Page 90 of A Wish for Us

I love you.

Simple. Yet to me, it meant the world.

* * *

I blinked awake to the sound of knocking at my door. I rubbed my eyes and threw back the cover. Light from the sun sliced into the room around the edges of the thick curtains. Birds were singing.

I opened the door, and I stilled. Bonnie sat in her chair, looking at me. I swallowed. “Farraday,” I rasped. At the end of the corridor, Mr. Farraday was walking away. He gave me a tight smile.

A hand slid into mine. Bonnie was looking up at me, her eyes tired, her lips shaking. “Bonnie,” I whispered and held her hand tight. I only let go so I could move to the back of her chair and push her into the room. As I shut the door, I heard a tiny gasp slip from Bonnie’s mouth.

My stomach sank. Bonnie’s hand moved to her mouth as she stared at the black-smeared wall. I tried to move around her to stop her from looking to the right. But I didn’t make it in time. Silent tears tracked down Bonnie’s cheeks when she saw the bloodstained floor.

I grabbed the blanket off my bed and covered the floor. I bent down to Bonnie and lifted her chin with my finger. Her gaze finally ripped away from that corner. “You don’t need to see that.”

Bonnie nodded her head. But when it fell forward and she buried it into my neck, she unloaded everything. The sobs, the pain…everything.

I held her tight, feeling the rising emotions I could never fight off. She cried so much that she suddenly struggled to breathe. I cupped her face and pulled her back from me. Her cheeks were mottled and her skin was turning white from too little air. “Breathe, baby,” I said. Panic swelled inside me, but I kept it under control as Bonnie started trying to take deep breaths.

It took minutes for her to calm enough for her breathing to return to what now passed as normal.

“You okay?” I asked. Bonnie nodded. Her eyes were dull with exhaustion. “Come to bed.” I made sure the chair was close enough to the bed so that her IV and oxygen would be okay, and then I picked her up. Her arms drapedweakly around my neck. I paused, just drinking in her face. How pretty she was. Bonnie turned her face to me and gave me a small smile. She killed me then. Killed me with one simple smile.

Leaning in, I kissed her, lingering as long as I could before she needed to breathe. When I pulled back, I saw her lips tremble. “I got you,” I said, hoping she knew that I meant more than just right now.

I laid Bonnie down on the bed and crawled beside her. She was wearing leggings and a sweater, and her hair was in a plait down her back. She couldn’t have looked more beautiful if she tried.

I wanted to say something as her brown eyes stared into mine. But I didn’t know what to say. My heart beat at a million miles an hour. Then she whispered, “Thank you.”

Bonnie moved her tired arm to my chest and shuffled closer to me. “You…saved him.” My eyes closed. “No,” she said, more firmly than I’d heard her speak in a while. I opened my eyes. Her hand lifted to my cheek. “I love to see your eyes.”

“Bonnie.” I shook my head. “Is he okay?”

Bonnie’s expression changed. She stared over my shoulder. “East is living with bipolar.” I stopped breathing, everything stilling. My lips parted, and Bonnie continued. “He has always found life…hard. But…he’d been better lately.”

“Bipolar.” I thought of his bright painting when I first arrived. The shouting over the mic in the Barn. The late nights. The drinking. The erratic behavior…then the darkness. The way the color around him changed from purples and greens to blacks and grays. His paintings. Him unable to get out of bed.

“He’s good at pretending he’s okay.” I faced Bonnie again and thought of his wide smiles around her but his moods when he was here. Bonnie’s eyes dropped. I threaded my fingers through hers. She stared at the entwined hands. “He’s tried before.”

I froze. Bonnie held it together, showing the strength she had inside her, even if her eyes screamed out their pain. “His leather cuffs.”

Realization dawned. “He slit his wrists before?”

Bonnie nodded. “He gets moments of extreme highs and horrific lows.When the lows hit, it’s the worst. He’s been up and down for years. But he’s been doing so much better lately.” Her shallow inhale was labored. “He’s admitted to being off his meds. He said he found them stifling, creatively. But he’s back on them now. He needs them to keep his moods even.”

We sat in silence for five minutes while she took a break. While she fought harder to breathe. I held her the whole time, just memorizing this moment. What she felt like beside me. Here, right now.

Everything that was her.

“He’s stable.” I relaxed as she spoke those words. Then Bonnie was looking into my eyes. Her lips trembled and her eyes glistened. “You were sent to me.” She smiled, purple lips spread wide. “To get me through this.” My vision blurred at her words. “Or to show me…how this felt.” I stilled. “Love…before it is too late.”

“No.” I pulled her closer. I wanted to pull her so close that the strength of my heart could breathe life into hers. “You’re going to get a heart, Bonnie. I refuse to think otherwise.”

Bonnie’s sad smile ripped my chest in half. “It is…getting harder.” She closed her eyes and breathed. Her chest rattled, and the movements were erratic. When her eyes opened again, she said, “I am fighting. I will keep on fighting…But if I have to, I can go…knowing how this felt.” She stroked my face, ran her finger over my lips. “What it felt like to love you. To know you…to hear your soul through your music.”

I shook my head, not wanting to hear it. “I won’t lose you,” I said and kissed her forehead. I inhaled her peach and vanilla scent. I tasted her addictive sweetness on my tongue. “I can’t live without you.”

“Cromwell…” I met Bonnie’s eyes. She swallowed. “Even if I get a heart…it is not always the answer.”

---