Page 59 of Waiting to Love You

“Everything is going to be okay,” Leia whispers into my ear as she wraps her arms around me, and my knees give out.

It’s as if the weight of everything that has happened hits me all at once. Seth is gone, probably for good, and it’s all my fault.

“You don’t know that,” I sob, burying my nose into her shoulder and letting all my emotions go free. Searing pain flows through my entire body as waves of agony pull me under. I’m just praying that I can hold on for just a little longer until the pain subsides. I yearn for numbness to cut me off from all these feelings that I’m so desperate to forget. I don’t know how long I sit there wrapped in Leia’s arms as she mutters soothing words into my ear, but at some point, my tears slow.

“Do you feel better now?” Leia asks, smoothing my hair back from my face.

“No,” I croak, leaning back and looking around the room, hoping that Seth with reappear at any moment but come up empty. “He really left.”

“He did, honey,” Audrey comes into the room, Selina right on her heels. “But he’ll be back.”

The shrill ring of someone’s phone fills the room for a few moments before it stops and starts right up again. And again. And again.

“Will someone answer that, please?” I ask, not wanting to keep any of them from something important.

Audrey, Selina, and Leia all pull out their phones to check whose it is as Leia’s phone rings in her hand, but she quickly silences it.

“You should answer that.”

“It’s just Riggs, probably calling to annoy me about something.” Leia rolls her eyes as her phone rings again.

“Just answer it.” Audrey smiles, nodding toward her phone. “If someone is calling you multiple times in a row, it’s important.”

“Go on, answer it,” I mumble, moving out of Leia’s arms and pushing to my feet.

“I’ll only be a second.” She kisses me on the cheek before moving towards the other side of the room to answer the phone.

My eyes remain locked on her as I speak to my other two friends. I watch all the color drain out of her face, and her phone goes clattering to the floor. All three of us rush toward her and wrap her in a protective embrace.

“My dad is on his way to the hospital. One of our employees found him passed out in the hallway a few minutes ago. Walker and Riggs are on their way. I need to meet them there.”

“Go.” Audrey kisses her cheek before running toward the kitchen, probably to grab Leia’s things.

“We got this and her.” Selina motions toward me, threading her fingers through mine and squeezing. “Call us when you know more.”

“I love you, guys.” Leia’s voice crackles slightly as she wraps us in her arms.

“We love you, too,” Selina and I reply in unison as Audrey comes around the corner holding Leia’s things. She murmurs something softly to Leia, and she shakes her head no before rushing out the door.

My eyes remain locked on the window facing the front of the house as I watch Leia disappear down the driveway, sending up a silent prayer that everything with her dad is okay.

We stand there for a few moments before I break the silence. “How much of that did you hear?”

“Enough to know he needs time, but he’ll be back,” Selina pulls me out of the room, down the hall, and into the kitchen.

Everything is the same as it was when I left the room with Seth what feels like a million years ago. A nice spread of different appetizers, baked beans, pasta salad, and corn on the cob is placed strategically around the table with white balloons tied on either end, with black question marks written on each one.

“I’m sorry I ruined your party,” I whisper as I run my fingers along the string of one of the balloons before taking a seat at the table.

“Hush now, you didn’t ruin anything,” Selina murmurs, as she takes a seat beside me.

There’s no one else in the room. The boys ran to hide the moment the tears started. My friends talk softly around me as my mind conjures up all the ways I had expected today to go, but this wasn’t one of them. My emotions keep fluctuating between wanting to give in to the soul-crushing pain radiating through my entire body and numbness. Every time I hear something odd, my head snaps toward the door, waiting for Seth to reappear, but he doesn’t.

When I woke up this morning, I truly believed that everything would work out, and I’d finally get the happily ever after I always dreamed of, but that was nothing but a dream. Seth left me standing in the middle of Selina’s studio to pick up the pieces of my broken heart, and I deserved it.

I knew he wouldn’t take finding out about our daughter well. I expected him to be angry, if not furious, at me for keeping this from him, but instead, he was understanding and compassionate. He said I was afraid, and he was right. Rebekah was an excuse that I clung to, a way for my mind to allow me to push him away before he could hurt me, and it worked, but now I’m an empty husk of the person I was before Seth came back into my life. I never really listened when he spoke to me, the promises he made, and how he spent every moment we were together showing me how much he truly loved me. I’ve been hurt before, but the way I felt about them was nothing compared to what I feel for Seth Williams.

“I broke both our hearts.” Tears pour down my face as I lean into Selina’s side, close my eyes, and try to think of anything but the devastated look on Seth’s face. “If I’d have said something sooner, been honest with him from the start, none of this would have happened.” I bury my face in my hands and sob, trying to make sense of the last few hours of my life.

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