Page 38 of Always. Forever.

Boh can’t even speak, he just drops his head, crying, and shakes it side to side. I pull myself out of Boh’s hold and stand up, getting closer to the bed. I sit beside Jace, getting as close as I can so I can touch him. I wrap his hand in mine, and I expect it to be cold, but it’s not, its warm, like he always is. I let this ground me for all of five seconds before reality crashes down on me again. I lay my head on his chest, feeling it rise and fall. He’s breathing, they don’t know what they are talking about. I squeeze my eyes closed, drowning in the feel of his chest moving. I let myself live in a world where it’s him breathing, not the machine. It’s Jace, he is breathing on his own, and soon he will wake up and be better and come home with me.

“Please wake up, Jace. Please,” I whisper into his chest.

I hear a scoff and then a loud laugh behind me. This breaks me out of my dream where Jace will wake up and come back home. The pain hits my chest like a truck, and I sit up, turning around in slow motion, as if I have weights holding me down. Cash is standing by the door . He wasn’t there before, I don’t think. Although, I wasn’t paying attention to anything other than Jace. Cash is still laughing in a satanic way.

“Here she goes again.” He smirks at me, but I can see the pain in his eyes, the sadness he is drowning in.

“Please wake up, Jace,” he mimics me in a little girl voice. He shakes his head side to side, and his stare hits me like a knife to the chest.

“Either you step back into reality and understand my son is not coming back. Or”—he points at me, stalking closer—“you”—he takes another step—“can”—and another step—“get”—now he’s standing only centimeters away from me—“the fuck out!” he roars in my face.

I shrink back into Jace’s side because it makes me feel like he’s by my side, sticking up for me. I raise my chin. “Fuck you!”

Boh grabs Cash by his shoulder and pulls him in for a hug. Cash breaks down into Boh’s shoulders. His knuckles turn white from gripping Boh like he is the only thing holding him up. I’m not taking it personal like I normally do, in this moment, I think of someone else; what it must feel like to lose a son.

I know Cash is hurting, so I turn back around and lie next to Jace, avoiding all the wires and tubes, and get as close to him as I can. I need to be near him to feel him. Closing my eyes, it’s like nothing has changed, I’m lying next to Jace back at our apartment in bed on a Sunday morning. If I open my eyes, I’ll see him emailing away on his phone, or looking at the latest stats for his favorite soccer team. It’s where I am in my head, and it’s that moment I sit there thinking back to those times; they were the most simplest things but I then realize they are my favorite moments. Jace and I closed away from the world, just us.

I hear voices around me. Bridget. I don’t want to open my eyes, all the time I have them closed and my head laying near Jace, feeling the movement of his chest, I’m in a happy place. I can breathe when I’m here with him, he makes my world clear of any void or sadness. He is my happy place, he has been since he entered in my life. I don’t know how I went twenty years without him in it, everything before meant nothing to me once I met him. My life started that night at Freedom, the night he bumped into me and I stared into his perfect eyes. My life roared to life in that moment.

I squeeze his arm and let reality crawl its way into my mind and sob into him. I cry for him and wish I could take it all away and pass it on to me. I open my eyes, and I turn his wrist around to see theR. As I run my fingers across it, a small smile graces my lips at the memory of us getting the matching tattoos done. Thinking back to our two-year anniversary and the way he begged me to let him get my name tattoed on him. I begged him not to, not because I didn’t want him to, but I just didn’t want him regretting it. Now, I know he would never, but at the time, I was still unsure on how he truly felt for me. Now, I have no doubt he loves me.

Or loved me . . . As I think of having to use that in past tense, the stabbing pain in my heart increases. I remember him pleading and begging me with those eyes, and there is no saying no to those eyes, so I compromised and said he could get an R and I would get a J. I knew how I felt for Jace then, I was head over heels and couldn’t picture my life without him, he was it for me. I would have happily had “Jace” tattooed on me, but I knew he would then get Rylee, so I settled for the J too.

Leaving the memory, I look back down at the J as tears pour out of my eyes. I wish now we both got our full names. I stare at the blurry J through the tears in my eyes. We always spoke about getting our kids’ names tattooed and what we would have. He said he wanted their names going up his arm above the R but in smaller writing. The thought of never having children with the other half of me. I always wondered what it would be like to see my children and realize I made them with the person I love most in this world—two halves with one half being so amazingly perfect. This crushes me like nothing else, I will never get that future we nonstop spoke about, it was taken from me before it could ever truly begin. I wail into Jace’s side, letting everything out, there is no pain out there like this, and I don’t know how I’m going to do this without him.

I hear Bridget before I see her.

“Rylee, wake up.” Bridget’s hand rests on my shoulder.

I open my eyes, and I have wrapped myself up with Jace and am holding him tighter than I ever have before.Did I never hold him tight enough? I don’t ever remember holding him this tight. I hope he knows I loved holding him. My mind races 100 mph, thinking about everything and wondering if Jace knew how much I loved him.Did I show him how much?I feel like my mind is blanking out, and this sends me into a shock of panic.Why can’t I remember him, remember our memories?I shoot up, and Bridget is telling me to calm down.

“Did he know how much I love him?” I cry out frantically.

Bridget has tears in her eyes.

“Jace knew you loved him more than life, Rylee. Not even just Jace, everyone knew that by the way you looked at him—like he hung the moon and the stars, Rylee. Jace knew every inch of your feelings, never doubt that.”

I fall onto Bridget’s chest. “I’m sorry, my mind is blank, I feel like I’m forgetting him already, Bridge.”

Bridget brings me in for a cuddle and we stand there crying into each other, holding each other up. She’s leaning on me as much as I am her. There’s a knock, so I glance over Bridget’s shoulder and see the doctor standing there from yesterday.

“Ms. Matthews. Ms Stiles.” Cash and Boh are nowhere to be seen.

“Yes,” I say, standing back from Bridget and wiping my eyes and nose on my sleeve.

“We have another doctor coming in later, I will come back with him, but it would be good if we could have a chat when he arrives, if this is okay with you?”

Bridget and I nod.

“Thank you. If there is anything I or the other staff can do, please do let one of us know.” He gives us a tight smile.

“Thanks, doctor.”

When he leaves, I look over at Jace, my eyes gravitating to his chest: up, down, up down. This makes me breathe easier. I know it’s crazy, but it’s like he is still here with us. I drag my eyes to the tubes and then at the machine, then to Bridget, and as if she knows what I’m thinking, tears pour from our eyes again. We know what this meeting will be regarding, but none of us will ever be ready to hear those words.

Chapter Nineteen

Weallgatherinthe room that made our worlds come crashing down only yesterday. Bridge had to call Boh to find out where they were, she didn’t tell me, but to be honest, I don’t care. I’m numb right now. It feels like I’m in limbo, and even though I know what is going on and what is happening, my brain is struggling to keep up with it.

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