“Someone help!” I scream as he drops to his shoulder and rolls to his back, struggling to breathe. “Someone help me!”
I hear screeching tires, sirens, screams.
Danny and Otto are sprinting toward us.
I hate their expressions.
Hate the crippling grief taking hold.
It’s beyond excruciating, more powerful than any grief I’ve ever felt before.
A loss I will never get over.
44
JAMES
It has to be said, the light was blinding. And it was really fucking tempting to walk toward it. But...
Beau.
I could hear her need.
Feel her love.
The light on this occasion can fuck off. I didn’t go through the past few months to let death take me so pathetically.
“Stop moving,” she orders, flapping around the bed, pulling at the covers, throwing me filthy looks left and right.
“I’m stiff.” And not in the best way.
“Doc said strict bedrest for four weeks.” She gently pushes me back down, and I sigh, exhausted, unwilling, and unable to fight her.
“It’s been three weeks and six days.”
“Yes, and look at you,” she breathes, exasperated, waving her hands up and down my broken body. “You need at least another four weeks. I’ll go get Doc.” She pivots, and I just catch her wrist, stopping her. I won’t lie, it’s fucking agony straining even that much. I grit my teeth and tug her back.
“Just lie with me for a while.” I need her close. To have her near and know there is literallynothingin this world that can tear us apart.
Only each other.
She settles, though hesitantly, and I feel her slight body soften beautifully against me. “Are you okay?” I ask quietly.
She’s quiet for a few moments, her hands stroking gently over the dressing on the side of my stomach. “I’m okay,” she whispers.
I smile.Okay. It’s ironic. Twenty years’ worth of therapy shouldn’t cure the kind of shit we’ve experienced, both togetherandalone. It probably couldn’t. But I have Beau, and Beau has me.
So we’re going to be okay... once this pain has fucked off and I’ve healed. I nod to myself, letting my broken body meld into the mattress, let my eyes close and know nothing will take her from me while I’m asleep.
“I love you, Beau.”
“I won’t ever question that.”
I dose off, knowing it to be true. Peace. I’ve thought I’ve had it. When I met Beau, it teased the peripheral of my existence, tormented me, because it would never truly be mine until I’d fixed her.
I accept now, she will never be fixed. But she is most definitely mine. All mine. Her hate, her love, every broken piece of her, and that makes her as fixed as she’ll ever be.
My dreams are light. My heart is so fucking heavy with love.