I shake my head. Doesn’t he understand?
“You can.”
I can’t.
“You can,” he says. “Just breathe.”
My throat closes off.
“For me,” he says. “Breathe for me.”
For him. Breathe. For him?
Everything I do is for you, I think.
I close my eyes.
And breathe.
26. Where Tyson Touches upon the Inevitable
I OPEN my eyes. I’m lying on my side on a hard surface. Heat behind me, pressing me up against a chilled white wall. I should feel cramped, but I don’t. But then it hits me where I’m at and I start to shake.
In the bathtub, again. Because of the earthquakes.
“Shhh,” Dom says from behind me against my ear. “It’s okay. I’ve got you.” He pulls me close.
“I’m not fixed,” I mumble. Tears threaten to fall, and I try to hold them back as my throat works. “How come I’m not fixed?”
“It’s going to take time,” he says. “One day.”
“I hate this,” I say. The dam breaks and I weep bitterly. “I hate this.”
“I know,” Dom says.
“This isn’t what I want to be.”
“I know. Tyson, you know it won’t go away just like that.”
“I’m scared.”
“Of?”
“This. What if this is forever?”
“Then we’ll deal with it as we’ve always dealt with things: one day at a time.”
“She ran from us.”
He kisses my neck. “I know.”
“I ran from you.”
“I know, baby.”
“I can’t forgive her. I can forget her, but I can’t forgive her. No matter how hard I try. She ran from us because that was all she could do. She couldn’t breathe and so she ran and ran, and I think she’s still running and I don’t think she’ll ever stop. She has Izzie, but she’ll never stop running.”
“Some people can’t, Ty.”