Page 74 of The Consequence of You
“The crash killed her almost instantly. She’d have known very little. That’s what they kept saying.”
“Callie-”
“No. I’m not finished.” I take another deep breath, determined to get through it all. “That’s what they said. But it doesn’t matter because she was worrying about me. That was her last thought. She was distracted. It was dark and icy, and she was desperate to make sure I was okay. They said the other driver was elderly and should have stopped driving years before. But it doesn’t matter. Because even if he was the one who actually made the mistake on the road, she should never have been there.
She should have been at home safe.
She was there because I lied. Because I hid things from her. Because all I cared about was seeing my boyfriend. A boyfriend who was never going to be long term. I killed her for nothing!” I claw at my chest as I gasp for breath.
“Sweetheart…”
“Can you see now why I told you this thing between us could never be anything more? My actions ended her life, and I ruined my own and Luca’s. My father’s. Nico’s.
I swore that day I would never make a choice or decision without thinking it through. That I wouldn’t lie.You’re not Italian. There can’t be anything long-term between us, and I won't have another relationship behind closed doors. And apart from all of that, why would someone love someone who had killed their own mother?”
Asher places his fingers over my lips, softly silencing me.
“You did not cause your mother’s death, Callie. When you went to Nico’s that day, you never set out to stay out late, you never intended for it to end the way it did. I saw the newspaper articles. It was an accident. You didn’t cause the bad weather. You didn’t make the other driver go out that night. There are so many other variables about that night. Things that, had they happened differently, might have prevented that tragic, awful moment. You have to believe that.”
I shake my head. I want to believe him. I really do, and I appreciate him trying to make me feel better more than he could possibly know. Asher takes my hand.
“I’m serious. You can’t continue to blame yourself. Have you ever talked to your father or Luca about this?”
“You don’t understand. After she died, Luca went completely off the rails. Papa made him go and live abroad. His whole life was uprooted because of me. I don’t need to talk to him to know that. And my father? Why do you think he spends so much time in Sicily? He says it’s for work, but I know the truth. He can hardly bear to look at me. They blame me as much as I blame myself.”
ASHER
I open my car door and walk around to her side of the car to open her door.
“Come here.”
Helping her out of her seat, I pull her into my arms. Holding her tightly, she sinks into my embrace, clinging to me. Her small body is wracked with sobs, and I try my best to keep it together for her while her heart breaks open in front of me. I lose track of how long we stand in the dark, at the side of the road in the early hours of the new year, but when we finally break apart, I know I need to get her home. She’s exhausted, and she needs to sleep off tonight if I have any chance of helping her see reason.
I could keep telling her she’s wrong, that it’s not her fault, but she won’t believe me. It’s so ingrained in her, she won’t hear anything different.
Helping her back into the car, I drop a kiss to her forehead. Her eyes are puffy from crying. It was clear to anyone she was haunted by something, but I had no idea it was this. This misplaced guilt.
I’d seen the newspaper reports; I knew the story. But hearing it from her, hearing about the events of that night, how she thought it was her fault? Fuck, I had no idea.
We drive home in silence. Me lost in my thoughts, and her falling asleep next to me.
She was just a kid when her mother died. Fifteen years old. I can’t imagine how she felt finding out her mother was gone, and I can see how she came to believe it was her fault, but her family should have done more to make sure she knew they didn’t feel like that, too. That would have gone a hell of a long way to easing her own feelings of guilt.
I pull up in front of her house. Casting my eye over hersleeping form, I leave her fast asleep in the passenger seat as I turn off the engine and get out of the car.
Lights come on as the front door slides open. Her brother rushes down the steps, but before he can get near the car, I step in front of him. He stops in his tracks and just as I thought, the worry is so clearly evident on his face.
“Move asshole,” he hisses, predictably pulling his gun on me.
“You can put that down. She’s okay. She’s just asleep in the car.”
“I’ll be the judge of whether she’s okay or not,” he growls.
“Wait. Before you wake her. I need to talk to you.”
He scowls at me.
“What about?”
