“I’m sorry, Doc,” I whisper. There’s nothing else I can say that will make this any easier for her.
For minutes her gasps of sorrow fill the air. She wraps her arms around me as another wave hits her.
“I can’t cry,” she whispers. “I wish I could cry. It’s stuck inside of me. I feel sick.”
Fuck, this is killing me.
I pull back so I can frame her face again. Not knowing what to say, I press a kiss to her forehead. A raw sob escapes her lips, which makes me kiss her cheek. I rain kisses down all over her face, trying to give her some of my strength.
This is easily one of the worst nights of my life. I’ve never felt so helpless before.
“You were right,” she breathes. “Feelings hurt.” She grabs fistfuls of my shirt as a silent cry rips through her. She gasps for air, and I worry that she’s going to start hyperventilating.
“It hurts.” She slams a fist against her chest as if she’s trying to ease the pressure building inside of her.
“Jaxson,” she gasps my name.
I can’t fucking handle seeing her like this. I slip one arm under her knees, and the other behind her back, lifting her up against my chest. I rush up the stairs to my room, and as soon as I kick the bedroom door shut behind us, I let her legs drop to the floor as my mouth crashes against hers.
The need to ease her pain overwhelms every part of me.
She brings her hands to my neck and standing on her toes, she tries to get closer to me. My tongue surges into her mouth, and when she kisses me back, a foreign ache spreads through my chest.
I hurt because she’s hurting.
I break because she’s breaking.
I’m lost because we’ll never be together even though she feels like home. We’ll only end up destroying each other the same way my parents did. I can’t do that to her. She deserves so much more.
I start to pull back, but she moves with me.
“Don’t stop. Please, Jaxson,” she begs. I close my eyes as the crack in my heart deepens. “Help me.”
“You’re upset, Doc. Fuck, that’s an understatement. You’re in shock. We’re both a mess right now. This will be a mistake.”
She shakes her head and pleadingly looks up at me.
“Help me feel anything but this pain. I can’t process it. I can’t comprehend it.” Panic tightens her features, and I can see her mind working to make sense of her loss. “There’s a solution to every problem. If death is the problem, what’s the solution? I can’t solve the equation.”
Fucking hell, I’ve never seen anything more heartbreaking in my life. She’s trying to rationalize her way through the pain.
“Doc,” I groan, pressing my forehead against hers.
I swallow the emotions as they threaten to suffocate me.
“You can’t solve it. It isn’t a problem. It’s life.”
Her breaths burst over my lips.
“What’s the reason then?”
I close my eyes and give her the only answer I can. “It’s to remind us that we’re just human.” I can see my answer isn’t enough so I add, “People die so others can live. Think of it, Doc. If we were immortal where would everyone live? It’s nature.”
She nods, and even though the ground has just been ripped from beneath our feet, it’s amazing to watch her extraordinary mind absorb the facts. She might be a genius, but at the end of the day, she’s just a nineteen-year-old girl who lost her mother.
“I don’t know how to process the pain.”
“You can’t, Doc. You need to ride the wave. It will get easier eventually. I know it fucking sucks right now, and it will suck even more tomorrow, but this time next year you’ll feel better.”