Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 72853 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 364(@200wpm)___ 291(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72853 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 364(@200wpm)___ 291(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
“Not Jace. It wouldn’t have been Jace. I wouldn’t have let it happen.”
“Sometimes, Rick, things happen whether we want them to or not. You can’t torture yourself thinking you could have saved him. You might have died too,” I say.
“Or it could be him being home safe with you and the rest of your family.”
“Stop it.”
Rick sighs. “I can’t stop. I don’t think I’ll ever stop thinking about it.”
This time, when I stroke his cheek and put a finger to his lips, it’s not to tell him to be quiet. I don’t want him to be quiet. He needs to get it out. I was wrong before not to let him say what he needed to say. I wait, my fingers resting against his bottom lip. Maybe that’s all there was. Maybe there is nothing else.
I look up, even if he wouldn’t want me to see him flayed open like this. His cheeks are wet, but his eyes are closed. His breathing is deeper.
“When was the last time you slept?” I whisper, smoothing his hair back. It’s damp along the edges of his face. “I mean, really slept?”
He doesn’t open his eyes, but he does lean into my touch. “Don’t know. A long time.”
A few of the wrinkles smoothen out on his forehead. He looks younger, smaller somehow. This hard, highly skilled, deadly man who needs someone to care so badly. Someone to keep watch. Someone to need him and want him, a heart for a heart.
It’s been over a year since my brother passed, and while I’ve been fighting with the grief, he’s been fighting too. Fighting the guilt along with the pain.
After I know he’s sleeping because his breathing is so even and peaceful, and he’s finally, finally not battling it out with me or himself or anything else, I slip out of bed. I pull up the covers, tucking them around him, and then I put on a fresh T-shirt and a pair of shorts. This night is probably going to feel like a fever dream for him. It feels a little bit like that for me too. It feels like I was dismantled and put back together all wrong. Painfully. All of me hurts for all of him.
He’s wrecked me and ruined me with his honesty and our shared pain, with his heavy loneliness and the simple human need to connect with another person.
I slip back into bed, on the other side, above the covers, but I rest my hand on Rick’s chest. He’s still breathing deeply and evenly, the way he should. If he has nightmares, I don’t think they’re hounding him now. My body is still electric, but I close my eyes. They’re heavy and gritty. My brain is exhausted, and I know if I lie here long enough, my body will eventually be as well. I’m not going anywhere. I’m going to keep watch. Even if I do that while I’m sleeping, I won’t leave.
This marriage, this agreement, and the letter might all have an expiration date, but I think we’re always going to be connected now. As more than just pen pals or text buddies or people who married and got an annulment.
Jace thought we needed each other.
Honestly, I thought he was wrong. But that was before.
Now? I think he might be so, so right.
Chapter eleven
Rick
Idon’t know what in the mooney loomy mooing cow I was thinking last night.
I suppose I wasn’t. My brain was pretty much cooked from lack of sleep. I can see how it’s a thing they use as torture and how it would be mighty effective. Not that I’ve ever been tortured. I haven’t. I’m just saying.
I expect Aspen to be cuddled up to me, soft and warm and full of pity that I know I’m not going to be able to even pretend to stand when I wake up, but the bed is empty.
She’s not here.
But I’m here, wrapped up snugly in sheets and a comforter that smells like Aspen. Fresh and airy. All flowers and clouds, honey and citrus.
I find my clothes once I make my way out of my cocoon. They’re not scattered on the floor like they should be but folded neatly at the end of the bed. It makes my face burn to think about Aspen tucking me in like a toddler, finding my clothes, and folding them. It makes me mortified beyond anything to think I came close to some kind of breakdown last night. I was just so, so, sooooo tired. Fuck me, I need to start sleeping more often.
When I don’t, lapses in judgment happen, apparently.
I don’t want her to take care of me. I don’t want to be a burden.
I’ve never had anyone care for me like that. Jace might have been like a brother, but he didn’t pick up after me. The closest he ever came to nursing me was stitching up my various injuries over the years, and I liked to pretend those never happened. I’m not one of the take-a-break or rest-and-recover types. We certainly didn’t do the sharing-with-tears thing. Yes, we told each other stuff. But no, it wasn’t anything like what happened with Aspen last night.