Chapter Nineteen
One rather long nap, one short and much protested bath later, Nikki found herself back in the car with Sarah. It wasn’t quite dark yet, but by the time they reached the swanky neighborhood on the other side of the town where all the best Christmas lights were, it would be.
“You said cocoa!” Sarah protested.
She had. Christ. And since she had a whopping total of fifty bucks left in her bank account and another three days to payday, only one of them would be getting it. “We’ll get you some cocoa, baby.”
Hitting a drive-thru, she paid more for a single cup of cocoa than it cost to buy the ingredients and make a gallon at home. Nikki placed it in the cup holder up front before looking at her sister in the rearview mirror. “It’s got to cool a little bit first, then you can have it.”
“Fine.” Sarah pouted.
Looking back at her sister, Nikki asked, “What’s the deal with you tonight? Why the attitude?”
“I wanted Joe to look at the wights with us!”
That only cemented her earlier resolve. Nikki knew then that it was time to cut him out of their lives before Sarah got any more attached, or before she did. “Well, he had to work. We’ll see him later, I’m sure.”
It was a lie. She would see him later, and she would be sure that Sarah didn’t. That kid didn’t need anyone else to miss in her life.
The rest of the drive was fairly uneventful. Sarah forgot her earlier disappointment and oohed and aahed over the pretty lights. Nikki couldn’t even bring herself to care all that much. Every part of her hurt in anticipation of letting him go. But what could she do? She wouldn’t allow a mate to consume her life and take her away from her sister. She couldn’t do that to her.
She turned the car toward home, and immediately regretted the decision. Traffic on the parkway was at a complete standstill. “Just shit,” she muttered.
“You said a bad word!”
“It’s only a bad word if you’re not a grown up,” Nikki fired back at Sarah.
After a few minutes, traffic began to creep forward. She could see emergency personnel and vehicles up ahead. Whatever had happened to stop traffic had happened not far in front of them at all.
As they crept past the EMS and fire crew, Nikki felt her heart stutter. The mangled motorcycle was barely identifiable, but the broken pieces of plastic and glass that littered the pavement were the same cherry red as Joe’s bike.
Oh, god. Oh, god. Oh, god. No. No. No. No.
The litany of prayers and protests that rambled on a circuit in her mind was barely comprehensible.
She glanced in the rearview mirror at Sarah. Even in her car seat, she was too little to see over the side and take in any of the damage. That was at least something to be thankful for.
As they rolled past the accident scene, a sick dread and the awful weight of regret swamped her. She didn’t even know if it was him. Only that it could be. He might be gone for good. And the thought left her with such unimaginable pain that she couldn’t even fathom why she’d thought she’d be able to just let him go. It was too late to try and stop herself from loving him. That ship had sailed the moment she’d met him.
“We have to get home, baby. The weather’s getting bad,” she said, striving for a somewhat normal tone.
Sarah had one of her old dolls and was happily chattering to it, oblivious to the fact that their whole world might have just been upended again.
Driving carefully, hands gripping the wheel until her knuckles were white with the force of it, Nikki made it back to their tiny house and got her sister inside.
She waited for the sound of his bike, for the ringing of her phone. She listened for even a hint of footsteps on the porch. All the while, she went through the motions of preparing dinner, feeding Sarah, reading her a bed time story, getting her all tucked in and ready for Santa. Even to the point of putting out cookies and milk. Yet the whole time, Nikki felt like she was dying inside.
When it was safe, when Sarah was sound asleep, Nikki dug her phone out of the bottom of her purse. There were no texts from him, no missed calls. There was no sign that anything was wrong, but that didn’t stop her heart from breaking all over again, because there was also no reassurance that everything was okay.
She opened up her contacts and her thumb hovered over his name and number. If he answered, she’d know he was fine. If he didn’t, she’d be right back where she was, not knowing if he was dead or alive, or laying in some hospital alone and hurting. In the end, she sat like that for the longest time, afraid to know the truth.