Page 121 of Falling Into Forever
The moment is surreal, sort of reminiscent of staring at a ghost. Just like when I was a kid, I sink into my chair and spill my guts to my older sister’s fiance.
I tell him everything. Once I open my mouth, our conversation becomes the most exhaustive therapy session I’ve ever had. I’ve always believed he was the only one who would ever truly understand me, and as one word spills into the next, I know I’m right. My voice is raw by the end and matches the sadness in his.
“I’m so sorry,” he says when I fall silent. “I felt like a piece of me died right along with them, but I should have been here for you. Shannon would have wanted that.”
He runs a rough hand through his hair, leaving it standing every which way before he speaks again. “I’ve spent so many years filled with nothing but hatred. She wouldn’t like the man I’ve become. Sometimes I think I did die with them, Sass, in every way that matters, except my body kept breathing.”
He puts voice to the pain that’s been haunting my every breath.
“You lost a lot that day,” I say.
I lost my sister, but he lost everyone.
“So did you, kid. But I was an adult. I should have been here for you. You’d barely graduated college. You girls were the only family I wanted, but I couldn’t be here and not see Shannon everywhere.”
A gunshot to the chest would have hit more subtly than his words. “That’s why I pushed Dante away.”
“We’ve made a mess of things, haven’t we?” His chuckle is forced, but at least he’s trying. “We have to do better, kid. Shannon would kick our asses if she saw us now.”
That makes me laugh, but it’s messy and tear-stained. “Is that why you’re here?” I ask.
“It sped things up. I’ve been trying to pull myself together for about a year. But after seeing everything that’s happening to you that I could have prevented if I’d asked for help after Shannon died was the final straw. I’ve said for a long time she would expect more of me, and honestly?” He runs his hands down his thighs. “I expect more of myself too. She was my best friend, you know?”
I nod and blink feverishly.
“But she loved you girls like you were hers, and that makes you mine too. I’ve been a shit big brother, Sass. But I’d like to help if you’ll let me.”
An internal shudder causes a tremor in my voice. “I haven’t been living either, Blake. Everything hurt too much. But I’m trying now. And you’re right, Shannon would want you to be the man she fell in love with, not someone waiting for his turn to die.”
His wounded face guts me. In it is guilt, anger, and something else I don’t quite recognize.
“I’m taking back control of my life one day at a time, and that starts with getting the reporters off your back. And…” His Adam’s apple bobs in his throat. “It means saying a proper goodbye to them.”
I freeze in my chair. “Have you not been to the cemetery?”
I understand every ounce of pain that crosses his face. “I tried, Sass. I did. But no. Today will be the first time.”
The blood drains from my head.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
“Blake. Um. When, well, when we buried them, I couldn’t leave him blank.” Recognition crosses his face. “I couldn’t do it. I needed him to know I was talking to him.”
“The baby?” he asks, so quietly I fear I imagined it.
I nod. “We named him Rayne because Shan—”
“She loved the rain.” I’ve never heard a more raw version of pain as I do in his words. It cuts a fresh hole in my heart. “It’s perfect, Sassy, thank you. I’m sorry I wasn’t brave enough to do it back then.”
Grief hits everyone differently, and I never held how he handled his pain against him. I can’t deny it would have been easier for us all if we’d been together, but I doubt I would have allowed it either.
“Can you stay a while?” I ask. He doesn’t need forgiveness from me. He needs what I need—acceptance.
The muscles in his shoulders relax, and he shrugs out of his suit jacket. “I can.”
We sit and talk for a few hours. He explains how he’ll give a statement and ask for privacy, but by returning to the land of the living, he thinks the media will follow him to New York and give me a reprieve.
We talk about Dante, and even though he’s pissed, he understands I didn’t give him a choice.
