Page 159 of Rugger: The Huntress

This was the side of grief no one warned you about. The side that made you feel half crazy. Half mental. However, the magnetic pull didn’t allow me to claim insanity. Not yet.

“Sonnie–” I breathed out. I waited with a galloping heart, waited to hear something, anything from him. And just when I decided to give up and accept that this was all a sick, cruel joke, his voice pierced my core.

“I’m here, baby.”

My eyes popped open at once. And, there he was. His handsome features just as I’d remembered them. But, there was something different about him. About his eyes. About his stance.

I bolted to my feet. He pulled me into his arms and it was at that moment that I noticed it. He was frail. He was weak. He was injured.

“Sonnie– it’s– it’s you.”

I touched his face.

His shoulders.

His neck.

The mark where the bullet had entered was much darker than the rest of his skin.

“Baby,” I sighed, feeling my heart break all over again.

Visions of that night replayed in my head.

“Shhhhh–”

“What happened? Where have you– I don’t understand.”

“Neither do I but there’s time to talk about it, Rugger. We have nothing but time. Right now, there’s something far more precious on my mind.”

His hands caressed my growing belly, just as I’d imagined them in the mirror every morning I stared back at my reflection.

“A child–” he choked out.

“A son,” I revealed, placing a hand on top of his.

“How far along?”

“Eight months.”

“Eight months? It’s been eight months?”

He was slightly disoriented.

“Sonnie, where have you been?”

“I– I wa– I need to sit down.”

Carefully, Psalms made his way to the other side of the table and took the empty seat. He was fragile. It pained me to see him so unwell. But, I was overcome with joy for his presence in general. The breath in his lungs was all that mattered at the moment.

He grabbed the cup of water I’d been sipping before my drink was delivered to my table. After finishing it off, he picked up the martini glass and sniffed the rim.

“Virgin.”

I nodded, “Yes.”

I took the seat beside him, prepared to listen to whatever was about to come from his dry lips. He stared out toward the sand as he began to explain his absence.

“It was never supposed to happen the way it did.”

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