Page 74 of Embers

The next time I’m fully conscious the world has stopped shaking. I’m more comfortable. Warm. Underneath sheets. Not in Cal’s lap or his arms anymore.

I gasp and jerk my head up. “Cal!”

“I’m here.” The voice comes from right beside me, rather than above me like before. It sounds slightly slurred, like he’s sleepy. “I’m right here, baby.”

I relax and manage to open my eyes more easily this time. There’s a little light, but it’s not blinding like before. “What’s… going on?”

“We got to town. This is a room in someone’s house.”

I look around, my vision truly clearing for the first time. It’s a plain, undecorated room, but it has a twin bed and clean bedding and a chair where Cal is supposed to be sitting.

He’s not really sitting in it. He’s barely on the edge, leaning over onto the bed.

“Were you asleep?” I frown, trying to figure out why he’s in that position.

“Course not. Just restin’. Been a long day.”

I giggle at that. I really don’t know why. “I think I’m feeling better. I still have a headache, and my ankle hurts like it wants to kill me, but everything isn’t so fuzzy.”

“Good.” He reaches over and strokes my cheek the way he was doing earlier. “You scared the shit out of me.”

Don’t ask me why, but I giggle again.

He smiles too. Sways toward me. For a moment, I’d swear he’s going to kiss me.

But he straightens abruptly, scooting back so he’s sitting correctly in the chair.

“So we really made it?” I look around, feeling disoriented because I don’t know this room and I don’t know the house it belongs in. “Everyone but Peter?”

“Yeah. Gail and Olivia are doin’ fine, and now it seems like you are too.”

“I am. I think I’m fine.” I exhale deeply and rub at my face. “The whole thing feels kind of like a nightmare.”

“That’s not surprisin’. That’s how it feels to me too. I kept feelin’ you slipping away. Right outta my fingers. Never want to experience that again.”

I let out a shaky breath, touched and confused and suddenly scared. The past few hours have seemed to throw me and Cal back to where we used to be, but we’re not there.

We’re not there anymore.

I have absolutely no idea where we are.

“It’s okay,” Cal says. Soft and gruff. “I’m not expectin’ nothin’.”

“What?”

“I know we’re not good. We’re not… together anymore. And I know one crisis ain’t gonna fix it.”

“Yeah.” My relief from before is getting weighed down, overwhelmed, by a sinking heaviness as the reality of my relationship with Cal finally catches up to me.

“But I wanna say this one thing if you’ll let me.”

I blink. Nod. I have no idea what to expect.

Cal clears his throat and drops his eyes for a moment before he looks at me again. “I’m so sorry, bab—Rachel. Not sure if you even want me to call you baby anymore, and either way I’ll understand. I’m so sorry about everythin’. About not trusting you. Not really believin’ you when you kept telling me you love me. Not acceptin’ that the universe was givin’ me a gift I’d never deserve. I’m sorry for leaving you. For abandoning you. For breakin’ your sweet heart. For all of it. I’m so sorry, Rachel. And even if you never want anythin’ to do with me again, I’ll spend the rest of my life, tryin’ to make up for what I did to you.”

I’m almost strangling on emotion as he finishes. My whole body is shaking with it.

“I was so caught up in guilt—for so many reasons—that I couldn’t accept everythin’ you were giving me. The gift of it. The… the grace of it. I just couldn’t… couldn’t let it in.” He gives a little cough—maybe a cover for emotion of his own—and glances away.

---