It would’ve been easy to let our kiss consume me. This man made me feel things I’d never experienced in ways I never imagined possible. There wasn’t vocabulary to express the depth of what was happening between us.
But I didn’t have time to try. Eric broke away, his eyes shifting behind me.
The coroner was there. It was time for me to move on.
The nurses hadn’t rushed me. They’d suggested I spend as much time with the body as I needed. The body. I refused to think of my father as an empty vessel, but I couldn’t stand sitting with his lifeless form, mocking me with stark proof of my denial.
Now he was being wheeled away under a white sheet, and I wasn’t ready.
I needed more time.
My fists pressed against my aching chest as I held back the temptation to chase down the coroner. He probably felt nothing, carting a dead man away. This was just his job. He’d probably done it thousands of times.
But I wanted to scream at him. I couldn’t stand his indifference. This wasn’t just another corpse. Did he understand the gravity of this moment? Did he know that even though this was the end, I wasn’t ready to let go?
A painful sob bubbled up, escaping before I could stop it.
I tried tamping it down with borrowed strength from the man behind me, his arms wrapped firmly around my middle. Without Eric’s tight grip holding me back, I might’ve chased after that gurney.
But Eric held me until I stopped straining against him. Until my urge to run was gone. Until raw desperation deflated and left me sagging against him in defeated despair.
“That’s it. I’m getting you out of here.” His voice was low, commanding.
“I don’t think I can leave.” The words felt disconnected from me, my mind fogged with sorrow.
“You need peace and comfort at home, not strangers in a hospital.” His arms tightened around me possessively. “Come on. I’ll carry you if I have to.”
“No.” Survival instincts took over. Ten years ago, I’d chosen to leave my dad behind. Now I didn’t have a choice, but the will I needed to carry on felt achingly similar. “I can walk.”
Suddenly, leaving sounded like the most amazing idea. The only sensible option.
I could walk.
Better yet, I could run.
Chapter Thirty-One
Jamie
Sleep evaded me despite bone-deep exhaustion.
I rolled onto my side, then my back, the sheets tangling around my legs. My father’s death was playing on a loop in my mind. Not because of how he’d died or my moment of weakness saying goodbye. Not even our week of heated, sorrowful words.
It was all the years before. All the time we’d wasted, and all the anger that felt so pointless now.
Eric had told me the past was the past, and no amount of dwelling would ever change it. He was right, of course. I couldn’t move on if I stayed stuck worrying about things that were over. It was time to learn from my mistakes and move forward.
Figure out what the hell came next.
But it seemed impossible. I hadn’t just lost my father—everything had changed. Even me.
I pressed my palms against my eyes, trying to stop the spiral of thoughts. One week. The best and worst of my life. Long enough to realize my protective bubble was fragile as tissue paper and I was suffocating inside it.
Now that bubble had popped.
But even with opportunity stretched before me, it all felt out of reach. Like standing at the edge of a canyon, my old patterns waiting to pull me back while possibilities called from the other side. Between safety and hope stood a chasm of doubt and fear.
Without a bridge it was inconceivable.
