Page 128 of Breathe Again

“I’ll be back in a few hours,” he whispered into my hair. He kissed the top of my head and left me there with Marissa to debrief.

I hated to watch him walk away from me. Half of me wanted to run after him, the other half wanted to run as far and as fast as I could in the opposite direction. I had no faith in my ability to be good for him, and my faith in him was at an all-time low.

“It is my professional opinion that that man loves you. You guys are going to be okay.”

“You think?”

“I do.”

I plodded back to my room and checked my iPad. He added another song to our playlist, ‘The Luckiest’ by Ben Folds.

Music was therapy for me, always had been. For the first time I added a song back, Staind’s ‘Tangled Up in You.’

Then I prepared what little I had to take home with me.

Zale

He opened their playlist when he got home, checking what he’d added so far. He saw a song from Mara’s favorite group, one he had not added, and sat down hard in the kitchen chair, humbled by the unexpected gift. He clicked play.

He listened intently, looked up the lyrics to be sure, then, with his face in his hands he prayed for the first time in too long for the strength to be what she needed.

Seeing her at the hospital, he realized just how gravely she’d stumbled, and how fragile she was at that moment. He reminded himself that none of this was new, she’d been dealing with this for a long time, and now she would have him at her back, exactly where he intended to stay, because the past few days without her had been long enough.

Rhys’s words rolled around and around in his head, bringing further clarity of purpose. He would find his way forward and he’d drag her with him if necessary, even if he had to follow her down into her personal hell to do it.

He rubbed his face hard, gripped himself by the back of the neck for a moment, then stood to tackle the kitchen clean-up, not wanting a mess to be the first thing she saw. He couldn’t do much about the unmatched paint splotch on the wall, but at least Rhys had repaired the hole.

He prepared for her return home as best he could. In terms of minutes and hours it was not a long wait, but it seemed interminable, and his world did not begin to click back into place until she sat in the passenger seat beside him on their way home. She was unnaturally quiet, her spirit subdued, watching the world outside her window as it streaked by on their way home. He realized they had a long way to go but he’d be involved this time. Finally, she broke the silence.

“Where’s Olivia?”

“She’s with Bex.”

“How is she?”

He paused. “Not great but doing better than expected.”

“What did you tell her?”

“The doctor suggested, considering where she’s at, to tell her you had a stomach bug and got dehydrated, needed to be in the hospital to get rehydrated and get the right treatment.”

“We need to get back on routine pretty fast, I guess.”

“Not too fast. We’ll get her through the change in routine, but you are my priority right now.”

He glanced at her profile. Usually in the car she had her hand on his thigh, and she often studied him as he drove. He missed her touch, her gaze, and her chatter, none of which he had at that moment.

“More than anything, we need to find a way forward that will be good for both of you. You will mostly oversee that. You know best what she needs, you know best what you need.”

“What about what you need?”

He reached for her hand, and she tentatively slid her palm across his, closing her fingers around his.

He held her hand tightly. “I have what I need.”

“That’s not true,” she mumbled quietly, “but we can maybe get there, too.”

He gave her another squeeze. “That’s my girl. This is not our first storm. We’ll ride this one out and be stronger for it, just like every other time.”

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