Footsteps startle me as I lean in to get a bottle of water and I gasp, pulling my hand out quickly and dropping one on my foot.
"Babe, you need to see someone," Cole says, flicking the light on, making me blink rapidly while he rubs his eyes.
"I'm fine," I mutter under my breath and lean over to pick up the water bottle, but he stops me midway.
He picks it up for me and unscrews the top as he hands it to me. His tired eyes are serious as he looks at me. "If I'm not fine," he says, air quoting, "there's no possible way that you can be. We can go together."
My shoulders slump and I cast my eyes from his, leaning into his bare chest when he steps forward and holds me. "I just keep seeing him, hearing him," I whisper against him.
"I know," he whispers as he finger combs my hair softly.
I close my eyes and nod slowly. "He said Alex is my father," I whisper, voicing it out loud for the first time since I heard it.
His hand stills in my hair and he holds me tighter, his chest pushing into my cheek as he breathes in deeply. "It doesn't matter," he murmurs against my head. "It doesn't matter who our parents are, Blake. We are our family. I am your family. You are my family. That's it. That's all that matters."
I move my head up and down, robotically in agreement, but when I close my eyes I picture Benny's face, his words, and Alex crying over me in that basement. Apologizing to me for what he did. Apologizing to Cory. His one brown eye looking at me in agony as he saw me, and for a moment, it all makes sense—he saw her in me.
"Blake, breathe," Cole says as he lowers my body to the floor and holds my shoulders down. "Breathe in. Breathe out." He repeats the steps until I begin to follow his directions. When I take the last deep breath, I know I beat the impending panic attack. I close my eyes and fall into his body, hoping he'll catch me again.
The next time I blink my eyes open, I'm wrapped up in Cole's warm arms and he's tracing the stitches on my hairline-courtesy of Benny's knife.
"You didn't go back to sleep?" I ask quietly, pulling away a little, not wanting him to touch things that taint me.
He tilts his head and gives me a small smile. "You're beautiful, you know that?" he whispers, going back to tracing my stitches.
Water pools my eyes and I shake my head softly. "I'm going to have a scar...forever," I whisper back.
"So am I," he responds gravely. He leans into me and sprinkles soft kisses around my stitches before pulling back and looking at me, his eyes so full of intensity and love that it makes my heartbeat quicken. "Scars are a part of the healing process," he says quietly while tracing it again with his fingers. "We're going to be okay."
I nod slowly and close my eyes as I lean into his touch. We lay together for a while, holding each other.
"I made an appointment to see a therapist today," he says after a while.
My body goes rigid. "Can we go another day?" I ask in a whisper.
He tightens his hold on me, burying his face into my neck and taking a breath. "Normally, I would be okay with that, Blake, but no. We're not going to start pushing this back. The appointment is at two o'clock and that's when we're going. Today."
I feel myself stop breathing. I don't know if I can do this. I don't know if I can speak to somebody about my nightmares, about my past, about what's happened to me in the past year. I don't know if I want to. It's not like I haven't been to a therapist before, I have. But I usually leave out things I don't want to delve into and with Cole there with me I know that won't happen. And ultimately, I'm scared.
He pulls back from me and tilts my chin to look at him. "We're scars, baby, we need to start our healing process...together. You don't have to be scared. I'll be there with you. We'll hold each other's hands through it, like we always do," he says softly.
I blink back my tears. "Can we visit Dean in the hospital after?" I whisper.
"Yes, baby. We'll go there when we're done," he replies as he kisses the tip of my nose. "And when we're done there, Aimee is going to come pick you up and you're going dress shopping with her while I go pick out suits with Aubry."
Once I manage to close my mouth and swallow, I furrow my eyebrows. "We don't have a wedding date yet. Or a location. We haven't even talked about it!" I reply with a short laugh.
"Next week. Courthouse," he says, getting up from the bed and adjusting the elastic of his black boxer briefs.
I blink a couple of times to make sure that this isn't some weird dream I'm having, and sure enough looking around, I realize that it's real. I lie back in an exhale and watch his back retreat to the bathroom as I try to figure out what I wanted for a wedding and come up short. I never really wanted anything because I never thought I would actually get married. I mean, of course it was fun to pretend that Cole and I would get married someday, but we were teenagers when we used to talk about it. I guess the courthouse is fine. My eyes drift closed again with that thought in mind.
Vibrating sounds wake me up, making me swing my hand to my nightstand as I blindly feel around for my phone. I pick it up and swipe the screen with my eyes still closed.
"Hello?" I mumble groggily at the still vibrating phone. I suck my teeth and finally pull my eyes open to look at it and swipe over Aubry's sapphire blue eyes. "What?" I bark out.
"Somebody's moody. Why are you still sleeping? It's like twelve," he says.
"What do you want?" I groan.
"Just checking to see how you're doing."
"Fine. I'll talk to you later," I respond, really hoping to go back to sleep.
"Wait! Cowboy, I have a question for you," he says, making me rub my eyes and sit up with a sigh.
"What's up?" I ask, trying to stifle a yawn.
"Cole called me about looking for suits later for your wedding. He says you're just gonna go to the courthouse. You okay with that?"
"I guess," I respond with a shrug. "I hadn't really thought of a wedding or anything. Why? What do you think?"
"I think you guys deserve a real wedding. You have the money. I know Momma wouldn't want you guys just going to a courthouse and getting married. I still own her house, you know. Haven't been able to sell it," he says, letting his sentence floa
t around in my mind for a bit.
"I thought you were renting it?" I ask, confused.
"Yeah well, they didn't pay me for the past three months so they got booted."
"I don't know, Aub. I mean, as nice as that would be, I'm not sure Cole would be okay with it."
"Just wanted to put it out there, Cowboy. I think you guys should think this through a little. I know you just wanna be married and it doesn't matter where you do it, but it should be memorable, don't you think?"
I nod my head in agreement before realizing he can't see me. "Thanks, Aub. I'll think about it."
I stretch my body before getting up to get ready. Once I'm out of the shower, I wrap a towel around myself and step into my closet, stopping at the dying sunflowers on my little table. I smile at the memory as I step into my jeans and put on my blouse before taking out the skeleton key to put around my neck. Aubry's words swim around in my head as I put my hair up in a high bun and I wonder how I should bring it up to Cole.
"Hey, beautiful," Cole says, making me jump and turn around.
"Hey," I reply with a smile.
"You're in a better mood, I hope," he says with a grin as he pushes off of the doorframe and strides over to me.
I wrap my arms around his neck and stand on my tiptoes, leaning into him when he scoops me up and sits me on the table behind me. I place feather kisses on every inch of his face before reaching his lips and placing one there. Not letting me back away, he grabs both sides of my face and groans deeply as he delves his tongue into my mouth.
"I love you," he murmurs against my lips. "Even when you're being a pain in my ass."
I laugh, rolling my eyes and slap his shoulder lightly. "I love you too."
"I love how that looks on you," he says, picking the key up from my chest before letting it fall back in place.