Page 122 of Redemption
“Of standing on his own.”
I shake my head, trying to work out this new information. “But he wasn’t alone.”
“Sometimes it’s hard for people to see that. You, out of everyone, should know that.”
My brow crumples. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
His mouth stays in a serious line as he considers me. “You don’t? There’s a story about why you came back that you haven’t shared with anyone, and I think it’s because you don’t realize that you have someone, too.”
“That’s not—that’s not true,” I say, avoiding turning back to look at him.
He drops his chin to my shoulder, his front pressed against my back. “I think you do. Talk to me, please. I don’t want to start this relationship by holding back again. I meant it. I’m all in. Good, bad, ugly—I want it all. Let me shoulder some of it, baby.”
A sob shakes my shoulders. “Even if the weight drags you down?”
He chuckles. “I think you underestimate how broad my shoulders are. I can take it.”
“Okay,” I concede, “but can we go in the sun for this conversation? It’s getting cold.”
I pull out of his grasp, walk to the entrance of the cave, and slip back under the waterfall. Hayes follows, keeping silent.
It takes a few moments before we are back on the bank, basking in the sun’s rays. Hayes sits beside me, waiting for me to speak, and I search for where to begin.
“After Langston died, I was lost. Everything I thought I wanted didn’t seem so important anymore, so I took a year off to figure it out—away from here and all the people that made it impossible to do.”
I stop here. There’s a flash of pain on Hayes’s face. “Including me?”
“Yeah, Hayes, including you. And maybe I should apologize for that, but I can’t. If I stayed here—I just couldn’t.”
He nods, understanding passing between us, even if it does hurt.
“Anyway, after a year of wandering, I still felt lost, and I started to wonder if things would have been different if I would have—you know, been there. I wanted to find a path to help people because I was tired of feeling helpless. I applied to nursing school, and even though I hated that I would be in the same field as my dad, it finally felt like I fit. I loved what I was learning. After I graduated, I got a job. Up until that point, I hadn’t dealt with—death. Maybe it was luck, but I don’t think so. I got a job at a major hospital in the city, and I started to see death everywhere. It was unavoidable. I became hardened to it. I had to, or I would have lost myself in it. Then I met a man—”
Hayes flinches. “Were you in love with this man?”
I shake my head. “Not in the way you think. He was—I don’t know how to explain it. He was everything light and happy, and there was so much darkness that surrounded me. We never dated, but he filled a hole in me—at least for a little while.”
Scooting closer, Hayes lays his hand on my leg, his thumb tracing over my skin. “What happened?”
“I think—I think I needed the light so much that I missed his darkness. I was working in the ER one night, and an ambulance called ahead. They had an attempted suicide. I—I wasn’t prepared when they brought him in. He was—there was no way to survive it. I failed him.”
My hands shake, and I shove them between my legs to keep him from seeing.
He doesn’t let me hide from him, though. Scooping his hand under my legs and placing one on my back, he picks me up and sits me in his lap.
Like my first day in town, the panic threatens to overtake me. My breaths are quick and uneven, but he takes my face in his hands, smoothing his thumbs over each tear that falls, and whispers, “Breathe with me, baby.”
And so I do, taking a deep breath each time he pulls his in.
When my heart rate evens and the tears stop flowing, Hayes says, “It wasn’t your fault. None of it was your fault.”
“But I didn’t see. After everything, I didn’t see. I used him for the way he made me feel, and I couldn’t even save his life in return.”
“You can’t save everyone from the darkness, and sometimes people are so good at hiding their darkness that you never know until it’s too late. Can I tell you a story?”
I nod, his hands still caressing my face.
“After Langston died, I couldn’t see past my pain. I quit football, and I came home. I was lost like you were, but I could see that others were lost too. I couldn’t see past my own pain—until Campbell literally smacked me across the head.”
