Page 209 of Breaking Point
All week she’s been comatose. Not eating, not drinking, not talking. It’s like she completely shut down. Layla and I have had to force-feed her so she doesn’t pass out.
Gently pulling the tie of the robe, it comes loose, revealing her nude-colored bra and panties. After prying the robe off her shoulders, I bend, laying out the dress for her to step into.
The front door downstairs opens, no doubt my parents arriving.
Clearing my throat, I lift my head to find her eyes on me with the dress in my hand. “You can do it, Blaze. One step at a time, baby.”
Her chest rises on a deep inhale before she gingerly lifts her left leg.
“That’s it, Bella, keep going.”
She steps in and her body shudders.
“You’ve got it,” I coax gently.
When I had to put my suit on for Drew’s funeral, it felt like each step of the process I was being shot by a gun. Each movement fatal, solidifying that he was gone. By the utter devastation that fills her eyes as she steps her other leg in and I lift the dress over her body, Bella must be feeling the same.
Slowly rising, I take in the way her chin lifts, that fire I’ve been waiting to see slowly rekindling. Until it’s doused in water as quickly as it arrived.
I press a kiss to her forehead before moving around her and zipping up the dress. I remain there as I whisper, “I’ll try and keep you away from people but they’re going to give you condolences and it’s going to feel like hearing nails on a chalkboard.”
I wish someone had done this for me when Drew passed, so I’m giving to her what I needed in that moment.
“It’s going to hurt, Bella, but if it gets to be too much squeeze your hand in mine three times and I’ll get you away.”
“Three times?”
Her voice is rough. Gravelly. It shocks me into silence for a moment because I haven’t heard her beautiful voice outside of crying and screaming in a week.
Walking around to face her, I note her gaze tracking my movements. “Three times.”
“Three is my favorite,” she whispers.
“Well, then I picked well.” I check the time on my watch and dread my next words. “We have to go.”
Her shoulders tense.
Gently placing my fingers below her chin, I lift her gaze tomine. “Three times, remember? That’s all it takes. Three squeezes.”
She nods. “Three squeezes.”
Lacing her fingers through mine, I don’t let go of her hand. Not as we go downstairs and she says quiet hellos to my parents. Not as we sit in the back of the car I hired. Not as we walk to the service outside by the empty hole in the ground.
I never let go.
And neither does she.
The tips of my fingers have turned white, but I don’t care. I couldn’t care, not as her lip was trembling and I could see the silent tears rolling down her cheeks past the sunglasses she hasn’t removed.
It got worse as the speeches came and when the pastor called out for Trisha’s daughter to come forward, my heart hurt painfully at the idea of letting her go up there alone. But to my surprise, she remains standing, looking down at me expectantly, and that’s all it takes.
One single look, and I’m right there beside her.
Walking with her to the front of the hole they buried for the casket, Bella keeps her chin lifted, looking ahead. I don’t know if she even glances at the casket or the ground.
She clears her throat.
Twice.
