Page 132 of Could Have Been Us
I can’t go to that house. See where she slept. The kitchen where we laughed. The living room where we watched shows.
I try to breathe, but I can’t. Each inhale is harder than the last, and I start to shake. The edges of my vision go blurry.
“Stella! Stella, look at me!” I hear Jack, but I just keep trying to pull in air. “Damn it, Stella!” I turn my head, not by choice but because he’s gripping my face. “That’s it, baby. Look into my eyes. Breathe.” I try, I swear I do, but my lungs won’t cooperate. Jack’s eyes bore into mine, and his voice is calm. “Inhale.” Forcing myself to listen, I suck in a breath. “Good, now let it out slowly.”
The air pushes out, but I suck it back in again quickly.
His gaze doesn’t falter. “Again. Inhale, but try to control it.”
“I can’t.”
“You can. Just look at me. Only me, Stella.”
He’s blurry, but there. Jack is here, and I keep reminding myself of that. He won’t let me fall. He won’t let me break. I have to be strong. I inhale like he said, and this time it’s a little easier.
“Good.” His voice is soothing. “You’re okay. I’m right here.”
I nod as the tears fall. “I can’t go home,” I croak the words out.
“Then we won’t.” His thumbs rub my cheeks as he presses his forehead to mine. “We’ll go back to my place and work through it there.”
My surroundings start to come back into focus. Jack pulled over into some parking lot on the side of the road, but I don’t care where we are. The emotions of the day are just too much. I’ve used every ounce of strength I had to get through leaving Kinsley, and I’m all tapped out. I start to cry again. Ugly, loud sobs come out, and Jack just holds me.
He whispers soothing words that I don’t hear. The overwhelmingness of it all crashes around me.
After who knows how long, I settle down enough for Jack to ease back, but he doesn’t let me go completely.
I’m being selfish. He’s lost as much as I have. We are both dealing with the same thing, and I’m requiring him to be the strong one again. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“For falling apart. It seems I’m forever making you be the one to hold it together.”
Jack still doesn’t let go of me. “If you think you don’t give me strength when I need it, then you’re wrong. There are times when I’m weak and you are the only thing that makes me want to pick myself up.”
“And now? When you’ve lost our daughter the same as I have.”
Jack sighs, allowing his hands to drop. “We haven’t lost her, Stella. She’s still there, alive, and well, I have to hold on to that.”
“I know, and . . . I’ve told myself over and over. But now, going back home, where she’s hours away, it feels wrong.”
“It does, but it’s what we decided twelve years ago, and it’s what we have to deal with now.”
He’s right. Hell, he warned me over a week ago. I just deluded myself into thinking I would accept it when the time came.
I’m not accepting it. I’m being ridiculous.
I pull down the visor mirror, feeling like more of an ass when I get a glimpse of my reflection. I fix my hair, wipe under my eyes, and fan at my face. I am red, puffy, and look like shit, but I resolve to pull it together.
Jack watches me, and when I turn, prepared to say I’m okay, he pushes back a lock of hair that was plastered to my face, tucking it behind my ear.
“You okay?”
“No, but I have you and that makes me better.”
He smiles. “Better is good.”
“Better is . . . better.”
