Page 121 of Burn for You (Slow Burn 1)
When we went back to Jackson’s room to change for dinner, my cell phone was ringing. I’d left it on the dresser, too distracted from what had happened between us in the shower to remember to bring it along.
“Hello?” I swatted away Jackson’s attempt to pinch my ass with a laugh.
“Bianca,” said Eeny. Her voice caught on a sob.
The words fell down on me like bricks thrown from the top of a building.
So sorry.
She’s gone.
There was nothing we could do.
I tried to inhale but couldn’t. I tried to speak, but a gasp of anguish was all I could muster. My body went hot, then freezing cold. I began to violently shake.
“Bianca?” Jackson’s voice rang sharp with concern as he looked at my face. “What is it?”
I dropped the phone and sank to my knees on the floor. “Mama,” I rasped, choking on the word. “She’s dead.”
From that moment on, so was I.
The fairy tale was over.
THIRTY-FIVE
JACKSON
I’ve suffered through my share of painful moments. Before now, I thought I knew all pain’s ugly faces, all the ways it can cripple and scar.
But with one phone call I discovered that there’s no worse pain in the world than watching someone you love suffer and being powerless to make the suffering stop.
I kissed her and held her and rocked her, I promised I’d do everything I could to help. Words. All of them useless. None of them changed a thing or broke through the new encasing of ice swiftly crystallizing around her. From the moment Bianca took that phone call, she went cold. All the life was sucked out of her. All the fire was extinguished. What was left was a shell-shocked husk.
She didn’t even cry, which somehow made everything worse.
“I need to get back as soon as possible,” she said hollowly, sitting on the floor with her back against the side of the bed. I crouched beside her, holding her clammy, limp hand, fighting a terrible slipping feeling inside me, like a landslide in my chest.
“Of course. The plane can be ready within the hour. I’ll make sure the bags get packed.”
She closed her eyes. She didn’t speak again until we got back to New Orleans, except to say good-bye to my parents, who were as distraught as I was when they heard the news. We left Moonstar Ranch the same way we came, by limo and private jet, but everything had changed.
I could tell by the way Bianca stared with flat eyes at the ring on her finger that what had happened between us was “before.” This was “after,” the new reality in which her mother was dead, taking Bianca’s reason for us to be together to the grave with her.
So yes. I thought I knew Pain before. I thought I knew Loss.
But those two ruthless bitches were just getting started with me.
THIRTY-SIX
BIANCA
It was raining when we touched down in New Orleans, the sky the same ugly lead gray as my soul.
I didn’t know why I felt so numb. Shock, I suppose. In any case, I was grateful for the way all my senses were dulled, because I knew there were a thousand invisible knives of anguish hovering all around me, hungry for their moment to slash and draw blood.
They’d get their moment, of that I was sure. But for now I was safe in a cocoon of soft white noise where nothing could reach me. Not even the torment in Jackson’s eyes.
His engagement ring was a cold, heavy weight on my finger, a constant reminder of the bargain we’d made, and why.
