DEE
Ican’t stop crying no matter how hard I try. The possibility of losing Milo is so horrifying as to be impossible to accept. Sitting in bed, I wipe my face for the thousandth time since last night.
Wyatt comes in with a cup of the lemon tea I often drink at night that he hands to me. “Try this. Maybe it’ll help you get some rest.”
“Thank you.” I take a sip and then another, surprised when they stay down. I’ve been viciously nauseated all night from nerves.
He gets in bed next to me and puts an arm across my abdomen.
“Tell me the truth. Will he be paralyzed?” I can barely say the words without wanting to wail.
“I don’t know, sweetheart. I’m sure Jason did everything he possibly could to give him the best chance, but anything to do with the spine is dicey.”
“What will we do if he is?”
“We’ll support him every way we can and get through it one day at a time. I have no doubt your amazing family will rally around him.”
Tears continue to rain down my face like a waterfall with no end. “I hate this so much. He’s the best of us.”
Wyatt wipes away my tears the way he did all night. “I know, honey. I hate it, too.”
“Can I tell you something you can’t repeat to anyone?” I ask him.
“Of course.”
“Part of me wants to be angry with Sofia, but I can’t quite seem to get there.”
“She didn’t shoot him, and she certainly didn’t think her ex would go this far.”
“They thought he was Nico.” I’m equally undone by the thought of my older brother being harmed. “He’s the one they wanted to kill.”
“Imagine how Nico and Sofia must feel. It’s so awful.”
“I try to put myself in the mindset of a person who’d shoot someone he doesn’t even know, thinking that will somehow get his ex-wife to come back to him.”
“You could never pull off that mindset, so don’t even try.”
“I want to understand it.”
“We’ll never understand this.”
“I feel so bad for my parents. They’ve been through so much with my mom’s illness and now this.”
“Your parents are the strongest people I know. I’d want them—and all of you—on my side if something like this ever happened to me.”
“Don’t even say that. Nothing can ever happen to you.”
Smiling, he takes the mug from me and puts it on the bedside table. “Let me hold you.”
Because there’s nothing better than being held by him, I snuggle into his warm embrace.
“I wish there was something more I could do for you.”
“This helps, and your medical knowledge helped us during the night.”
“My knowledge is all yours for the bargain-basement price of one kiss.”
I pull back from him, smile for the first time in twelve hours and kiss him.