By instinct, I reached for the sheet of folded paper sitting on my nightstand, my hand shaking like a bitch and my stomach threatening to spill onto the floor.
I’d found it sitting on the backseat of my car. I’d wanted to think it discarded. Nothing of importance, but I knew the kid had left it there for me.
A message.
Tonight, I unfolded it for what had to be the millionth time because I couldn’t help but torture myself a little more.
My chest tightened when I stared down at the drawing.
A fucking fantastic rendition because the kid was amazing. Clever and talented and smart.
Captain America and a tiny Hulk were holding hands.
My eyes traced what was written at the bottom in the same handwriting I’d come to know so well. Words I heard like a voice.
My favorite.
Regret drove into me like a blunt, rusted knife.
Gutting.
A remnant of Melody’s voice clashed with the power of Hope’s.
I need you.
I was a goner.
So fucking gone.
And there was no finding my way back.
Every time I’d driven passed A Drop of Hope over the last nine days, I’d gunned my engine and sped by. Refusing to look that way because it brought on more memories and regrets than I knew how to deal with.
But this morning . . .
This morning there was nothing I could do but slow and look that way. Because everything felt different.
An awareness that thundered my heart and twisted my guts in a million knots of need.
My spirit thrashed and screamed.
Because I caught sight of the girl for the first time since I’d left her broken in her kitchen.
Body lush, Hope wearing one of those dresses that drove me out of my mind, the best goddamned thing I’d ever seen.
Considering the fact I was sure my sanity was slipping, I thought for a second I had to be hallucinating.
But there she was. Leaning over and reaching into the back of her SUV to pull out a supply box. That red, red hair whipped around her delicate shoulders when she quickly spun around.
Like she felt me the same way I felt her.
Our eyes locked through the windshield.
The world freezing.
Time suspended.
The two of us lost to a place that belonged only to us.
Grief lined every inch of her unforgettable face, and there was a weight in her eyes that I hadn’t ever seen there before.
I could almost hear the plea in the soft part of her full, full lips.
I need you.
Every cell in my body reacted.
Want.
Need.
Regret.
Shame.
The last snapped me back into reality, and I ripped my eyes away from her and floored the accelerator. The coward who had to get away.
It was time.
The way I’d reacted when I’d seen Hope that morning was clear proof of that.
I’d gone astray.
Gotten distracted.
I was pretty sure the second I’d realized Evan was Hope’s child, I’d known.
Fate warning me to watch my step. Telling me it’d do me well to take one back.
And I’d just run forward. Careless.
Reckless.
Selfish.
Pushing and pushing for something I wanted, but knew, in the end, I couldn’t keep.
The workday had passed in a daze. Every second had been a struggle to focus. A fucking herculean feat to pass out those damned lollipops like every single one of them didn’t nearly drop me to my knees.
I finished with my last patient and stumbled into my office.
I sank down at my desk in front of my laptop.
I had to take care of this.
It’d been a constant nag at the back of my brain. Problem was, it’d been met with so much resistance from my heart and spirit that I’d been avoiding it like the goddamned plague.
Maybe I’d been holding out, thinking I might discover the cure before this feeling became a sickness.
Because that was what I felt.
Sick.
Taking this final step.
Snipping the last thread that tied us together.
I’d already spoken with Dr. Acosta about taking over Evan’s care. I’d told her there was a conflict of interest, and I’d be more comfortable with her seeing him for his general visits.
The whole time I’d felt like I’d been committing a betrayal. Not because I couldn’t be there for him as his physician. But because I couldn’t be there for him at all.
I need you.
My chest squeezed when that voice hit me.
I tamped it down and clicked into his chart so I could write up my final notes on his care and transfer them over. That and send Hope the anonymous note that would let her know her son had the same heart defect that his aunt did, even though I couldn’t dig deep enough to find the exact records that would confirm it.
Records that should have been there lost.
Purged or hidden.
I didn’t know.
Either way, Hope would finally know.
At least I could give her this.
His chart popped up.
Evan Quinn Masterson.
A shudder rolled through me.
Unease.
A shrinking awareness.
Something was just intrinsically . . . off.