“I couldn’t save him,” he chokes, the words muffled against my shoulder. “I wasn’t even awake. What if he looked to me? Reached for me? I should’ve—”
I hold him. I just hold him. Rocking slightly. My hand in his hair. My mouth pressed to his temple. “You were injured, too, Jude. You could have died, too,” I whisper. “You loved him, and he knew it.”
He cries harder, like that hurts to hear.
“I’ll always be here,”I murmur.
We stay like that until the sky darkens and the lake turns black and the world feels very far away. Until his breathing slows, uneven and exhausted, his forehead resting against mine.
~*~
The memory collapses. I’m standing in the studio again, my heart pounding, my hands cold. The echo of his sobs lingers in my chest. I swallow hard, and glance at his charcoal painting.
Darkness devouring light.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I realize that the pain he carries must be deeper than I could ever fathom. And I am determined to dig through all of it to find the light that lives inside him.
Chapter fourteen
JUDE GRAVES
The moment I slide in beside Micah, I feel like I’m going to fucking collapse. My mind is scattered. My heart is bleeding. My breathing is shallow, but I try my best to mask it. Micah’s eyes lock with mine, like he’s silently telling me he loves me. That he’s here for me.
“She’s really something,” he says quietly, careful not to do anything to detonate the bomb that is me right now.
“I know,” I mutter, staring out the window. The night rushes by in blurs of silver light and endless dark. I can still see Emma’s eyes when she said those fucking lyrics.Our song.We always used to speak those words to let each other know we were thereduring times of heartache or stress. The part of me that used to believe in anything good feels like it’s caving in.
I clench my jaw and force my focus on the reflection of who I am now in the glass. Hollow eyes. Tired skin. Someoneelse’smonster staring back. The rest of the ride is silent. Micah’s thumb taps a slow rhythm against his thigh. I count every breath, trying not to drown in the quiet.
When we finally reach the house, we get out of the car silently. The air’s colder now, signaling that fall is just around the corner. Micah walks beside me, close enough that our arms brush.
When we reach the hallway outside the bedroom, he stopsand looks at me. “You okay?”
I let out a low, humorless laugh. “No.”
He nods once. “Yeah. Me neither.”
I toe off my boots and sink down onto the edge of the bed, burying my face in my hands. The smell of that studio is still on my skin. Her smell. God, paint will always remind me of her.
Micah sits beside me, shoulder to shoulder. He doesn’t say anything. He never has to. That’s the thing about us...when there’s nothing left to say, we just breathe through it together.
For a long time, that’s all we do.
Just breathe.
Finally, I collapse back onto the mattress. My pulse is still hammering, my thoughts spinning. I close my eyes and see her. Standing in the light of that studio, with those honey brown eyes looking up at me.
“I don’t deserve her,” I whisper.
Micah turns his head toward me, voice quiet. “Maybe not. But you loved her, right? That counts for something.”
I huff a breath that sounds too close to a sob. “She basically told me she still loves me tonight, man.”
He hums. “You don’t believe her?”
“I believe her,” I murmur, staring at the ceiling. “That’s the fucking problem.”
Micah doesn’t reply. He just reaches over and flicks off the lamp. The room sinks into a comforting darkness. For the first time in a while, I let myself break in the quiet. The tears come slow, hot, and silent. Micah stays still, pretending not to hear.