Chapter 26

Whenever I miss you, I look at my heart because it’s the only place where you still exist. - EK

Roxy

Aimee wasn’t the only Reaper that we lost that day. In a way, I think that death seems to follow me. Maybe I’m cursed, or maybe those around me just have the worst luck in the entire world. Boone had passed peacefully in his sleep the day Aimee’s body had been found. Not only was I trying to support Dracus through this tough time, but now my brothers as well. We hadn’t heard from Bolt in days. To my knowledge he didn’t even know Aimee had died yet.

Lloyd and George were okay, or at least they both seemed that way. Telling me that Boone was up there and they knew it was gonna happen one day or another. I knew that, and I could understand it. However, even when you expect death, it doesn’t make it any easier to experience it… to process the emotions of losing someone who meant the world to you.

Today was the day that we’d lay them both to rest. I stared in front of my vanity in the new house that Lloyd had built for Aimee, Dracus, Bolt, Tex, Kathryn, and I. When I stare at my reflection I see something I hadn’t in a long time.

Me.

I don’t see the scarred woman who haunts me.

I don’t look into myself and see a worn down girl who’s experienced so much pain and loss in her life. I see a girl who has fought a hard fight, who has loved stronger than anyone could have imagined. I see a survivor, knowing that whatever life may throw my way – I will persevere. I’m not alone in my pain, I have two men who are experiencing it as much as I, and one who I don’t even think has felt the agony yet. In our suffering there is strength, and together we are the strong. For not one of us is weak.

I run my hands over the soft olive colored lace dress that Aimee insisted I buy a while back. She told me it looked beautiful on me and how I needed to buy it, if not for myself, for her. I didn’t have the heart to tell her no, especially after everything we’d been through together. If buying this girly as shit dress would make her happy, I was going to do it. At least that day I got a smile out of my beautiful girl.

Today, is a day where we celebrate life. We don’t grieve it. We honor the memories that we shared with the ones we loved, who we still love now.

I will try hard to wear a smile on my face, remembering her, every time she made me laugh, or that devilish little smirk that told me she wanted to get into trouble. I won’t just remember Aimee, I’ll remember Boone – the man who wasn’t my father, but treated me as his own. The man who made a promise to my father, to protect and look after me. I think the two of them are up in Heaven looking down on me, probably sharing a good old glass of whiskey on the rocks, saying I gave them a run for their money on the daughter front.

I smile, thinking about just that, and then my father floats in my mind. The man… who raised me into the woman I am today. He taught me about strength, trust, and love. The three most valuable lessons I have ever learned. As I look over to my daughter in her crib, I think of the amount of trust and love I have for the men in my life, and the strength that we hold together.

Vince slides on his shoes, looking up from his seated position on the edge of the bed. “You want to go check on him?”

I nod, walking over to my sweet little Kathryn and give her a kiss on the forehead. Out of everything I’ve ever done in my life, she is my greatest accomplishment.

I walk out of the bedroom, down the hallway of our second story and go into what is dubbed the man cave, otherwise known as the smoking room. Dracus has kept his promise to me, not taking a sip of any alcohol for five days.

“Hey,” I murmur softly, as I open the door and enter.

He lifts his head, turning it towards me and gives me a soft smile. “You look beautiful.”

“Aimee said the same thing. She made me buy this dress,” I tell him, taking steps closer until I’m where he is seated, sliding onto his lap.

“I miss her,” he confesses lowly.

“You aren’t the only one. We all do,” I admit, taking my hand behind his neck, brushing it lightly with my fingertips.

“We were planning for our future… and now we don’t have one.”

“We still have a future, Drake. It’s just different now, an awful twisted future where Aimee isn’t here with us. But we still have a future, it’s just not what any of us expected it to be.”

“Mhm,” he mutters, pressing his face into my chest. I wrap my arms around his head, holding him close, wanting oh so badly to rip all of this pain from him.

I hear heavy footsteps darting up the stairwell, and instantly I can tell it’s more than one set. I turn to look at the doorway and see Lloyd and George. “We’re going to get started soon, but I needed to make something clear. Got me?” Lloyd says firmly, I nod my head as Dracus lifts his eyes to my brother.

George hands him leather, and I am putting two and two together in my mind.

“You and I talked months ago about you becoming a Reaper for Aimee. I sat you down and told you that I’d be honored to have both you and Bolt as a brother, but what I should have said is that you have always been a brother. Both of you. Any time I called on you, you both flew up here with her on your back. You’ve only shown me loyalty, trust, and true friendship. It’s why I have these, because you are a Reaper.” Lloyd tosses a leather cut at me and Dracus, I open it and on the back is the Reapers emblem with his name. I smile proudly, looking at the man whose lap I am on, and for the first time in a few days, he’s smiling too.

Somehow, right now – I feel like everything is going to be okay.