Page 69 of Wrecked
Saying the words out loud hit him like a sledgehammer to the sternum. Pain radiated from the center of his chest, made him want to throw up, made him want to punch something. The thought of never hearing her voice, of never holding her in his arms. Never making love to her—those beautiful blue eyes locked on him the whole time.
“So you’re just letting her go?” Deacon got off his stool and in his face. “You’re giving up, walking away, like she means nothing to you?”
Cole stared at him, trying to read the guy. “What? You saying you want me to keep seeing Piper?”
“If you wanted Piper, you wouldn’t give a fuck what I had to say about it, or anyone else for that matter.” His friend stared him down. “I never took you for a coward. Guess I was wrong.” Deke signaled the bartender, ordered a drink, then turned back to him. “Then again, after the way you treated her today, you’d be lucky if she let you back through the front door.”
“She’s better off without me.”
The bartender delivered Deke’s drink, and he took a sip. “If this is your attitude, you’re probably right.”
He growled in frustration. “It’s for her own good. I’m trying to do the right fucking thing here. It’s what’s best for her.”
Deke shook his head. “That’s bullshit, and you know it. You’re pushing away the woman you love. A woman who loves you right back, enough to want to be there for you, to support you after what you’ve been through. And what do you do? Throw it back in her face.”
A woman who loves you…
Did she love him? He shook his head in denial and opened his mouth to do the same, but Deacon talked over him.
“I’ve been waiting for you to wake the hell up. See the goddamn light. Stop blaming yourself for something that wasn’t your fault. Adam’s dead, but you’re right there with him. You’re a fucking empty shell. There’s barely anything left of the man I knew.” He jabbed a finger at him. “Except when you’re with Piper. When you’re with her, something changes. You need that, you need it more than you realize. And every time you deny that happiness, every time you turn your back on what she’s offering you, you’re as good as pissing on Adam’s grave.”
Cole lunged from his stool and shoved him. Deke’s words hit home in a way he was not prepared for. “Shut the fuck up.”
Deacon shoved him back, hard, and got in his face. “You lived. You fucking lived, man. Don’t take that for granted. You can be damn sure Adam wouldn’t have. He’d make the most of every minute, spending it with the ones he loved.” Deke gave him another shove. “No one blames you for what happened. It was an accident. And until you accept that, until you accept that sometimes shit happens that’s out of your control, your life will stay on hold.”
Deke took a step back and slumped onto his stool. “Jesus, Cole, it’s time you got the hell over yourself.”
Cole unclenched his fists and rubbed his hands over his face. Fuck.
His time with Piper—the best time of his fucking life—shit, the way she made him feel, it churned inside him, blended with Deke’s words, swimming through his pounding skull until the room around him misted into nothing. Until it was just him and the maelstrom of emotions battling inside him. Until he felt raw, nothing but longing and fear and desperation.
You’re pushing away the woman you love. A woman who loves you right back…
Shit. The way he’d shut Piper down. What had he done?
You lived. You fucking lived, man. Don’t take that for granted. Deke was right. Adam would have loved harder, not run from it.
There’s barely anything left of the man I knew. Except when you’re with Piper.
Except when he was with Piper. He couldn’t deny it. When he was with her, everything felt right, better somehow. She cast sunshine into his darkness. Made him feel something other than anger and self-loathing. Shit, he could breathe when he was with her. The tight band around his chest that felt like it was squeezing the life out of him wasn’t there when she was by his side.
And if he was honest, since he returned to Miami, since he let go, let himself have her, he’d felt a change in himself. Slowly he’d begun to question what happened that terrible day.
Yeah, he’d been behind the wheel, but Kate was right. Adam would have done the exact same thing. He would have made the same call. Hell, he’d told him to keep chasing the suspect, had been as desperate as Cole to catch the bastard. It could have easily been the other way around. A few short weeks ago, he’d wished it had been. Could the crash have been avoided if he hadn’t looked over at his partner for that split second? They’d been driving at high speeds, it all happened so fast. For the longest time he’d believed he could have prevented it.
But now…
His shrink called it survivor’s guilt. And finally, he could see it. He’d believed if he let go of the guilt—if he allowed himself to find happiness, allowed himself to move on, to forgive himself—that a good man had lost his life for nothing, that he would be forgotten. That his wife and kid, and their pain, would be forgotten.
How could he allow himself to be happy when they’d suffered so much loss?
But Adam wouldn’t want that. Kate knew it. She’d tried her best to push that message home when she’d come to see him.
Until Piper came back into his life, he didn’t think it was possible. Before Piper, he’d been ready to crawl under a rock and disappear. For the first time since the car accident, he had hope—hope that with her by his side, he could get through this. That maybe he wasn’t this terrible person he’d convinced himself he was. That he could stop punishing himself for what happened.
Because Deke, Piper, Kate—they were right.
It was an accident.
