Page 56 of Gifts

I tip my head so our lips are almost touching and add, “Emma is alive because of you.”

I feel her labored breath on my face and her grip tightens.

“Could have lost my daughter today.”

She shakes her head in my hands, her voice croaks, “Stop. Please, stop talking.”

I don’t give her what she wants. “Could’ve lost you, too, baby.”

Her eyes well, and instead of trying to pull away from me, this time her body seeps into mine. She can barely be heard when she whispers, “My kids—they can’t go through that again.”

I lean in, press my lips to hers, murmuring, “I know.”

“They can’t,” she gasps, her breaths coming in short pants, her lungs desperate for air. Her movements are almost violent as she shakes her head. “They can’t lose another parent. I can’t let that happen.”

And just in time, I bring my arms around her when she falls apart.

Chapter 14

Hot and Sweaty

Keelie

This can’t be happening.

I don’t do this.

I never allow myself this.

I had a handle on everything. Just when I was able to separate it, tuck it away where I could deal with it in my brain and not my heart, he had to go and ruin it by not letting me be.

He came at me with his words and his whispers and his touches.

Fuck. It all came flooding back. Telling my kids they’d never see their dad again. Having to be strong for them, showing them I could handle it, proving to them I’d do anything and everything to soften that blow so their life would go on with as little change as possible. I’d give them goats, space camps, throw a ball, and renovate a house I resented because, to me, it was tied to David’s lies and addictions. But for them, they just lost their dad. He wasn’t a shit dad, just a shit husband. So, for my kids, I’d do anything.

Having survived a barrage of bullets, scared for Emma’s life, seeing my own blood, and then, finally, what cut me to the core, walking in to my kids eating bananas and thinking how differently their day could’ve ended…

I had to pack it all away, clean it up neat and tidy, and compartmentalize it with all the other shit I can’t seem to deal with, because if I were to face it, this would happen.

I’d fall apart.

Damn him.

Just when the glue holding all of my million pieces together dissolves away into a cloud of nothingness, I feel myself going up. As my body trembles and wracks, Asa’s big arms hold me to him, one under my knees and the other up my back with his hand buried in my hair.

“Shh,” he whispers in my ear, pressing my face into the side of his. “You don’t want to wake your kids.”

This makes me lose it further.

Even though I can’t see a thing through my tears, I feel Asa moving swiftly up my stairs.

He must have kicked the door shut because it slams, echoing through the space. When I pull away, my room is darkened, blurry through my tears. He stops at my bed and before I know it, he lays me down on my good shoulder. I hear the clomp of his boots hit my wood floors before the bed moves and I’m in his arms again.

Dipping his hand under his shirt he put on me earlier—and after this day, I’ve decided I’m not giving it back because I love it—he presses in on my back and tangles his heavy, jean-clad legs with mine.

“You need to get it out,” his deep voice rumbles in my hair and the whiskers on his chin tickle my forehead, reminding me he’s everywhere as he wraps me in his warmth. “I’ve got you. You’re here and your kids are good. I’ll make sure you’re here for them.”

I shake my head against his neck and keep crying. He can’t do that. No one can do that.

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