“Nash, where are you?” I begged him to tell me.
There was no sound on the other end, except for his ragged breathing. When he spoke, his strangled voice shredded my heart a little bit. “Velvet... I need you,” he pleaded.
“I’m on my way, baby. Where are you?” I fought tears. Nash was drowning in his pain, and all I wanted to do was put my arms around him, and hold him.
“The cemetery...” He choked on his words, but I had the information I needed.
“Okay, I’ll be there in about ten minutes,” I promised.
He hung up without saying anything else, and I planted my foot on the pedal.
I found him fairly quickly when I arrived at the cemetery. He was on his knees, hunched in front of a gravestone. It was an overcast, cold day, and he cut a forlorn figure in the distance. I hurried to where he was, out of breath by the time I got there. He heard me just as I got to him, and he turned his head to look at me.
The look of pure agony on his face threatened to rip my heart apart. The Nash hunched on the ground in front of me was not the Nash I knew. And yet, he was. This was the missing piece to Nash; the piece of the puzzle that had been missing for so long. I’d grown to love this man, but I’d often struggled to connect the two sides to him that he showed me.
I knelt next to him. I didn’t touch him, didn’t say anything. It was up to him now to do what he needed to do.
His anguished voice sliced through me. “He would have been thirteen this year.”
A sob escaped my lips. Oh, God. I hadn’t wanted it to be true, but it was.
“Aaron. That was his name.” His voice cracked, and he stopped talking. His pained stare locked onto mine. He needed me like never before.
I gently touched his arm. “What happened, baby?”
His chest rose and fell unevenly, and he expelled a long breath before finally giving me the missing piece of his story. “She cheated on me, over and fuckin’ over, but I wouldn’t have my son grow up without two parents so I tried to make it work. Fuck, the shit I put up with from her; that bitch should never have been a mother. Then, I fucked it all up myself. I’d been drinking, and her best friend threw herself at me, and I thought ‘to hell with it’. I wanted to make her fuckin’ hurt.” His wild eyes searched mine, frantically. “It was once. I only did it once. She found out, and went mental. Said she was gonna leave me and take Aaron, and never let me see him again. I was furious; no-one was taking my son from me. But she managed to get him into the car and she left. And that was the last time I saw my son.”
Nash had been ravaged by his grief, and my heart bled for him, for everything he’d lost. I moved closer to him, and placed my hand on his back, gently rubbing up and down. My touch seemed to calm him a little; enough to carry on.
“She crashed the car that day, and he died.” He breathed a long, deep breath in, and then blew it out. “And it’s my fuckin’ fault.” His eyes squeezed shut, and he began sobbing.
I couldn’t control my own tears, and they fell freely, too. My arms went around
him, and he clung to me. Heaving sobs wracked his body, and he buried his face against my chest. I placed my hand on his head, and stroked his hair. It was hard to see Nash like this. He was such a powerful force; to see him devastated like this, ruined in this way, was difficult.
I had to be strong for him though. Nash was at the point where he couldn’t take it for a second longer. He couldn’t deal with the pain that had haunted him for the last ten years; he needed me to help him through this.
After I’d let him get his grief out, and I felt his shudders subside, I whispered, “It’s not your fault, Nash.”
He slowly lifted his head to look at me with pained eyes. “It is, Velvet. If I hadn’t slept with her friend, she wouldn’t have taken him that day, and they wouldn’t have crashed.”
My heart was already hurting for his loss, but now it constricted in pain at the guilt he’d been carrying with him. Ten years was a long time to blame yourself for something that, ultimately, was out of your hands. I wiped the tears from his face, and said, “Yes, everything you did led you all to that day, but it wasn’t your choice for Gabriella to take your son, and it wasn’t your driving that was involved in that accident. You can’t blame yourself for the actions of other people.”
He was listening to everything I said, but I wasn’t sure if it was getting through so I tried another tack. “Nash, think about your mother, and your family. You guys had it hard, really fucking hard, because your father left. He walked out and left your mother pregnant, and with no money or support. He also left three other kids behind for her to raise on her own. It was a long, hard road for her, and for all of you. His leaving caused your life to be changed forever. Was it your mother’s fault he left?”
“No!” He seemed incensed that I would even suggest that which was exactly what I was hoping for.
“No, it wasn’t. None of us have control over another person’s actions. We might think we do, but when all is said and done, people will do whatever the hell they choose to do. Regardless of the situation, and regardless of whatever events cause that situation, the only control we have is over ourselves. If you’d had your way, Aaron would never have been in that car that day, and he would still be alive.” I took a breath. My heart was racing; I needed him to hear me, and understand that what I was saying was right. “It’s time for you to stop laying the blame for this at your own feet, baby. Your guilt is eating you alive.”
He stilled, and I knew he’d heard me. Really heard me. I just hoped it was enough to get him through the first hurdle. He had a lot of work ahead of him to sort through his pain, but his first step was going to be letting go of his guilt.
His chest heaved one last time, and slowly, his breathing returned to normal. We were on our knees, still clinging to each other. He held on for a couple more moments before letting me go. “I miss him. Every day, I fuckin’ miss him.”
I nodded. “I know, baby.” I reached for his hand, and held it.
He looked down at our hands, and squeezed mine before looking back at me. “I need you, Velvet. I’ve never needed anyone like I need you. If I’m gonna get through this, you have to be by my side.”
I curled my hand around his neck, and pulled his lips to mine. The kiss I gave him wasn’t passionate or sexy; it was a kiss full of love that told him I’d be right where he needed me. Our lips gently tangled, and our souls joined; we would do this together. When we pulled apart, I promised him, “I’ll be with you every step of the way, Nash.”