Page 94 of To Belong Together
Each second, her composure skidded closer to the guardrails. Her gaze roved the space, desperate for an escape.
A man rounded the nurses’ station. He carried a coffee and stepped toward one of the other rooms before he caught sight of her and stopped. His focus slid from her mom to her, and his lips parted with unspoken condolences.
What was John still doing here? He’d dropped her off hours before.
He wouldn’t have stayed this long.
He set the cup blindly on the counter of the nurses’ station. The drink tottered, and a nurse grabbed it before the liquid spilled. The woman appeared ready to issue a reprimand but then caught sight of Erin.
Oblivious, John continued toward her.
Her throat squeezed even tighter, and her legs pulled with the desire to run straight for his arms. She couldn’t do that. She knew—sheknewshe and John wouldn’t work. Knew it as certainly as she knew her father was dead.
Grief lurched through her, unstoppable.
Ducking her head, Erin lifted her hand to hide as all the muscles in her face skewed. Her abs clenched, trying to curl her up into a ball, but before she crumpled, arms encircled her.
John kept her upright as he led her a step into a room, then his hand guided her to rest her head against his shoulder. She shuddered in the scent of a pine forest. The effort to hang on to a sliver of composure only tightened her grip on him and forced the sobs out with more gusto.
“I’ve got you.” Still cradling her head, he rubbed her back, repeated himself, and occasionally hummed for a beat or two, as if to signify words with deeper, more tender meaning. “Breathe.”
His hand fell into a pattern on her back, one circle one direction, two the other, steady enough to time her breaths. In for the one, out for the two. That may have been the idea. Either way, if she was a truck that had plowed through a guard rail, he was the one towing her back out.
Eventually, her sobs receded. Though tears continued to seep, she opened her eyes, and her lashes brushed his jacket.
John’s hold on her loosened. She stepped back, and because they hadn’t gone far into the exam room, the move put her in the doorway. Her peripheral vision caught Mom and Susanna, still in the hall, but Erin couldn’t rejoin them without saying something to John.
And it was his company she wanted. It was just … embarrassing that he’d seen all that. Her gaze didn’t seem to want to lift from the base of the doorjamb.
Susanna moved in with a tissue. Erin accepted it. With Mom and Susanna to one side and John in the room, for privacy she retreated into the hall and faced the wall as she cleaned up. When she was as composed as she would get, the damp tissue provided another excuse to take a moment to herself. She walked down to the nurse’s station and threw it out, then started a slow trek back.
She didn’t focus directly on anyone, but Mom and Susanna were huddled forms, and the tall, still presence a couple of feet from the room where she’d left him had to be John. For being here for her, she owed him something. Eye contact at the very least.
Her feet closed the distance, but her focus was slow to obey the obligation, pausing at the little darkened puddle on the shoulder of his jacket where her head had rested. Tears, hopefully, and not snot.
The desire to apologize drove her line of sight to his face.
His mouth was drawn with sympathy, concern and sorrow communicated in the crease on his brow, the tilt of his head.
Beyond him, someone from the hospital approached, and Mom and Susanna spoke with her in hushed tones.
John watched Erin as if no one else existed. “I’m sorry we didn’t find him sooner.”
She nodded. But then shook her head. No guilt trips for John Kennedy, the man whose teams had found Dad. “Because of you, we had the chance to say goodbye. Thank you.”
“I wish they could’ve saved him.”
“Me too.” Tears welled again, and when he offered another hug, she sank into his arms.
30
John followed Erin up the front walk to her house, where she’d pack to stay with her mother for a few days. Hopefully, the two could offer each other some small comfort, because he’d never seen such raw grief as what he’d witnessed at the hospital.
All the fire had gone out of Erin’s eyes. The confidence she’d displayed the morning they’d met and later, when she’d stolen his speech, had been replaced by tired resignation. Did she have the energy to gather her things? To even make it inside?
He stepped ahead and tried the front door. Locked.
She meekly fit the key in the deadbolt, hesitant as if the house were his, not hers. Embarrassed over the grief he’d witnessed?
