Page 21 of Rewrite Our Story

Cade doesn’t look back at me once and I have to accept the fact that it hurts, even when I know it shouldn’t.

12

CADE - PRESENT

Sleep doesn’t find me.It feels like I haven’t really slept since Mom died. Every time I shut my eyes, I imagine what she looked like. I have so many amazing memories to remember my mother, and the only one that seems to stick is the tragic last one I have of her in her bed.

It doesn’t seem fair to her to remember her that way. I try to remind myself of that each time I close my eyes, but it doesn’t seem to work. Trying to remember every happy memory of her only results in me reliving the memory of the worst one—the one of me screaming and pleading for her to wake up despite not feeling a pulse or any warmth coming from her body.

I angrily toss a pillow off the bed. As if blaming the pillow for my lack of sleep will solve things. Scrubbing my hands down my face, I groan.

After I realized trying to think of good times with mom won’t help anything, I tried not thinking about her at all. But then thoughts of my mom drifted to Mare, and the images of her didn't help me fall asleep either.

I don’t know how much longer I toss and turn before my frustrations finally get the best of me. Shooting up out of the bed, I pace to try and put my mind at ease. The more time that passes, the more I realize I think I’m finally falling apart.

I’ve tried so long to keep my shit together. For Dad. For Pippa. Hell, for myself. I’d hoped that maybe if I stayed busy and kept my head down my emotions wouldn’t ever hit all at once.

I was fucking wrong.

My throat feels like it’s closing. I can’t fucking take a breath. My vision goes blurry, and I wonder if this is what it feels like to have a panic attack.

Without even thinking about it, I almost rip my door off the hinges as I burst into the hallway. When I’d first picked out Mare’s room, I’d put her in the room farthest from mine on purpose. Now I hate it.

There’s only one person I want to see right now. Only one person I need.

And it’s her.

Despite our past and lack of a future, in the present, as I fucking lose control because my mom is gone forever, she’s the only person I need. I forget how angry I am with her. I don’t remember how much she’s hurt me. All I know is that I can’t breathe, and I don’t think I will until I’m near her.

I stop in front of her door. I’d been too busy trying to sleep, then fighting a breakdown, that I never thought to check the time. I know it’s late, I just don’t know how late—or maybe, early—it is.

I pause, wondering if I should just lose my shit on my own. I don’t deserve her help. Fuck, with how I’ve treated her, she probably doesn’t evenwantto help me.

I’ve been a dick to her. It’s a coping mechanism.

Now, I don’t know how to fucking cope with the fact Mom is dead. And I’m going to have to live with the fact that my last memory of her is of her lifeless body. The only thing I can think to do to cope with it is by being in the presence of the woman asleep on the other side of this door.

At least, I thought she was asleep.

But just as I turn to go back to my room and figure this shit out on my own, the door is pulled open.

Mare stands on the other side of the door. Her eyes are heavy, like she’d just woken up, but they widen when she takes me in.

“Cade?” she says, her voice groggy with sleep.

“Where were you going?” I manage to get out.

Her head tilts to the side in confusion. “What? Nowhere. Why?”

“You opened the door.”

She grasps the door a little tighter, her eyes focusing on my bare chest. It’s only now that I realize that I hadn’t taken the time to put on a hoodie in the peak of losing my shit. She stares at my body for a few more seconds before she meets my eyes once again.

“I don’t know. I just felt something. It just felt like you nee—”

“Like I needed you?” I finish for her.

She nods, taking a step back into her room. I follow her silent invitation. I know with every part of me that I shouldn’t be stepping into this room alone with her but it doesn’t stop me from doing it.

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