SLEEP HAD NEVER come easily to me in this place. Ever since the night I had rushed into the ER, cuts and bruises scattered across my body as I’d screamed Megan’s name, the ability to drift out of consciousness and find peace had eluded me.
If I was being honest with myself, sleep and I hadn’t been friends for quite a long time before the accident. I couldn’t count the number of sunsets I’d watched blaze into the horizon, morning after morning, as I had counted down the days until graduation. It had felt like doomsday. The clock had been ticking, and freedom would soon be over. Like most of our friends, Megan had been thrilled. After four years, we had almost been done. All our hard work had paid off, and after crossing that stage with a fancy degree in hand, we would be set to go out and tackle the world—together.
Late at night, I would hold her as she slept. I’d watch the way the moonlight hit her dark chestnut hair and the way a small smile formed on her lips as she dreamed. I would watch her, and I’d worry. I’d worry about everything I’d so neatly kept from her over the years. As far as she had known, I was going to work for my dad. It had been what most of our friends were doing as well, so it should have been no big deal. Except, I wouldn’t have been going to work for my dad. I would have been handing my freedom over to him on a silver fucking platter. He’d shown me the status of the company, and we hadn’t been doing well. They had been counting on me to turn things around, and it wouldn’t have happened overnight.
My life had been about to change drastically, and I hadn’t even told her.
Would she have hated me? Would she have resented me for bringing her blind into a situation?
I had planned on telling her everything after our trip to Hawaii, but I’d never gotten the chance.
She’d died, believing our life would have been perfect, and God willing, I would have given everything to make it so.
Am I making the same mistake with Lailah by withholding the truth about Megan’s accident?
As the first light from morning cast its rays through the bedroom window, I looked down at the angel sleeping in my arms. Her long blonde strands fell across her body like a golden silk sheet, and I couldn’t stop myself from bending down to kiss her bare skin.
Her eyes fluttered open, and she smiled.
“Good morning,” she said softly, her voice still groggy from sleep.
“Morning,” I replied. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“You can wake me like that anytime.” She grinned shyly, stretching her body in an innocent way that looked anything but. Her arms went above her head, which accentuated her bare breasts and hips. She arched her back and lifted her knees while she let out a small sigh.
“What?” she asked as she curled back into me.
“That was the sexiest thing I think I’ve ever seen.”
“What was? Me stretching?” she asked. “You’re insane.”
Reaching out, I placed my hand on top of hers and guided it across my stomach and down to the apex of my thighs, letting her fingers brush against my sensitive skin under the sheets. When fingertips reached my hard and ready cock, she gasped.
“Does that feel insane to you?” I asked.
I didn’t expect her to answer my question by touching me nor had I anticipated her eager small hands to boldly reach out and grip my shaft.
“Shit!” I cursed through my teeth.
Her hand stilled, and she looked up at me. “Was that wrong? Am I supposed to grip it harder…or softer? I’m sorry. I suck at this, don’t I?”
Her hand was still gripping me, and I was going to pass out soon if she didn’t start moving her palm again.
“You know I love it when you babble. It’s damn cute. So, please don’t get mad at me when I say this, babe,” I said before pausing. I waited until she met my gaze. “Shut up, and for the love of God, please keep going.”
Red stained her cheeks, and a sly grin spread across her face. “Like this?” she asked as her blessed hand moved back up my dick and slid back down.
My head fell back as I groaned. “Yes,” I answered.
I was so completely taken by the feeling of her hand moving up and down my cock to notice that she was moving, shifting around, until her body was facing me. I felt her knees brush against my thighs as she straddled me, and I looked up.
“Those books you got me in the library,” she started, rubbing a slow circle with her thumb on my sensitive tip. “They were very educational in certain areas of study…and I’d like to, um…try something,” she said, the blush spreading further down her neck.
“I thought we were going to read those books together,” I joked, positioning myself up on my elbows so that I could watch her stroke me.
“Maybe later,” she replied. “But I wanted to read a couple first by myself.”
“Why?” I asked.
She leaned forward, her eyes still trained on me. “So I could learn to do things like this,” she answered.
She bent forward, and I watched her tongue dart out before licking my shaft from root to tip.
“Holy fuck!” I shouted as her warm, wet mouth closed over my cock.
Eyes the color of ocean water met mine as her mouth moved up and down, her cheeks hollowing as she sucked and licked. There was no hesitation, no second-guessing or doubting herself. She was fierce and confident as she loved me. I watched every single second, and it was sexy as hell.
“I need to be inside you, Lailah,” I managed to say.
One last lick, and she was crawling up my body, scattering kisses up my torso and chest. Her hair fell forward as soft pink lips found mine, and a beautiful sun-kissed cocoon of golden strands surrounded us.
I reached into the drawer next to the bed and grabbed a condom from the box I’d bought. This was something I would never forget. I’d read Lailah’s chart backward and forward. I knew the risks if we ever forgot this simple step. Other men could risk an accidental pregnancy with their girlfriends but not me, not when it could kill her.
Reaching down between us, I slid on the condom and then brushed my fingers along the inside of her thighs. She was already wet and ready for me.
“Are you sore?” I asked, softly rubbing my thumb over her clit.
“No,” she answered softly, the blush slowly returning to her cheeks.
She’d just given me a blow job—her first, no less— that had damn near killed me, and she was now blushing over the mere mention of us making love last night.
The pads of my fingers danced across her pink cheekbones. “Never lose this. I love the way you look when you blush,” I said, gazing up at her.
I positioned myself and joined our two bodies together once again. Her look of pure rapture would stay with me until the day I died. Her eyes unfocused as she pushed back against me.
“That’s it, angel,” I coaxed.
Her hips began to grind back and forth against me. My hands ghosted up her thighs and wrapped around her waist as I sat up. I wanted to touch her everywhere, all at once, and brand myself to every inch of her skin. Being inside her, feeling her wrapped tightly around me as she wound her body around mine, felt like coming home. She was the solace I hadn’t realized I was searching for. She gave me strength and peace and a reason to watch the sun rise again.
She continued to ride me as I met her thrust for thrust while I gripped her shoulders and slammed into her with wild abandon. Always conscious of her health and how quickly she could get tired, I grabbed her and flipped us, so she was on her back against the mattress. Eyes locked, she wrapped her legs around me as we moved together. She moaned and cried out as my thumb grazed the sensitive flesh of her clit.
“Oh God, I’m going to come!” she screamed seconds before she tightened around my cock. She broke apart, shaking and crying out my name.
It was like music to my fucking ears.
Every thrust I made while she climaxed sent me spiraling closer and closer to my own release. As the orgasm took over her body, she squeezed my cock like a vise until I lost control, slamming into her. Fireworks exploded as my body came so hard that I collapsed down beside her.
Lying on my side, I lightly kissed the smooth curve of her shoulder before reaching up to briefly touch my lips to hers.
“You said you wanted to take me somewhere today,” she said.
I smiled. “Yes, I do. But first, I think we need to make a trip to the library.”
Her eyes widened as her lips rounded with humored shock. A pillow was launched at my face seconds later.
Probably deserved that.
“Why are we back at the hospital?” Lailah asked as we pulled into the familiar parking lot.
“This is where I wanted to take you,” I answered before stepping out of the car.
I went around the front to grab her door.
“You know I’ve been here a few times before, right?”
She smiled as I took her hand, and we headed toward the entrance.
“Yes, smart-ass, I know that, but you haven’t been to where I’m taking you.” I brought our joined hands to my lips, and I kissed each knuckle.
As we approached the double doors, I stopped and turned toward her. “This is something I need to do…” I started before taking a long deep breath. “To move forward. I want you to be with me.”
Her expression turned tender, and she nodded. “Of course. I don’t want to be anywhere else,” she answered.
She silently followed behind me as we made our way through the hospital and down to the lonely long hallway I’d claimed as my own. When we reached the wide wooden beach, I stopped and turned to face the closed door of my past.
“This was where she left me,” I said, “where she took her last breath.”
The doctors, her parents—they were all wrong.
They didn’t understand, they didn’t realize how strong she was, how strong we were.
She would fight.
She would fight for us.
Because if she wasn’t here, I wouldn’t know how to go on. I couldn’t face this life without her.
“Son, it’s time to say good-bye,” Megan’s father said through choked tears as his hand rested on my shoulder.
I looked up to see red-rimmed eyes staring down at me. His eyes reminded me so much of his daughter.
“No,” I whispered, my head shaking back and forth, as tears poured down my face.
She wasn’t dying.
She couldn’t.
We had to get married.
I looked down to her empty ring finger where I’d placed her engagement ring not two weeks earlier. The paramedics had cut it from her hand in preparation for surgery, and it had never been returned.
This couldn’t be happening. Any second now, I’d wake up, and Megan would be lying in my arms. She’d be happy and whole, and all of this would be nothing more than a terrible nightmare.
But deep down, I knew there was no waking up from this.
“We’re going to give you a few minutes alone with her,” Megan’s mother said before a door clicked.
I looked around the sparse room. It beeped and hummed as Megan slept before me. Her head was wrapped in white bandages, and bruises and scrapes covered her perfect skin.
Gently taking her hand, I traced the lines of her palm and watched her features for some sort of response. But like the hundreds of times before, there was nothing.
“Please come back to me,” I begged. “I can’t do this. I don’t know how to say good-bye to you.”
My head fell forward, and I kissed our joined hands.
Loud beeping and alarms jolted me upright, and I watched as nurses poured into the room, trying to push me out of the way.
Megan’s parents rushed in, and I watched as her mother collapsed to the floor, crying out in agony.
With my hand still clutched in hers, everything happened in a blur, and soon, the nurses and doctors slowed before turning toward us with blank expressions.
“I’m sorry. She’s gone,” the doctor announced.
“I never got to say good-bye,” I said, turning toward Lailah as she took my hand. “I think I’ve been refusing to do so ever since. I can’t tell you the number of hours I’ve spent in this hallway, staring at that door while sitting on this bench. I wasted years here.” A strangled laugh escaped my lips. “God, she would kick my ass if she knew how I ended up.”
“You’re not that person anymore,” Lailah reminded me. “She would be proud of the man you are today, and the journey you took to get here.”
Reaching up, I caressed the soft skin of her cheek. “It brought me to you. But now, it’s time I say good-bye,” I said, turning toward the bench. “I lost contact with Megan’s parents after I refused to attend the funeral. I wasn’t in a good place back then, and the only way I knew how to cope was by pushing everyone I knew away. They didn’t deserve that. They were always so good to me. They had this bench put in place when they found out I was still here. I guess they thought it might help me mourn in some way. I’m not even sure I understood the meaning of the word until recently.”
She took a seat, and I watched her fingers trace the golden edge of the plaque that had been placed the day before.
“Life: It goes on. It’s a Robert Frost quote,” she said as her fingertips brushed across the elegant script.
I joined her on the bench and smiled. “Yeah, she loved that quote. She had it taped on the visor of her car as a little reminder to keep going when things got tough. She was a constant force of positive energy, and she never would have wanted me to let life pass me by while I sat in this hallway, waiting for her to come back.”
“Thank you for sharing this with me,” she said, skimming her hand over the shiny brass one last time. “Thank you for sharing her with me. But like you said, it’s time for you to say good-bye, and I think that is something that should only be shared between the two of you. Pour out your soul, Jude. I’ll be waiting outside.”
She kissed my cheek briefly, and I watched her disappear down the hallway.
I didn’t know how much time had passed as I sat there. I stared at that closed door—thinking, breathing, waiting for the words to come. People shuffled past as I tried to find the right way to say good-bye to the woman and the life I’d been holding on to for far too long.
“I would have given you everything, Megan. You would have been my world, my wife, and my reason for existing. There wouldn’t have been a single moment I would have regretted,” I whispered into my palms as I cradled my head.
“But life had a different plan for us, for me. And now, I have to say good-bye,” my voice cracked as I said the words. “I met a girl. She pulled me out of the darkness, and I can’t stay here anymore. I can’t stay here with you and love her at the same time. She deserves all of me, and I want to give her everything. So, please believe me when I say I love you. I love you enough to remember you for the woman you were and for the beautiful life we shared. I love you enough to let you go, so I can live the life you’d want me to have. Every minute I have on this earth is even more precious because of the time I spent with you.”
I stood, taking one final look at the plaque I had placed in her memory. Kissing the pads of my fingers, I placed them against the cool metal on the back of the bench.
“Life—it really does go on, and I’m going to live mine now. Good-bye, Megan.”
Every step down that hallway felt final, another footfall into my future. My eyes dried as I moved up in the elevator. As I turned toward the exit, I saw her sitting on the concrete bench, waiting for me.
God, she’s beautiful.
Our eyes met as she stood, and I strode out the double doors.
I pulled her into my arms. “I love you, Lailah,” I said breathlessly. “I’ve loved you longer than I can remember, but I couldn’t ever find a way to say it until now. Now, I want to say it over and over—”
“Stop babbling”—she grinned—“and kiss me.”
I pressed my lips to hers as I gently lifted her off the ground and spun us around. Her laughter and squeals quickly filled the air.
“Come on, let’s go home,” I said, letting her feet touch the ground once again.
“I like the sound of that.”
“Yeah, me, too.”