This guy.
This big, beautiful fucking man.
He shows me so much with that one look.I see the appreciation for me being here.The fear for his brother.The concern he has for everyone.
And then I see...
I see something I didn’t expect.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Reid
In the midst of drowningin fear for my brother, this beautiful woman has the strength to pull me out, or out enough that I don’t get lost in a sea of grief.
That’s twice tonight.Twice she has pulled me out of my mind, where I have relived one of my worst nightmares over and over again.Twice she soothed something inside of me that I didn’t realise had been simmering on the edge of exploding.I wanted the world to burn down until I felt her touch.
The first time, I had been lost in my own mind, imagining a life without my brother, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t see a future where life would get better.I couldn’t see a way to move on, or forward.People tell you it gets easier when you lose someone, that it will hurt less and less as time passes on.Yet I couldn’t even conjure up a fake scenario where it would be okay.Because nothing would ever be okay.Not if we lost him.
Then the memories of our lives as triplets hit me.I remembered the first time a kid tried to bully one of us and we went at them together.I remembered the first time we snuck out and got drunk, and the story Isaac told us about him having sex for the first time.Everything I could remember, things I had long forgotten, came flooding back in waves.It had been those last moments at the abandoned hospital that had hit me the hardest.I kept hearing the pain in his voice when he asked if it hurt me too.My eyes stung as I relived the moment of them rushing him through the double doors, the doctors yelling orders whilst he lay unconscious on the stretcher they rolled him in on.I felt like I was dying in those memories.They were slowly killing me, the sorrow and helplessness pulling me down.
Until Summer.Until I heard her whisper my name and I could feel her gaze on the side of my face.It broke me out of my haze.I thought I had conjured her up in my head, just like the memories of my brother.It wasn’t until she slid her hand down my arm and then took my wrist as she stood in front of me that I realised it wasn’t my imagination.This beautiful, kind, funny woman was really standing in front of me.She came to the hospital.For me.
I don’t deserve her.
Not this morning.Not in the hallway, where she comforted me and my brother.Not when she pleaded with a nurse to treat my hand here in the waiting room.And definitely not now, where she stays close, keeping me grounded.
I turn to her and get lost in the pale depths of her blue eyes, feeling the warmth, strength and love that reflect back at me.
Her eyes are always so expressive.
I’ve never had anyone look at me like this.I’ve seen desire, lust, obsession, anger, frustration et cetera, staring back at me, but never this.Never with warmth.Never withmore.
That word.More.So simple, yet it holds so much meaning and promise.
And it all started with this chick.
