“She’ll always be our daughter,” I said, kissing his arm. “No one is ever going to be good enough. And I get you. They’re going to have their own mountains to climb, just like we did…but I’m begging you. Don’t be one of the things they have to overcome, too. All I want, all I have ever wanted was for all of you to be healthy and happy.”
Again, he leaned against me, putting his head on mine. “I’ll kick his ass when he can move his ass.”
I held on tightly, laughing, and he wrapped his arm around me. “Do you need a shot gun and a rocking chair, too?”
He snickered and then groaned. “Over three hundred million people in this country. Five million in this damn city, and they pick each other?”
“You don’t pick who you love. You just love.” That’s why love was so maddening…once you fell, there was no right or wrong. You just had to surrender to it.
“Don’t go encouraging them until…until…” Until he could accept it.
“Okay.” It was a crazy request, but what could I do? I loved him, and that’s what he needed. So, I surrendered, knowing he loved Helen, hat he’d learn to accept her choice.
WYATT
Rose?
The scent filled my nose, and when I felt the warmth I knew…
Helen.
She was next to me.
I didn’t know how many days had passed. I just knew the darkness. It was like being buried alive. Like they’d already put me in the coffin. It was dark and cold, and there was no room to move. They couldn’t hear me. But I could hear them, sobbing, praying, yelling...apologizing. I’d been to so many funerals growing up that sometimes I couldn’t help but wonder what mine would be like...I knew it would be a show. My Nana would send me out in style. I figured Ethan would give some carefully crafted speech, but still come off as if there was a stick up his ass. Dona wouldn’t say a thing….and Helen. I never thought about what her reaction would be. But it didn’t matter because I was wrong. I was wrong about everything. It wasn’t going to be some big send off. It was going to be regret.
Each time I heard them, I felt it…and heard it in their voices. Regret that we didn’t do more, that we didn’t act differently, that we never said what we were really feeling…and it hurt. The darkness didn’t bother me. The coldness didn’t bother me. They did. Their pain did, and the more they cried and begged, the more desperate I became to reach them. I thought when I heard Ethan’s cries…I’d hit rock bottom, that it couldn’t hurt any more than that, but I obviously knew nothing.
But when Helen came.
When I smelled the roses, and she screamed as if I were killing her…when I heard her begin to hyperventilate…I panicked. I couldn’t hear anything other than her struggling to breathe…
Help!
Please help!
Not me. Her. Helen! Come on, baby, breathe! Then it was like the lights were suddenly turned on for a brief second. I didn’t know how, but then everything was so bright. And when I looked, there he was… my ass of an older brother, with red eyes and a stupid grin on his face.
HELEN!
I tried to scream out to him, but my mouth wouldn’t open. And just like that, my eyes closed again, and the light was gone. But I had an escape. I knew what to do. I just thought of that sound…her gasp for air, and when I did…just like that, my eyes opened.
“Wyatt?”
I felt her hand on my face. Slowly, she came into focus. She had cuts all over her brown face. Her hair was a tangled mess, and worse, her natural scent was mixed in now with the smells of the hospital…but even still, she was beautiful.
“You nearly gave me a heart attack,” she whispered, her eyes filling with tears. “Stop leaving me.”
Blinking, it took all my strength to respond, “I…I’m…not…go…going…any…where.”
How could I? When she was apparently my driving force.
“Good, we’re going to have to a long talk,” Uncle Declan grumbled as he came up beside us, glaring down at me.
“Dad—”
“I…look…for…forward…to…it,” I replied, and when the look on his face didn’t change, I tried to smile, adding, “Sir.”
He clicked his tongue, but didn’t say anything, causing Darcy to stand up beside him. “You do know we’re going to have to fight about this later.”