“We’ll regret it tomorrow.”
“It’s worth the risk.” My gaze trails along the soft curve of her throat, the faint rise and fall of her chest. I trace the line of her jaw, the curve of her shoulder, memorizing every detail I thought I’d forgotten. “You’re worth it, Emma Jones.”
Her lips crash into mine as soon as I say her name. The sound of it seems to undo her completely. I melt into the kiss, into her. She climbs over me, wraps me up in her warmth, kissing me like her life depends on it. Iknow mine does.
We sleep in the same bed for the first time since the accident, and I dream of her. Of her now and back then. Pieces of her that made me fall in love for the first time, pieces coming back to the surface. This time, they’re coming at me harder and faster, penetrating deep in my soul. And I realize falling in love with her a second time is inevitable.
Chaptertwenty-five
Emma
When Things Started Breaking
I’veneverlikedhospitals.Definitely didn’t like them when the boys were born. I never understood Steven’s fascination with the place. Blank walls and harsh lighting are not my idea of a healing presence.
But today, Steven’s feelings about the setting seem to have dwindled as we sit in the surgery waiting area. His mom fell. Down two flights of stairs. The sheer thought of that woman stubbing her toe breaks my heart, and now we’re waiting to hear if they were able to repair her pelvis.
“I feel sick,” Jay groans into her hands.
“Don’t,” Tom barks at his daughter as he stands in the corner of the room like a statue. He’s taken the space closest to the waiting room phone, in case the surgeon calls, and has not moved in two hours.
“Dad,” Steven whispers calmly. But Tom’s eyes bore into him, enraged and unreceptive to any kind of comfort.
He’s angry. He stepped outside to water their garden when this happened. He left her alone for five minutes, and she fell.
The phone rings, and we all sit upright as Tom answers. His eyes are pinned on the wall behind us as he listens.
“Thank you.” He hangs the phone back on the receiver and rubs a hand across his jaw. “She needed a rod in her femur,” he says, pursing his lips. “But her pelvis will recover over time.”
I slump back in my chair, the waiting room adrenaline dissipating, replaced with sheer exhaustion. “Thank God.”
Steven releases my hand, the one he’s clung to since they wheeled Donna to the OR. He wraps his dad in his arms, and both of them deflate, the composure they both feel the need to uphold crumbling right before our eyes.
Tom whimpers into his son’s arms, and my heart splinters at the sight. The strongest man I know, terrified and guilt ridden, needing support. It’s strange how we convince ourselves we have to hold it together, to swallow weakness and be steady for everyone else. But in the end, even the strongest of us need someone to hold us up.
After another hour in recovery, we’re finally led to Donna’s room, and the fact that she has dementia is left at the door. Everyone swarms her room. Tom settles at the head of her bed, Jay and Shayna on either side, Steven at the foot, while India and Tamara share the recliner that sits too close to her face.
Donna’s eyes are withdrawn, lost, as they bounce around at the people surrounding her. I stay back, making myself small, trying not to disrupt.
She doesn’t say anything as her children tend to her every need, fluffing her pillows, straightening her blankets, massaging her hands. Though she’s confused about what’s going on, a small part of recognition flickers across her gaze, as if she knows these people are important to her. They must be for how much they’re fussing over her. My eyes burn, and my lips tremble as I watch them. Each of them loving their mother so deeply it creates an achy pit of longing in my chest.
I use Steven’s phone to text Ellie, asking for photos of the boys. She replies immediately. In the selfies she sends, she looks delightfully disheveled. Her hair is twisted into a tangled knot on one side of her head with a Spidey mask squashing half her face. Easton and Sawyer are piled on top of her, one in an Iron Man mask, the other in Darth Vader. What littleof their faces I can see is smeared with pasta sauce, while dark circles and fine lines cover Ellie’s.
Me: You’re doing great haha!
Ellie: Never again. How’s Donna?
After filling her in on Donna’s prognosis and recovery plan, I click out of the messages. But before I pocket the phone, my gaze snags on an obscure text thread at the bottom of the screen.
L.P.
A part of me knows who it is before I even open it. But I have to be sure.
And there, on Steven’s phone, is a recent conversation between him and Liam, the man that abandoned my sister at the altar—when I had begged him to not speak to him out of respect for Ellie. He knew I didn’t mean forever, but it’s only been a few weeks since he abandoned her at the altar. Speaking to Liam feels like a betrayal to Ellie. To me.
He didn’t tell me. Again.
And he tried to hide it by changing his name to just initials?
