Page 125 of Distress Signal
“You’ll come with me?”
“I won’t leave your side unless I absolutely have to,” I promised.
The same vow I’d made myself earlier, but the tone was different now. My anger had dissipated entirely at seeing her inthis bed, brow scrunched in obvious pain despite the IV on her skin pumping meds through her system. None of that mattered anymore. Not where she’d gone or why she’d been out alone.
All that mattered to me now was helping her heal in any way I could.
Three days later,we returned home—to my entire family waiting with balloons and food and far too much enthusiasm for Reagan to face in her post-surgery exhaustion.
I cleared them all out quickly while Reagan disappeared into our bedroom.
She was asleep before the last of my family members drove off.
We passed the next week in much the same way. Reagan had little energy and a lot of pain, so I spent a lot of the time quietly moving around the house, completing what little work I could remotely while Abel covered things at the ranch.
Despite the fact that we were home together all day, every day, I could sense her pulling away. I hoped this was merely her way of dealing with the pain, drawing into herself while she healed, but I had a bad feeling there was more to it than that.
Nine days after her operation, I woke up to find the bed at my side empty.
“Reagan?”
No answer.
Louder, I called for her again.
Still no response.
Rushing from bed, I first peeked into the bathroom and found it empty.
Checks of the kitchen, living room, and even the basement yielded the same result.
At last, I found her in the guest room, curled into a ball in themiddle of the bed, her casted arm jutting out from her body and tucked awkwardly under her head.
“What’re you doing in here?” I asked softly as I approached.
“Thinking.”
Her voice was so small, so quiet, she might as well have been in a different dimension.
I sank down onto the bed at her side, but didn’t touch her, somehow knowing that pulling her close would only drive her further away.
“Thinking about what?”
“About how this wouldn’t have happened if you’d let me leave in the first place. Actually, I should’ve never come back here in the first place. My presence has done nothing but cause pain and problems for all of us.”
I thought, after Aria’s ordeal, we’d turned a corner. That she’d given up on this desire to protect us all by taking herself out of the equation.
Inexplicably, my anger rose.
When some people got mad, they exploded.
Me? I stilled, my entire body settling into a deathly calm.
Coddling her, whispering sweet nothings, making all the grand promises in the world clearly hadn’t been enough for her to knock it off with these thoughts.
Maybe tough love would work.
“I can’t keep doing this with you, Reagan,” I said, tone even. “You pull me in then push me away. You let me fuck you like you belong to me, say all the right things, convince me you’re mine, then try to run the next second. There are a lot of things I will endure for you, but I’m not some puppet whose strings you control. I’m a person with feelings, and right now, you’re hurting them.”
