Page 67 of Skin Deep

She sniffed, and surprising me, took my hand. “She’s been struggling for a long time. After her father left, it seemed to make her insecurities worse, and that only served to feed the dark thoughts in her mind. She was never good enough. Then—”

“Elias?”

“She told you about him?”

“Them. The stepbrothers. I met Miles.”

“Ah. After Elias died, the other one kept coming around. I tried to scare him off, but G has a mind of her own. You did not know Elias was dead?”

I shook my head. I had no clue.

“Elias tried to kill her in the car. He rammed the car into the mountainside on purpose. He died instantly. She only had a few scratches. But that is when she started to—do it to herself. Like maybe she had found the courage to do it.”

“Courage,” I said, my voice not sounding like my own. The woman she was describing wasn’t the woman I got to know on that island. She had the courage, and the energy, to live. But I understood what she meant.

“Elias was a master at manipulating her thoughts. He would tell her things to keep her close to him. Whenever she would decide she did not want to be with him anymore, he would pull tighter. When she does not have the energy to fight, she lays down. Goes to sleep on her life. She does not have the energy sometimes to rise above it.”

She touched her temple. “Words that were not true got embedded in here. The awful things…” She shook her head. “For as strong as my daughter is, she has a weak spot in her mind. She believes things that are not true. After her father left, she started looking for something. She reminds me so much of my sister—the man she was with was a devil too. My daughter can't seem to beat it, either.”

Even though I knew the situations were completely different, I thought about the tattoo on Lachlan’s chest. Jesus on one side and the devil on the other, facing off. He said it represented a daily struggle to make the right choices. In Georgina’s case, I wondered if it was fighting the voices inside of her head that refused to quiet. The heavy sadness that weighed her down when she believed all the lies. When she couldn’t help but feel what she did.

I went to stand, but Stella pulled on my hand to keep me seated. “If I am wrong, if this is not what I think it is between you and my baby, leave now. It will not be easy.”

I’d never felt the weight of the world when someone’s mother looked at me that way. Like if I agreed, I’d carry this weight with her. We’d make sure her daughter didn’t have to carry the burden alone. It would take a man without a heart to lie to her about this.

“She gave my number, you said?”

“Sì,” she whispered.

Her one call.

I balled my fist and held my knuckles out to her. She looked at it, then up at me. I pushed it closer to her. She seemed to get the idea and did the same. She pressed her knuckles against mine.

“I’m in,” I said. “Where is she?”

A beat passed, and when her hand came down, she started to sob. Dr. Sala seemed to appear out of nowhere again, sitting next to her, holding her hand. He told me where to find Georgina. I squared my shoulders and my will as the elevators took me to her.

* * *

I ran into Clara Bow on the way up. Dr. Sala had called her. She told me she worked in the SICU, but she had a friend who worked on the floor where Georgina had been taken after she had been stabilized.

Stabilized.The word made me want to punch the elevator buttons.

“Hey,” Clara whispered. “She’s going to be okay.”

I nodded, but it was hard to concentrate on the scene stuck in my head. How she’d been found. And why. For a moment, I second-guessed my decision to do this. To see her. What if I was one of the reasons she was here in the first place? But I dismissed it. I would be here, no matter why or how she needed me.

I just hoped it was the same way I needed her.

Ti amo.

“This way,” Clara said, stepping out first.

A bunch of faces looked up from what they were doing when I stepped out. Clara waved to them, going to talk to a nurse sitting behind the desk. A few seconds later, she came back.

“Her nurse just checked on her. You’re good to go in.” She nodded to a room.

At the same time my legs rushed to get to her, my feet felt like they were made of lead. At the same time my hands opened the door, my heart fell into the pit of my stomach. She was sitting on the side of the bed, facing the wall, her back to me. She wore a hospital gown, and her hair was sticking to it. It wasn’t full like it usually was. Full of life. Like her.

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