Page 86 of Connected By Love
“I know. Isn’t he the most amazing man ever?” She sighs.
“He is.” I grin at her love-struck face and faraway eyes as she thinks of him. She comes back to the present, and we both start laughing. “I’m not saying a word. I walk around these days looking the same way, and I don’t care who sees it.”
She hugs me close. “Love you, Soph.”
“Love you too, Em.” We say our goodbyes, and I have the students help me clean up before the bell rings for the day.
A few minutes later, I pull up to the house with Max. I notice Travis’s truck in the driveway and frown. He should still be at work. I know he had an appointment at three that he should still be working on.
I help Max out of the truck before walking inside. Travis looks up from the kitchen counter, and I immediately see the pain etched across his face. We lock eyes, and my heart beats loudly against my chest. Every fiber of my being tells me something is wrong.
“Max, why don’t I put one of your favorite shows on for you? I need to talk to your daddy for a second.”
He stands up from where he was playing with Nemo and quickly runs to the couch with him. “I want to watch Cars.”
I tear my gaze from Travis and walk over to the TV to get the movie set up. My hands are shaking as I set the remote down. “Here you go, love.”
“Thanks, Sophie.” He curls up on the couch with Nemo and instantly becomes enthralled with the movie.
I walk over to Travis, and he pulls me in for a hug. He’s squeezing me so tight I can barely breathe. “What happened?” I whisper against his chest. I feel his chest rise and fall faster. I can tell he’s trying to keep it together for me. I’m so in tune with him that I can feel the pain radiating off ofhim like it was my own. “Let’s go to the bedroom.” I take his hand, and he lets me lead him into the room.
Shutting the door behind me, I watch him walk over to the bed before sitting with his elbows on his knees. He bows his head, covering the back of his head with his hands. I kneel before him and remove his hands, lifting his face to mine. I see a single tear fall down his beautiful, tormented face.
“Tell me. You’re scaring me.” I squeeze his hands in mine, and the air from my lungs feels like it’s sucked from me.
“Addy’s dead.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Travis
I barely getthe words out. Pain slices through me when I say it out loud, causing it to be real. When I got the call from the hospital at work, I was in shock. I was still her emergency contact, and they notified me that she had been found dead this morning in her apartment from a drug overdose. Her agent found her after she didn’t show up for a photo shoot this morning. Somehow, I managed to drive home after canceling my appointment this afternoon minutes before Sophia and Max came home.
Max.
Pain engulfs me like I’ve never felt before. The guilt is eating me alive, causing each breath I take to become a challenge.
“What happened?” Sophia looks at me with pain and sadness reflecting in her beautiful eyes, making me hurt all over again, knowing she’s taking my pain on too.
“She overdosed last night. She promised me she was going to get help. I should have forced her into rehab. I gave her fucking money that she probably used to buy more shit. Ishould have…” My voice breaks and I can no longer get the words out.
“This isn’t your fault, Travis. Look at me.” She lifts my head with her hands and forces me to look into her eyes—eyes that I feel ashamed to look into. I feel like I don’t deserve such beauty in front of me when I couldn’t even help the mother of my son. “You did the best you could and helped her the only way she would let you. You are not responsible for her choices. All you could do was offer the help, but she had to want it.”
Deep down, I know what she is saying is true, but the pain and guilt are too thick to wade through to believe it. “Max…” His name on my lips ends it for me.
Sophia pulls me into her arms as I break down and fucking cry.
I cry for the young girl who I once knew and loved.
I cry for the woman she should have been.
But mostly, I cry for Max and for the mom he never got to know or have.
I feel like we sit there for hours, but I know it’s only a short amount of time that goes by. My body and head are aching as I shed the last tear. Sophia rubs her hands over my back in a soothing motion and whispers things I want to believe and feel. Her voice and presence have a calming effect on me, and after some time, my body begins to relax, and it slowly becomes easier to breathe.
“Thank you. I’m sorry I brought this pain into your life.” I whisper into her hair. “I would never want to hurt you.”
“You don’t have to thank me or be sorry, Travis. I will always be here for you. Your joy is my joy just as much as your pain is my pain. We get through times like this together, finding strength in each other. And we will get through this. I’ll be there with you when we talk to Max, and with our love, he’s going to be okay.”
