Alex
I should have gone with her.
I sit here in this dark hospital room, in the leather recliner that has doubled as my bed for the past two nights, and curse myself for not listening to my gut. I knew she wasn’t safe as long as that bastard was out there somewhere. Video surveillance in the parking garage connected the truck to one from Bastain’s dealership, but he’s still out there. Walking the streets. While she lays here in this room. Broken. Shattered. And there’s not a fucking thing I can do to fix her this time.
She floats in and out of consciousness, waking once in a while ordering me to leave. Sorry, love, but there’s no fucking way that’s happening. She’s lucky she’s not paralyzed. She did suffer a concussion from the window impact and a rib fracture from the airbag deployment. Her ankle is broken, and she’s got several bone contusions. There were also severe injuries to her pelvis from being thrown around the car while still wearing her seat belt. But she’s alive.
As soon as the hospital informed her parents of the accident they flew in to see her. I’ve witnessed Emma’s phone calls with her parents. She’s been so excited about all the things going on in her life, I think she’s called them every night. Her eyes light up when she speaks with them. The love they share is palpable. It reverberates through the air. It makes me miss my own mother. I’ve spoken with Mrs. McClain on the phone. Emma introduced me as a friend, but the way her parents looked at me when they walked in, eyes full of sympathy, I know they don’t buy it. Emma had planned on having me meeting her and father. But not like this.
“I knew something wasn’t right with that man. I should have known something like this would happen,” her mother says through her tears. “Oh, Emma, I’m so sorry. I should have been there. I let you down.”
She blames herself. I think we all do to some extent. I see the way her parents care for her and it explains so much about her character. She’s so kind and caring because that’s been her world. Until him. Until he took her, kept her hidden from all she’d ever known. So, he could destroy her from the inside out. I’d give anything for five minutes alone with him.
I assure her parents I’m not leaving her side. The nurse let us know Emma should be going home in the morning. I convince them to agree to get a good night’s rest at Emma’s apartment before heading back to Tampa. I happen to know she’s got a great new bed.
Her friend Kylee came by too. And her company sent flowers. Kylee didn’t stay long. She said she couldn’t stand seeing Emma this way. I don’t blame her. It kills me too. But I’m not leaving. Not for a second.
“Alex,” she says, in her weak voice.
I jump up from my chair to take her hand. “Hey there, sleeping beauty,” I greet her with a smile.
“I want to go home.”
Her words might as well be a hammer, shattering my heart. She repeats them nearly every time she wakes up, and it kills me every time. This strong, independent, stubborn woman had just gotten her life back. She had taken the world by the balls, and was finally finding her way. He took that from her. Again. She doesn’t want to be here, hooked up to machines, peeing in a tube. She wants to be kicking ass at Cameron in three-inch heels or driving me crazy at her flat in a t-shirt and panties. Emma can go from corporate to kinky in five seconds flat. And I fucking love it. I climb in bed behind her, stroking the long, blonde strands of her hair. “I know you do. Tomorrow, love. Tomorrow,” I whisper against her ear, praying the nurse was right.
The soft rhythm of her heart beat on the machine next to her bed combined with the gentle stroke of my hand in her hair lulls her back to sleep.
A soft knock on the door startles me awake. I check the clock. It’s just after midnight. They just gave her meds at the 10:00 shift change. I hate when they come in here waking her up. Just let her fucking sleep.
The door creaks open and a man peeks inside. I don’t have to know what he looks like to know it’s him. The stench of evil rolls off him in waves. He’s tall, a good four inches taller than me, but I don’t give a fuck. The minute his eyes spot me in the corner, he slinks back out the door. Oh, no, mother fucker. Not so fast.
I follow him into the hallway and out to the parking lot. Less witnesses that way. He reaches for the handle of his black Lexus sedan, and I grab the back of his head, banging it against the top of the roof, smashing his brow bone the way he smashed hers. “Don’t you think you’ve hurt her enough?” I growl in his ear.
“Who the fuck are you?” he spits.
I lift his head to slam it back down again, this time crushing his cheekbone. He spits blood at the ground, rearing his head back in an attempt to head butt me. I tighten my fist in his hair and he hisses in pain. I want him to feel everything she felt that night. “You should worry less about who I am and more about what I’m gonna do to you.” He spits again in defiance, but it doesn’t affect me. “If you ever come near her again, I will rip your balls off with my bare hands then feed them to you for breakfast.” I force his body around by his hair and land a swift jab at his nose. Enough force to break it, causing his knees to buckle in pain, but not causing any permanent damage. Although, if I wanted to, I could have.
I leave him like that, bloody and cursing in the parking lot. I need to go check on my angel.
I don’t tell Emma about her visitor. She doesn’t need that stress. But I do tell the local police. Violating his restraining order will land him in jail long enough for them to prove he was the driver of the white truck that caused her accident.
“If you’re done with your little vacation now, I’d like to take you home,” I tease, as I help Emma into her wheelchair.
She starts to laugh, but stops suddenly, her eyes growing wide. “Oh no,” she exclaims, “your truck. Oh my God. I’m so sorry.” Her eyes begin to water and I have a feeling it’s a combination of concern for my anger, the effect of what her body’s been through, and the memory of the accident. I’m not upset, love. Not with you. I could kill him, however.
“There’s this crazy thing called insurance. They just came up with it… It comes in handy for times like this,” I encourage her with a smile. She blinks her tears away.
“Smart ass,” she quips.
There’s my girl.
“Just remember who’s pushing your wheelchair.”
When we get to my flat, I carry her straight to bed, pulling back the sheets and climbing in next to her. She trails her finger over my chest, placing gentle kisses along the same path. When her eyes meet mine, they’re pained.
“I thought I was dying,” she admits, her voice cracking with her words.
“I thought I had lost you,” I admit, too.
“I saw you. I closed my eyes and you were with me.”
I have to swallow hard to lose the lump in my throat. My chest tightens with an unbearable ache. I can’t imagine how she felt or what she went through. But hearing that I was with her makes my heart swell. It’s a foreign feeling, like nothing I’ve ever known before. I feel it all the way in the pit of my stomach. I wrap her in my arms, pulling her into my chest.
“I love you.” The words take on a life of their own, forcing their way from my heart into my throat then across my lips and to her ears.
Her tears stain my chest. Why is she crying?
“You can’t.”
I don’t have a choice. I already do.
“Unfortunately, love, this is one thing you don’t get to decide.”
“I know,” she whispers, “because I love you too.”
“Then why are you crying?”
“Because don’t you see? This is a mess. All of it. I never meant to bring you into this. All I ever do is hurt people. It shouldn’t be this hard, this complicated.” Her voice is frantic, and it’s heartbreaking to think she feels she doesn’t deserve to be loved.
“Love isn’t always beautiful. Sometimes it’s messy. Sometimes it’s complicated. Sometimes it’s senseless and even a little fucking crazy. You’ll wake up some mornings and you’ll want to quit. But you won’t. You can’t. Because even when it feels like you’re wandering through the forest, you still manage to find yourself. Alive. Redeemed. And you can’t go back to the way you were. No, babygirl, this is the new you. And you are the woman I love.”
“You were worth it,” she whispers against my skin.
“What’s that, love?”
“The wait.”