I sat in my truck,staring at Laiken’s SUV. Through my tinted windows, I could just make out her shoulders shaking. Each tiny movement tore at my chest, shredding whatever was left of my heart.
She’d endured more than anyone ever should and was finally breaking. I didn’t let myself think about my actions, I simply moved. Climbing out of my truck, I strode across the parking lot and pulled open Laiken’s door.
She gave a small jolt but didn’t try to cover her tears. They were coming too fast and too hard for her to stuff them back in. I turned her so she faced me, then wrapped my arms around her and pulled her close.
Laiken didn’t fight the movements, but she didn’t reciprocate, either. Her whole body shook with the force of her sobs. “It’s too much,” she got out between cries.
“I know.”
Far too heavy a burden for anyone. Too many people lost. And now, there was the very real possibility that she was in danger on top of it.
I held her tighter against me as she continued to let her tears flow. Laiken’s hands fisted in my jacket, the first contact she’d sought out. The first comfort. I wanted to give her everything I had. Anything to ease a little of her pain.
“Let it go.”
Another hiccupped sob escaped her lips. “If I let it out, it could break me.”
“You’re way too damn strong for that.” I’d only known her for a week, and I already knew that with unshakeable certainty. She was a force to be reckoned with. “But you’re only going to hurt yourself if you don’t let it free. If you don’t tell someone how you’re feeling.”
Laiken pulled back a fraction, her red and swollen eyes meeting mine. “And who do you talk to?”
“My dad.” I hadn’t given him everything, but I’d given him the bulk of it. He’d holed up with me in my Malibu house for weeks after Carissa’s death, drinking whiskey and talking it all through. Or not talking and simply staring at the ocean. But I’d known I wasn’t alone. I wasn’t sure Laiken had that. A person she could fully let her guard down around. I felt a swift tug in my chest, a demand to be set free. To be that person for her.
Laiken’s tears turned silent. Tracking down her cheeks and leaving artful trails behind. She was a work of art, even in her worst pain. “I’m glad you have him.”
“Who do you have?”
She swallowed, her throat moving with the effort of the action. “I have myself.”
“The most important bond we’ll ever have. But it’s not the only one we need. Who do you have, Laiken?”
A flicker of temper flashed in her eyes, so much better than the grief that had been drowning them a second ago. “I have Addie, Ev, and Hadley. I had Gilly, Kay, and Chip.”
“Do you let them in on this? How much it’s eating you alive? Do you let themreallyknow you? Or are you keeping them at arm’s length?” I was being a pushy bastard, and I knew it. But this was my one shot to make sure Laiken heard me. When her defenses were a little shocked and lowered.
She opened her mouth and then snapped it closed again. “I’m a private person.”
“I understand that.” Better than probably anyone else in her life, I got the need to draw the curtains. When your life had been displayed and dissected, it was natural. When it had been picked apart at your worst moments, it was a vital self-protective instinct.
I trailed a hand up and down Laiken’s back, my fingers doing a delicate dance over the ridges in her spine. “I’m so sorry about your friend.”
More tears spilled, but no sobs came. “We weren’t even friends anymore. That friendship died with Jase. I should’ve fought harder, I should’ve—”
“You did the best you could.”
“Did I? I’m not sure that’s true.”
“There’s only so much someone can handle. You were recovering from injuries. You’d just lost someone you cared about—”
“Loved. I lost the boy I thought I’d marry.” Her hands fisted in my jacket. “We had our whole lives planned out. College, my fancy gymnastics scholarship, getting engaged senior year, married the summer after we graduated, moving home, having babies. It all seemed so simple.”
My body went ramrod straight. Something that felt a lot like jealousy whipped through me. Laiken didn’t speak of this boy with an all-consuming passion. It was more like warm comfort and simple surety. She had loved someone she’d thought she’d spend forever with. And that forever had been ripped out from under her.
“I’m so sorry. It sounds like a beautiful life.” One profound in its simple wants. In that moment, I would’ve given anything to give it back to her. That future she’d so badly wanted.
“I don’t know that we even would’ve made it.”
I pulled back a fraction, my gaze sweeping over her face, searching. “What makes you say that?”