The Boy Who Has No Redemption (Soulless 8)

A smile was in her voice as usual. “I’m doing good. What about you?”

“No complaints.” I didn’t want to tell her about all my horrible dates, how I hated seeing her son every day, that he tried to get me back and I shot him down so quick—like a dunk. “Lizzie has been using her mitt for her games.”

“Oh, that’s great. I’m glad she still likes it.”

“Yeah, she loves it. So, what’s new with you?”

Now, there was a long pause, a really long pause.

My eyebrows furrowed. “Cleo?”

“Well…I wanted to talk to you about Derek. I’m sure you’ve noticed he’s been a little different lately.”

“Yeah, I did notice.” He wasn’t even working part time because he took so much time off. He didn’t seem to concentrate at work. His mind was always elsewhere. “I asked him about it, but he’s never given me an answer. Is he okay?”

“He didn’t want to tell you, but I think you should know.”

My god, my chest was so tight I could barely breathe.

“About six weeks ago…we found out I have cancer.”

When I returned to the warehouse, Derek was standing at his workbench, but just like earlier, he seemed distracted. He stared at the wall across the room, his fingers fidgeting with the pencil between them. He took time off to be with his parents, but the days he was there, he didn’t get anything done because he was so stressed out.

Now it all made sense.

I walked to the desk, and just like earlier, he didn’t notice me. Whatever he was thinking about took up his entire brain, and he didn’t pick up on the sound of my heels on the floor, the closing of the door behind me.

Normally, I stopped across from him, keeping the desk between us.

This time, I went around and walked right up to him.

When he picked me up in his line of sight, his eyes shifted and focused on me. He didn’t jump like last time, but he inhaled a deep breath when he realized I was there, that he wasn’t making it up in his head. His hand dropped the pencil onto the stack of papers as his eyes narrowed on my face.

My eyes were wet from the tears I’d shed in my office, thinking about the burden Cleo carried by herself, about the idea of losing such a good person from this world. When I thought about how much it affected Derek, it made me cry harder. And thinking about Deacon…who loved her more than himself.

He stared at my face, his eyes starting to mirror mine, knowing that I knew.

That I knew everything.

I slowly moved into him, and my hands made contact with his arms, my fingertips gripping his muscular frame for the first time since before Christmas. My palms slid over his body as I came closer, as I inched into his body, taking my time to make sure he was responsive to my affection.

My arms wrapped around him, and I held him against me, squeezing him into my chest, my fingertips digging into his clothing because I needed a good grip. This embrace wasn’t just for him, but for me too, because I loved his mother with my whole heart.

He didn’t reciprocate at first. His arms just hung there for a second, like he might push me away and step back, but then his thick arms wrapped around me, squeezed me harder than I squeezed him, and he started to cry.

His face moved into my neck, his wet tears sticking to my warm skin, his chest rising and falling with heavy breaths. He held me tighter, held on to me like he needed me as his anchor, as his crutch so he could continue to stand strong.

My hand cupped the back of his head, and I let him lean on me, let him let everything out, my own tears falling down my cheeks and dripping into the fabric of his gray shirt. He breathed deeper and harder, his cries turning into sobs.

I closed my eyes and listened, listened to him fall apart in my arms.

He sat across from me on the couch in his office, where he used to sit when we had lunch together back when times were good. His elbows were on his knees and his hands were together, his face puffy from the tears he’d shed, his eyes red from the constant dryness. “She’s been in chemo for a while. But we don’t have enough data to determine what the outcome will be. The tumor is shrinking, but…” He inhaled a deep breath and stopped talking, like it was too much. “When they told me, I broke down. I can’t even recall what happened. I ended up in the hallway somehow. And you know who came after me? She did. She held me, said everything would be alright, and that I needed to take care of my dad.” He pressed his palms into his face for a moment as he calmed himself so he could keep talking. When he pulled them away, he released a loud sniff. “Who does that? She’s the one with fucking cancer, and she’s taking care of us.”