Page 45 of Twisted Trails
The tears come fast now, and I can’t stop them, can’t breathe around the thought of losing her, of finding her too late, or feeling the air empty out of a room that still smells like her.
Because I can’t.I can’tlose her too.
“We’re not letting her slip through our fingers, okay?”Mamansays fiercely, her voice the kind of steady that means she’s holding it all back for my sake. “I will not lose anybody else to this. I swear it, Luc. I won’t.”
And I won’t either.
I will do anything and everything in my power to make her life livable. I’ll go with her to every doctor, fight every fight with her, fight her father, be there for her brother, make sure Mason will fucking forgive her, and yeah, I’ll do my best to help Greer fix his fuckup.
I’d rather share her heart than watch it stop beating.
CHAPTER NINE
Alaina
My body is heavy, weighed down in a way that tells me the crying must’ve worn me out completely.
A hand brushes across my forehead, and the motion is so tender it lifts some of that weight, just enough that for a moment, still half-tangled in sleep, I don’t question it.
Of course, it’s Luc.
My ridiculous, comforting, pink-hoodied chaos of a man. My emotional support himbo. The one who held me after I broke open like a dam, who didn’t flinch or look away when I cried like I was dying, all thanks to Finn Greer getting his face pummeled by my brother.
Fuck.
I push the thought away and smile at the touch, and lean into the hand without hesitation, like some part of me already knows it’s safe.
Except it isn’t, because when I finally blink my eyes open, it’s not Luc sitting on the edge of the bed.
It’s my father’s warmth I was leaning into. Something I haveneverfelt before.
Everything inside me tenses, recoiling fast and instinctively as I push back until my back hits the headboard. I wince as pain shoots through my fingers and up my arm, making me hiss through my teeth.
“I’m sorry,” Dad says quickly, hands held up like I might bolt. His voice is soft, almost unsure. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
Yeah. Definitely slept longer than I meant to, even if it was just a nap. The pain medication has run its course, and reality is seeping back in, one sharp edge at a time. I stare at him, my heart pounding for all the wrong reasons, and it takes a moment before I can force the words out. “What are you doing here?”
His eyes trace over my face, not with judgment for once, but with something harder to pin down. “You’re looking more and more like your mother.”
I don’t know what to say to that, so I say nothing.
“Dane always looked like her, too, but you… you’re the spitting image of her. I forget, sometimes. Then I see you like this, and it hits me again, even with your short hair.”
“Yeah,” I say, managing to keep my voice neutral. “I’ve seen pictures.”
When I still had my long hair, you could have thought we were twins.
He smiles faintly, like the memory of her lives in the only warm place inside him, but then his words confirm it. “She was everything to me, you know.”
I frown at him, trying to find the trap. We never talk about Mom. Not ever. The scraps I know all came from Dane, who was ten when she died, her death leaving a much bigger mark on him than me.
“I don’t think I’ve ever told you that, but she was the love of my life.” He looks down at his hands, turning themover like he’s still trying to find the right shape for what he’s feeling. “She wasn’t just beautiful. She was light. The kind that fills a room and makes you believe in things again. She made people better just by being around. Me included.”
There’s a long pause, one I don’t interrupt.
“When she died…” he continues, “… it was like all the good in my life disappeared with her. Everything just dulled. Went gray. And it never came back.”
This is the part where I know I’m supposed to feel something—some wave of understanding or long-delayed empathy. I should feel sorry that he lost the love of his life, and that the woman who made him smile died young and left him with nothing but two kids and endless grief.
