Page 10 of Beautifully Shattered
Shaking my head, I stand and climb onto the bed next to her, tugging her into my arms. She shifts to give me room without hesitation, letting me pull her close. Finally letting me hold her like I’ve been dying to do.
“Don’t talk like that, Angel,” I whisper into her hair. “You’ve done nothing but fight for her. And you still are.” My throat tightens, thick with emotion. “I heard what you said to her.”
She presses in closer, curling into me, and fuck, it feels so fucking good to feel her hand on my chest and her breath on my neck as she finally lets me get close to her.
“I meant what I said to her,” she admits into the crook of my neck, her voice husky and raw from her own emotions.
“I know.”
“All of it.” She pushes the point. “I meant it.”
I know what she’s getting at.
She’s not just grieving. She’s planning her exit.
She wants me to understand that when her vengeance is done, she doesn’t want to keep going.
She wants to leave this world. To rest eternally with Bobbi.
The thought has invisible claws tearing through my chest, shredding everything on the way to my fucking heart.
“I know,” I whisper, my voice rough as I stroke fingers through her hair, holding her tight against me. “But maybe… when that time comes, you’ll see it differently. You’ll see that moment as the start of something new, Angel. Not the end of everything.”
She sobs again, finally breaking completely in my arms, and I hold her, even as my own eyes sting and my chest threatens to cave.
She cries for what feels like hours, and all I can do is let her purge the pain like this. There’s nothing else I can do.
I can’t bring Bobbi back.
I can’t erase the hell she’s been through.
I can’t fix this.
But… Icanbe here.
A warm embrace. A shoulder to cry on. A safe place to land.
A human punching bag, if that’s what she needs.
Whatever she needs, I’ll give it. Over and over until the day she wakes up, and the pain isn’t so suffocating.
It’ll never leave her. But maybe one day she’ll learn how to live with it.
And that… is probably the hardest part of all.
Eventually, Abbey falls into a deep sleep, and I manage to slip from the bed without waking her.
My phone has been buzzing non-stop in my back pocket, so I duck out of the room and hit redial, calling Smitty back.
“Bout fucking time,” he answers, and fuck, if I could reach through the phone and strangle him, I fucking would.
“Insensitive much?” I snap, and he sighs.
“Sorry.Fuck. How is she?”
“Bout as fucking good as anyone in her situation.”
“Yeah. Poor kid. She’s too fucking sweet to be facing this sort of shit.”
