Page 62 of Splintered Memories
There were so many tears.
I cried for my brother. I cried for Delainey, the sister I loved and who was taken away from me too soon. I cried for the home I’d built for myself and lost to flames much like these. I cried for the little girl who only wanted her mother to love her unconditionally. I cried for the little girl who had to learn to hide her pain from the one person who was supposed to take care of her, who was supposed to kiss away the hurt and not cause it.
I cried for the person I could have been.
24
Emersyn
Ididn’tknowhowlongI cried. Couldn’t remember the last time I felt like this. I couldn’t remember the last time I let this happen.
I wasn’t sure what I had let myself become in all these years, but I broke apart in August’s arms. I broke until I didn’t recognize the pieces.
Time slipped by and the tears flowed until my body was sore and exhausted. I cried until I physically couldn’t anymore, and I was nothing but a shuddering mess on August’s lap.
His hand moving up and down my back never stilled. Even as my tears did, he kept holding me and comforting me. It was only when I went limp in his arms did he speak.
“Do you need anything?” he whispered in my ear.
I shook my head. I didn’t trust myself to speak.
August shifted me off his lap and onto the bed. His bed, I realized. He had taken me to his bedroom. The bed was larger than mine—not quite the king-sized that I was used to, but not the single bed in my room.
He stood up, tucking strands of hair behind my ear. His rough fingertips lingered on my skin, and I shivered. I blinked up at him, eyes wide. The enormity of what had happened started to sink in.
Not only did I feel completely shattered, those carefully built walls designed to keep in my emotions nothing but rubble, but I hadkissedAugust.
No, not just kissed—I’d all but attacked him.
My skin heated as he stared at me. I wondered whether he regretted it. He had seemed to enjoy it, but what if he hadn’t? What if he was pretending?
As if he could read the flurry of thoughts inside my brain, August leaned down and pressed his lips against my forehead. “We don’t have to talk about it tonight.”
His expression was unreadable, but I could’ve sworn there was a slight upturn at the corner of his mouth. “I’m going to go get you some water. Stay right here.”
Then he was gone, leaving his bedroom door slightly open behind him as his footsteps thudded toward the kitchen.
My fingers curled into the soft blankets of his bed. He had simple bedding, a navy-blue quilted comforter with matching pillowcases. It had been nicely made before we had disturbed it.
I scanned the rest of the room. It was bigger than mine, but not by much. He had a dresser and a bookcase against the right wall. There was one picture hanging next to the bed. I stared at it, my eyes burning again as I blinked away tears.
It was a picture of his family. An older one, because standing right in between Reid and August, was Thea. She was beaming at the camera from under the arms of her brothers. August lookedso young. Unabashedly happy, with his grin spread from ear to ear. I wondered whether that August, from so many years ago, had any idea what was in store for his future. Did he have any idea that this might be the last picture he had ever taken with his little sister?
It was bittersweet, looking at the family photo. All five of the Ramsey brothers surrounded their sister and were bracketed by their mother and father. Then it hit me, that even though this family had been forever changed by a calamitous loss, their smiles had not been lost forever. I focused on Raleigh and Warner. Those were the same smiles I had seen tonight around the dinner table.
Something hit me square in the chest, a feeling I had not acknowledged for so long. It was buried deep beneath my ribs and cautiously unfurled.
Hope.
If the Ramseys could survive, and I’d dare say even thrive, after losing their one and only daughter, maybe there was hope for me to put myself back together again. Maybe I could be better than this mess.
I pressed a hand against my chest, where that frail little blossom of hope dared to grow.
“I’m safe,” I whispered to myself. Willing it to be true.
The sound of August’s footsteps was headed back toward the bedroom, when the doorbell rang.
I frowned, my head snapping toward the open bedroom door. I had no idea what time it was, but despite that, I didn’t think the doorbell rang once since I was here. The only people who came over were August’s brothers, and they never used it.
