When she’s done, I tug her closer again, and she snuggles against me, her hand on my chest.
This was the last thing I ever imagined would happen as I drove home. This woman is something else and I hug her tight. “Thank you for waiting up,” I whisper and press a kiss to her temple.
“I didn’t wait up,” she says, a smile in her tone as her fingers caress my skin.
I chuckle and soon my breathing grows heavier, and I’ll nod off peacefully in a minute, but she is wide awake next to me, and I can hardly blame her. If she had a good six hours of sleep already, she might struggle to fall asleep again.
“Raiden.”
“Hmm?”
“Tell me how you got this scar?”
Her hand stills on my chest as she waits for me to breathe again.
I don’t talk about this. I steer clear of every emotion, never mind all the words needed to tell someone what happened. But this is Georgiana, and she thinks there’s nothing to fix. I don’t want to fix him; I want to understand him. Cash quoted her verbatim, he said, as I made sure he got to Hunter’s guest bedroom in one piece after several whiskeys.
If I could tell anybody, it would be her. If I needed to tell anybody, it would be her. If I can trust anybody with what I keep locked inside me, it would be Georgiana.
“Well,” I start, shuffling through the words in my head, ignoring the panic that presses on my chest. There’s no way I can put myself back in that car as me, and the only way to do this is with some distance.
“Twenty years ago, a baby Brodie girl was born, and her cousins couldn’t wait to see little Lucy,” I start. “Trent Logan had just returned from his final deployment in Iraq and there seemed to be so many things to celebrate. The Logans got into their old van, the twins buckled into their booster seats, and Ray was so happy that he didn’t need to elbow Hunter for some space in the back. The drive wasn’t far. Annabelle and May were always close and lived a mere fifteen minutes from each other. It couldn’t have been any other way.”
I swallow as the words get stuck, but for her sake, for my sake, I take a deep breath and soldier on.
“It was a perfect summer day. The fair was on in Ashleigh Lake and Ray’s dad promised him some rides since he didn’t get to go to summer camp like Hunter. That summer he was going to master reading and spelling and catch up to grade level. Now that his dad was home, his mom had time and a plan, and she worked every morning with him for two, three hours, or until he cracked, but he finally got the sight words like up, the, and we. She had these little songs she made up, thinking it would help him memorize words using flashcards to go with each song. He hated it. He hated everything because it was so hard, and nobody understood. But his mom was persistent and that morning in the car, she handed him his flashcards and got singing again. The twins sang along, spelling and reading out words Ray still couldn’t.
“His dad sang along too, trying to encourage him. But Ray sat there, stoic, arms folded, refusing to sing, crumpling those stupid flashcards between his hands. His dad met Ray’s gaze in the rearview mirror as Ray’s mom looked over the back of her seat to see what was going on.
“Nobody saw the truck that came skidding into their lane around a blind bend before it was too late. It happened so fast. For that split second his dad took his eyes off the road…there was nothing anybody could do. Ray’s dad was killed on impact, but his mom—”
I break off, the visuals of that morning stark in my mind’s eye. It’s the dark moment of terror in my dreams. The recurring nightmare that flares up at times when I least expect it, and then at times like last night, when I’ve practically been waiting for it, begging for it to pass. I had caused that accident. I alone, in my refusal to sing out the simple word toy, t-o-y, killed my parents.
The memory of the smell of that moment—blood mixed with fuel and cinnamon as twenty apple pies went flying on impact—still makes me sick. Flashcards flew through the car like amputated birds’ wings. I swallow hard…I was so far into the details, I couldn’t stop. “My mom didn’t let go. I heard her fight, so I got out of the car after my head stopped ringing and tried to get to her via the broken window. A glass shard cut me as I leaned into the car. I was only wearing a sleeveless T-shirt.”
The rest she doesn’t need to know, but somehow for the first time I need to get it out, paint for someone the full horrifying picture that has haunted me for twenty years. “My mom didn’t close her eyes as she died.” I swallow, suppressing the bile that threatens to surface. “Instead, she stared at me as I collapsed from loss of blood and the repercussions of the collision. She was helpless. I was helpless. And all I keep on seeing is her eyes as her life slipped from her.”
My cheeks are wet with tears that speak equally of relief and heartache. The guilt…it never leaves me. I wear it like a second skin, but for the first time, I’ve told someone more than I got the scar in an accident. I never thought I’d be able to tell anybody about those last minutes before sirens cut through the quiet and I lost consciousness.
For the first time in my life, I told someone everything.
“It wasn’t your fault, Ray. You know that, right?” Her voice breaks on the words, and I hug her closer as she trembles.
“I know.” The truck was coming head-on in our lane, but the what-ifs don’t stop haunting you. What if Dad’s eyes had been on the road instead of on me? Same for my mom? What if I could actually read and none of it was necessary? What if—
Georgiana’s body quivers against mine. She’s sobbing.
“Hey,” I whisper, as I turn into her. I kiss her softly on the forehead, in wonderment at the calm that laces its fingers around me. These are my emotions that spill from her heart, through tears from her eyes, and all I want to do is comfort her.
Soft fingertips caress my beard and in the dim light our gazes connect. “Thank you,” she murmurs.
“No, thank you,” I whisper back. I feel like I’ve crossed a bridge and that maybe, at long last, that second skin can peel off, even if just bit by bit.
We kiss tenderly for a long moment, relaxing in each other’s embrace.
This is paradise found, for there are no more secrets here.
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