Page 148 of As the World Falls

My throat squeezes and feels like it nearly closes altogether. I look behind me, spotting another chair in the room, and I grab it and drag it back to her bedside. I sit down in front of her, noticing her concerned gaze on me every step of the way. I reach out and caress her face, to which she shuts her eyes and revels in.

“I’m giving you an out,” I finally manage to say despite it making me feel sick.

Her eyes snap open in alarm. “What?”

“I’m giving you an out, Cecilia. None of this is what you wanted,” I admit, finally accepting it for the first time since I’d met her and couldn’t help my damned self. “This life. This violence. It was never meant for you.”

She leans up a little and winces as she does, but it doesn’t stop her. “James, stop,” she manages to say, but I don’t.

“I can forgive myself for being the bad guy. I can forgive my lifestyle and the awful things I’ve done. I can even forgive myself for killing your friend.” Her eyes well with tears, and she swallows hard, her lips trembling as she stares back at me. “But I can’t forgive myself for you being hurt. I never will. If you had died?—”

“But I didn’t,” she bites out, her voice watery and pained.

“You almost did,” I rush out. “It felt like you did—right in my arms. I’ll never forgive myself for putting you through that, for dragging you into this mess.”

“You didn’t drag me into it. I stepped into it willingly, and let’s not forget it was just as much my mess as it was yours. Lance was my friend. Everything he did was my fault.”

I shake my head. “You would have eventually fallen in love with him if it weren’t for me. I interfered in a life that was never meant for me.”

“He also would have eventually hurt me. The tendencies were there all along, James. Quit talking like this. Like it’s already over.”

“Isn’t it?” I ask softly, my stomach clenching in my pain. “I thought I could see you through it all. I thought I could protect you, but then you…you were stabbed, and the way you felt in my arms…” I can barely finish speaking because that terrifying feeling snakes its way into my chest like a heavy weight, suffocating me, and I feel like I can’t catch my breath as the rest of my body feels like it’s burning. The memory of her blue eyes fading so quickly fills my head again, and I feel sick all over again.

“James,” I hear Cecilia rush out, and I want to fall apart at the sound of it. I was so sure I’d never hear my name leave her lips again. Then I feel her. Her hands cupping my face, and I snap my eyes open, not realizing I’d shut them, and see her kneeling in front of me now, out of her bed.

“What are you doing? Get back into your bed.”

“No,” she snaps back.

“Cecilia.”

“No,” she snapped again, and the next thing I knew, she was standing and crawling into my lap despite the chair being big enough for one person. She straddles me, wrapping her arms around my neck and pulling me close. Our chests collide, and I lose all senses, burying my face into the crook of her neck and inhaling her scent. My arms wrapped around her so tight, keeping her close enough so that I could feel each and every lively breath she took against me.

My fingers dug into her skin like I was reaching for an anchor to tether me to reality, the one she was safe and alive in and not the one repeating in my fearful head, reminding me every second of the day that things could have gone very differently.

“I love you,” she murmurs. Her breath skates over my neck from where her head lays on my shoulder. “I don’t want an out. I want us to fix each other and move on. It’s all I want.”

I hold her tighter against me, anxiety flowing through me in a way I wasn’t used to. “I’m afraid,” I admit. “I’m afraid we won’t be able to.”

She lifts her head to look directly at me now. “We will,” she says confidently. “Just say you’ll try, and we’ll be okay.”

I nod gently. “I’ll try,” I promise. I’d do anything for her, even if it made me feel like this every day.

She leaned in, kissing me softly, and I kissed her for a second before pulling away. “Get back into bed,” I suggested again. “I don’t want your wires getting all messed up.” I pointed to all the wires she was hooked up to now stretched across her bed and tangling beneath us.

She smirks and rolls her eyes, making my stomach roll at the act. Some things never change.

She crawls off me and gets back into bed, settling into it with an unsatisfied huff. “Hopefully, they let me go today,” she says, reminding me.

I rest my elbow on the chair, pressing my cheek into my fist. “Hopefully.”

Two Weeks Later

I hear the front door slam, and I shut the book in my lap that I wasn’t actually reading. I stand from the sofa and walk toward it, only to see Cecilia barreling into the house with an angry expression and her brother hot on her heels.

“Bunch of fucking animals,” she barks out over her shoulder.

My brows furrow together. “What’s wrong?” I rush out but feel immediately dumb for even asking today, of all days.

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