Page 132 of Rescuing Ally: Part 2
“I don’t deserve forgiveness.”
“Maybe not. But he gave it to you anyway.” I take his damaged hands in mine, careful of the torn skin. “That’s what love means. That’s what family means.”
He doesn’t pull away this time; lets me hold his hands while tears he’s been fighting finally fall.
“I don’t know how to do this without him.”
“Neither do I.” The admission costs me everything. “But we’re going to figure it out together.”
“What if I’m just a possessive bastard? What if, without him to balance me out, I become everything he was afraid I already was?”
“Then I’ll remind you who you are. The same way he would have.” I squeeze his hands gently. “We’ll teach each other how to love the way he wanted us to.”
Above us, the stars shine down on two people learning how to carry impossible weight. Behind us, the wake of our passage stretches back toward a past we can never reclaim. Ahead, the horizon promises nothing but uncertainty.
But we’re together. Broken and bleeding and barely holding on, but together.
The way Hank wanted.
The way we promised we would be.
FORTY-THREE
The Long Way Home
ALLY
I waketo the steady throb of engines and the smell of salt air mixed with diesel fuel. For one blissful moment, I forget. Then reality crashes down like a rogue wave—Hank is gone, and I’m curled against Gabe’s chest in a narrow bunk aboard a trawler carrying us home incomplete.
Gabe’s arm tightens around me when I stir. He’s been awake for a while, I can tell by his breathing. Neither of us slept much. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Hank’s face going slack, heard that terrible flat tone of the monitor.
“Morning.” His voice sounds like gravel over broken glass.
“Is it?” I don’t move from his warmth. Outside the small porthole, gray dawn light filters through clouds. “Feels like the same endless night.”
“Two more days.” He presses his lips to the top of my head. “Then we figure out what comes next.”
What comes next.
The phrase sits heavy between us, loaded with implications neither of us are ready to face.
What comes next is a house with three coffee mugs but only two people to use them. What comes next is learning to beenough for each other when we’ve always been part of something larger.
A soft knock interrupts the silence. “Ally? Gabe?” Jenna’s voice carries through the thin door. “Breakfast in the galley if you’re up for it.”
Food is the last thing I want, but the alternative is lying here, drowning in thoughts that lead nowhere good. I untangle myself from Gabe’s arms, ignore the protest in my muscles, and reach for yesterday’s clothes.
“We should go,” I say when Gabe doesn’t move. “The others need to see we’re okay.”
“Are we?”
The question hangs in the air like smoke. I don’t have an answer, so I hold out my hand until he takes it.
The galley buzzes with quiet conversation when we enter. Charlie team sits around the scarred wooden table, picking at plates of eggs and toast. The women cluster together on the bench seats, coffee cups warming their hands. Everyone looks up when we appear, faces carefully neutral.
“There’s coffee,” Carter says, gesturing toward the pot. “Strong enough to wake the dead.” His words fall into sudden silence. Carter’s face goes white as he realizes what he’s said. “Shit. I’m sorry…”
“Hank would’ve appreciated that,” Blake breaks the tension with a rough laugh. “Man lived on coffee and stubbornness.”
