
Present Day
I’m lying behind her with my chest pressed against her back as my body curls around hers protectively. I have a hand resting against her bare stomach as my other hand plays with hers. I press a kiss to her shoulder and then another and another, trailing up the slope of her neck until I get to the W behind her ear. I kiss it gently, and she shivers. “It feels like a lifetime ago,” she whispers. “Yet I still remember every second of those ten minutes when everything changed.” I press another kiss to her neck and hold her tighter against me, hoping she feels my heartbeat against her back. “I think about something happening to you sometimes, and it feels like I can’t breathe.” She lets out a shaky breath. “You’re so far away. Sometimes I can’t even feel you.”
“You can because I can always feel you.”
“Wild…”
I press another kiss on her shoulder. “Saint.”
“I think…” I can hear the nerves in her voice. “I think we should try…”
“Try…?” I question even though I know what she’s going to say.
She spins around in my arms and gives me a look that I’ve never been able to say no to. A look that’s soft and vulnerableand somehow so fucking sexy. “You and me. Us.This.” Her face is so close to mine that I can feel her breath on my skin.
“It’s not that simple.”I fucking wish it were.
“No, but we’ve dealt with tougher things.”
I swallow nervously, hating that this is the one thing in the world that I haven’t been able to give her when I vowed to give her anything she ever wanted. “Baby, we’ve talked about this.”
“Yes.” She pulls out of my grasp and sits up on the bed. She turns on the lamp on her side table, illuminating her naked chest and her shoulder-length dark waves that I made bigger from pulling on them while my dick was in her mouth. “But we are older now, and I want to make sure thatweare really willing to accept the fact that we don’t get to be happy because we are worried about what people will think.”
