Page 65 of Lights Out

Her eyes didn’t stay on me for long, just enough to shoot me a look of reproach for continuing with this duplicity before dropping back down. We fell quiet while she watched the water move over my hand, and I took the time to drink her in. Her wet hair left damp patches on her bathrobe, and her eyes were a little bloodshot like she’d cried in the shower. The skin beneath them was slightly bruised, a telltale sign of exhaustion, and watching the life start to drain from her expression again made me want to scoop her up and never let her go.

“You’re here,” she said, so low I almost missed the words.

I slipped my hand from hers and pulled her into a hug. “You needed me.”

She rose to her tiptoes, wrapped her arms around my neck, and buried her face in my chest, taking such a deep breath that her sides pressed into my biceps. She started to tremble as she exhaled, and I gave into my need to hold her, dropping my hands to her thighs and hefting her up. Her long legs wrapped around my waist, arms tightening on my shoulders as she hid her face in my neck.

“What happened?” I asked. “It couldn’t have just been Brad.”

“It was my mom,” she whispered against my skin.

I frowned. “I thought your mom passed away.”

She stiffened.

Fuck. I probably should have kept that bit of knowledge to myself.

She pulled back enough to meet my eyes, not bothering to hide the tears that slowly leaked from hers. “You’re so nice that sometimes I forget what a creep you are.”

A sarcastic response was on the tip of my tongue, but I held it in check. “What do you mean, something happened with your mom?”

She sighed and started to pull away, but I hung on, unwilling to let her put any space between us. She must not have truly wanted to escape because she gave up when she realized my intent and snuggled back in. “I killed her.”

It was my turn to go stiff as a board. What the hell was she talking about? “I thought she passed in a car accident.”

“She did,” Aly said. “I was driving. She was trying to teach me how to operate a manual transmission, and it was our first time out on a real road. Before that, we’d practiced in empty parking lots, and she thought I was ready for the next step. I almost stalled out at a red light and panicked when the car jerked forward, slamming my foot down, only I missed the brake and hit the gas, and we shot into the intersection.”

Oh, fuck.

“A car clipped the rear end, spinning us around, and a work truck rammed us head-on,” she said. “The truck driver managed to hit his brakes at the last second, but the impact was still hard enough that all our airbags deployed, and both of my ankles were broken when the front end crumpled. I hit my head hard enough that everything went fuzzy for a few minutes, and when it all came back into focus, I was in so much pain that it took mea moment to notice the pipe sticking out of my mom’s chest. It came loose from the truck during impact and impaled her.”

“I’m so fucking sorry,” I said, squeezing Aly tight. The words felt useless. Why wasn’t there a better way to verbalize empathy in moments like this? Some way to say that you were sorry that encompassed how your heart broke for someone and that you’d do anything you could to take their pain away.

Aly’s sides shook as she lost the fight against her tears, her next words coming out between sobs. “I couldn’t save her.”

Everything clicked into place. Aly couldn’t save her mother, so now she spent every waking hour of her life trying to save everyone else, to the detriment of her own mental and physical health. It made me even more protective of her. Someone so unselfish and caring should be safeguarded at all costs, even from themselves, if necessary.

“There was a car accident tonight,” she said. “The woman looked like Mom, and I just…lost it. I couldn’t treat her.”

I strode from the kitchen into the living room and sank onto the couch with Aly still in my arms. “No one could blame you for that.”

She sniffled. “I blame me.”

I brushed her hair over her shoulder and stroked my hand up and down her back. “You shouldn’t. Retraumatizing yourself isn’t the answer.”

“It’s been almost ten years. I shouldn’t still be traumatized.”

I pressed my fabric-covered lips to her temple. “There isn’t a time limit on grief or trauma.”

She pulled back enough to look at me, eyes red, cheeks blotchy, all the more beautiful for trusting me with her vulnerability. “You sound like my therapist.”

My answering laugh was humorless. “Probably because I’ve been in therapy for so long that I know what one would say right now.”

“And what’s that?” she asked, studying my eyes.

“A therapist would tell you that you didn’t kill your mother. What happened was an accident.”

“Fair enough,” Aly said with another sniffle. “But it’s still my fault she’s dead.”

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