“Sure.”
She grabbed the keys, waved to Ava, and walked out.
That left me with Ava.
I turned toward the bed, her eyes on me, and my first instinct was to go tell Macie I would take the ride for the clothes. But as I moved closer into the tiny room, my desire to be near her won over. Seeing the bandage reminded me how fleeting it all is, and…
“Logan,” Ava said, sitting up in her bed.
Her simply saying my name had me almost jumping. I moved to the chair at her bedside, helping with the IV tube as she got comfortable.
“Can I get you anything?”
She shook her head as she drew her knees to her chest, her chin resting on top.
“I’m sorry for this.” Her voice was so quiet I almost didn’t hear her over the noises of the ER. “For today, this week, all of it. I hated seeing you crying on the way here.”
The wetness returned to my eyes. I didn’t want to do this here, of all places. But there was no holding back what was coming. I dropped my head to the mattress, gripping her good hand in mine as I brought it to my mouth. The strained sob I let go against her skin had her reaching for me, her fingers raking through my hair.
“Ava,” I croaked out. “When I saw you, on the floor, covered in blood, I thought…my mind thought…that you…and it was your wrist…fuck Ava, I thought I lost you.”
I howled at the thought, my heart racing, but so thankful she was here next to me.
Touching me.
“Logan,” she said, crawling closer to me on the small bed. “I’m so sorry I scared you like that. My god, to have thought that, to have seen me and thought that, I’m so sorry.”
She didn’t understand the magnitude of what it really meant.
“Ava,” I started, looking up at her. “I haven’t talked about my real father too much. You know that we didn’t have a great relationship, and that he was a bastard to me and my mom.” I stalled, reconsidering if this was a good idea. But looking at her, and the fact that we were talking again, I went with it. “Matt is like my dad for so many reasons, but one of them is because my real father is dead.”
She could tell I wasn’t finished by looking at me. Sitting back, she granted me the time I needed to continue.
Eventually, I found it in me to say the words.
“He committed suicide when I was a junior in high school.”
Her slow blink and swallow made my tears more abundant for some reason.
“I blamed myself for a long time. I thought I caused him to do it because I refused to see him for a couple years before.” As I tried to hold in my sob, it made it worse, the sound echoing in our small space. “Ava, if I’d lost you, I don’t know what I would have done.”
She slid over on the small bed, patting the space beside her. I squeezed next to her as she enveloped me into her arm. If it weren’t for the metal bar holding her in on the other side, we would have fallen off. I gently held her around the middle as we both quietly cried for what we had, thought we lost, did lose…all of it.
The tears slowed, and I knew I should move before Macie returned, but I didn’t want to, she felt so good in my arms.
“This week was hard,” she said against the top of my head. “Harder than I expected.”
I nodded against her, not wanting to talk. Not wanting this moment to end.
“I’m sorry about what your father did, and that you felt in any way responsible.” She stroked my cheek as she spoke. “I’m sure you’ve since learned through therapy that you had nothing to do with it, that he wasn’t well.”
Again, all I did was nod.
“So, I couldn’t find the leggings you wanted, but I found those really comfy sweats you love…” Macie stopped talking midsentence when she walked in on us.
I started to get up from the bed, out of her hold, but Ava held me in place. Macie looked at us, curious, then smiled.
“I’ll leave the bag here.”
