Page 87 of After All This Time

It’s inspiring.

She’s always inspired me to chase after my dreams and not let the assholes out there get me down. I should compliment her more often to her actual face, and not just in my head.

I do have to say Dani has been amazing through all this. She hasn’t left my side since she got here.

I don’t deserve her.

The more time I spend with her, the more I fall in love with her. It’s hard not to fall in love with a woman like Dani.

Every time she walks into a room, it’s so bright I’m blinded. If she was a witch, I would’ve been cast under her spell.

It’s getting harder to be around her though without blurting out the truth about how I feel. I want to tell her when the time is right. She deserves to know how I feel even if there’s a chance she may not feel the same way.

I blink my eyes multiple times to pull me out of my daze.

I’m sitting on one of the chairs in front of Lizzie’s room.

It’s the afternoon. We’ve all been here for hours, anxiously waiting for the moment when my sister wakes up from her prolonged slumber.

Dani fell asleep in the crook of my neck, holding my hand with her arm interlocked with mine. She looks so fucking cute when she’s sleeping.

Mom and Celia are sitting inside Lizzie’s room, talking about God knows what.

She wakes up, slowly lifting her head out of the crook of my neck. She’s rubbing her eyes. “Shit, how long was I asleep?”

“I’d say like thirty minutes.” I smile at her, staring into her rich dark chocolate eyes that make me melt.

Her eyebrows lightly furrow and she smiles back at me. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“I’m getting deja vu. We sat in these very same chairs a month ago, and you asked me the very same question when I woke up from my power nap.”

She laughs into my shoulder, her breath heating me from the inside out. “You’re right. I totally forgot about that.”

“You forgot about something that happened a month ago?”

“In my defense, a lot of shit has happened over the past month. My brain isn’t functioning like it normally does, and neither is yours.” She wiggles her pointer finger in my face.

I grab it, moving it out of my face and interlocking my fingers with hers.

I’m finding every excuse to touch her in some way whether it’s holding her hand, hugging her, or putting my hand on her thigh.

The interesting thing is she doesn’t seem to mind any of it.

She doesn’t flinch like she did before.

Out of nowhere, I hear screaming and crying. Dani and I look at each other all bug-eyed. We get up and run into Lizzie’s room.

Mom is hugging Lizzie, but Lizzie doesn’t seem too happy about it. Celia is smiling at them.

I’m doing my best to hold back tears because I don’t want to be the domino causing all the women in the room to fall.

“Hey,” my sister says in monotone through a rasp, barely smiling. “Can I have some water, please?”

Mom runs out of the room to get some water for her.

When she returns, she has a styrofoam cup in her hand with a bendy straw dancing around inside it.

Mom walks over to Lizzie and puts the cup in her face.

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