Page 58 of Don't Leave Me
I pressed my forehead against the back of her neck and summoned a courage I wasn’t sure I had. Strangely, it wasn’t as hard as I’d thought. Because Ash was right, and I was fighting for something bigger than just us. I was fighting for our family.
“I was alone in the world. So fucking alone the day I showed up at the estate. My mother didn’t love me, and I didn’t love my mother. I had no father. I didn’t know George. I…I thought about ending it then. And you sat down next to me and you gave me that fucking grape soda and suddenly I wasn’t alone. You wouldn’t let me be. From that day forward, you were always there. AWAYS FUCKING THERE! And I loved you so much and needed you so much, I hated the fuck out of you for making me feel that way. For giving me something I could lose all over again.”
I heard her sob, felt her breathing start to tighten up.
“Easy in, easy out,” I whispered, even as I tried to swallow over the lump in my throat. “I love you. I have always loved you. My greatest fear in life has been, and always will be, you saying you don’t care. You died and it broke me, but at least I knew you died loving me. I had that. I could hold onto it. If you ever stopped loving me…it would end me.”
“Let me go. You’re squeezing me too hard.”
Instantly, I let my arms drop, afraid of hurting her, trying not to focus on the words themselves because I didn’t want to let her go. But then she was turning and crawling onto my lap, only this time facing me.
She put her hands on my cheeks and made me look at her. Made me see what was in her eyes, made me show her what was in mine.
Our truth.
“I hated you for making me love you because I was so afraid I was going to lose you. I know that’s fucked up. I do. I’m sorry, Ash. So sorry for everything I did to you because of that.”
She smiled through her tears. “I’m never going to stop loving you. I promised you, and I meant it. Even when I had to leave, I never stopped.”
“I’m going to hold you to that promise. Every day.”
“Say it again,” she whispered.
“I love you. With everything that I am. Please let me stay part of this family.”
She shrugged. “Okay.”
I blinked. I’d just put myself through what felt like an emotional atomic bomb, and her answer to that wasokay?
She wiggled off me and moved around the room. She found the T-shirt I’d discarded, picked it up and plopped it over her head. “I like to sleep on the right side of the bed, and I like to sleep in a T-shirt.”
I knew this from our one week together in Florida. Not just any T-shirt either, but one of mine.
She got under the covers, then patted the bed next to her. Like some shell-shocked victim from a war, I pulled the covers down and crawled in next to her. I preferred to sleep naked. Something she also knew.
“What happens now?” I asked, feeling raw and wrung out.
She snuggled up against me, smiled, and patted my cheek. “We sleep, and tomorrow, if I’m not too sore, you make love to me again. Then you pack up your stuff and you move in with me and Danny. And we live. Happily ever after.”
It sounded too easy. Too simple.
“You believe me,” I said, stating what I knew to be a fact. I could feel her trust. “I thought it would be harder.”
She rested her cheek against my chest. “I believe you. Because you believe in us. Now sleep, and have good dreams.”
I did.
* * *
Eight years ago
Ashleigh
“He’s really hot, George. Maybe we should take him to the hospital.”
I looked at Marc, who was lying on his bed flushed from fever. He kept switching between pulling the covers over him when he was shivering, and pushing them off when he got too hot. With a wracking cough that wouldn’t let him get any real sleep.
George pushed the thermometer into his ear and gave it a moment before it beeped. He frowned. “A hundred and two. Let’s give him an hour and see how the aspirin works. Then I’ll decide. I’m going to go make up some chicken broth and see if we can get it in him.”
