Chapter 52
Chapter Fifty-Two
FALLON
Five Days Later
I’ve never felt so helpless in my life. The woman I love more than anything is hurting, and there’s nothing I can do to fix it.
Every tear she cries shreds me open. Every unspoken word as she languishes in silence hurts even more.
I’m unable to do anything to ease her pain, and it guts me to watch her suffering.
And I fucking hate feeling this way—inept and useless. How many times can her heart break before it shatters completely and can never be put back together again?
I glance over from where I’m standing in front of the window when Elijah walks into the kitchen. The house has been an endless conveyor belt of people for days, and this is the first moment of peace I’ve had since Monday, short-lived as it was.
I get that everyone wants to be here for Elizabeth, but the nonstop intrusion is annoying. So are the casseroles. What is it with all the fucking casseroles? The refrigerator is overflowing with plastic containers filled with enough food to feed the entire town of Fallen Brook.
“Don’t even think about it,” I warn Elijah when I see the container he’s holding.
“It’s from Freda. Fried chicken.”
Well, fuck. “Fine.” The kids can eat it for dinner. “How are they doing?”
I can’t imagine what they’re going through. Julien lost his twin, Freda and Mitch their son.
“As good as can be expected,” Elijah replies, joining me in my morose solitude of staring out the window. “J wanted to come, but he doesn’t want to make things worse for Liz.”
Elizabeth and Julien had a huge fight the other night.
It was bad. One of the things they argued about was Jay’s funeral arrangements.
I understand why Julien wanted to keep her out of those decisions, even if I don’t agree with him.
Elizabeth is a mess right now. Mentally.
Physically. Emotionally. She’s not eating.
She can’t sleep. She’s barely able to function. And it breaks my goddamn heart.
“How’re you holding up?” he asks.
“Like shit but managing.” The kids are worried about their mother. It’s like a repeat of what happened after Ry passed. I can’t let Elizabeth slip into that dark place again. “I’m trying to keep Charlotte and Chris to their schedules. Make things as normal as possible.”
Which means getting them to school on time, having dinner ready when they get home.
Making sure they do their homework. Marcus has been helping.
So have Xander and Aurora and Meredith. Daniel and Drew.
Knox and Tate are doing what they can at the garage so Marcus can be here.
My family is inbound. Harper, Bennett, Jordan, and Douglass are flying here from Texas tomorrow.
Tati and Eduardo are coming on Saturday.
Sebastian and Holden will come when they can.
Both of them have some personal stuff they have to deal with first.
Everyone who loves Elizabeth wants to be here to support her when they lower Jay into the ground next to Ry. Jules said that’s what he wanted. Elizabeth wants him buried beside Elizabeth Ann. That’s another thing they fought about.
Fuck.
Elijah cuffs my shoulder. “That’s all you can do.
I wish I had some sage advice to give you, but you know how bad things got with Julien when Liz disappeared.
I stood in the shoes you’re standing in now, wanting to fix him while watching him slip further and further away.
All you can do is be there for her. She’s going to fight you every step of the way. You have to fight back harder.”
My fists curl into impotent balls at my sides. “It’s killing me to watch her light fade. To watch her disappear right in front of my eyes and not be able to stop it.”
There is no “Finding Elizabeth” grand adventure or trip around the world I can take her on that will bring her back this time.
“She’s still there, just a little lost. We’ll help her find her way back to us,” Elijah assures me.
God, I hope so. I can’t lose her. I won’t survive it.
“Anything I can do since I’m here? Mow the grass?”
I look out the window at the backyard. The grass doesn’t look that long. “Does it need mowing?”
“You’ll want to do it before Sunday.”
For the funeral. Got it. I’ll have Trevor get the crew we hire to maintain the Montgomery estate grounds to come out here and tidy things up. Maybe plant some new flowers in the beds in the front.
Elijah pulls me in, his hug something I need but hate to want. “You’ve always been there for me. It’s my turn to be here for you. Anything you need, you call me.”
“Thanks, El.”
We stay there in that moment of comfort for a little while longer before he lets go and quietly walks out.
I wait until I hear the front door close before turning away from the window.
Hoping Elizabeth will eat something, I slap together a turkey sandwich with heaps of the spicy brown mustard she loves to slather everything in and take it to her.
“Kitten, do you?—”
Elizabeth is curled into a ball on top of the bedspread, fast asleep, her sleepless nights and exhaustion finally catching up to her.
I set the plate down on the nightstand and slide onto the bed next to her, pulling her to me.
She twitches in my arms, followed by a pained mewl.
Her fingers convulse on the pillow. Even in sleep, her grief torments her, so I hold her tighter, willing the nightmare away.
“I’ve got you. I won’t let go,” I whisper, my lips pressed to her silken hair.
My promise seems to calm her restlessness. But I know it won’t last.
She twitches again, her movements becoming agitated. “No!”
Elizabeth’s eyes fly open on a sobbed gasp, and she thrashes against my hold, fighting to escape before she realizes I’m the one holding her. I can already feel the bruise throbbing where she kicked my shin.
Her breaths come out in harsh pants, her skin sheened in a cold sweat. “Fallon?”
I kiss her neck, breathe her in. “I’m here. Go back to sleep.”
She pulls in a shaky inhalation and rolls over onto her side.
With the shutter blinds closed, the bedroom is pitched in darkness despite the full sun shining outside, but I can see the tears devastating her moss-green eyes when she looks at me, the purple half-moons of fatigue making the green of her irises more prominent.
Even broken, she’s still the most beautiful woman in the world.
“Are the kids home from school?”
I smooth back the strands of sweat-slicked hair that are plastered to her cheek. “It’s only eleven. You weren’t asleep for long.”
I went to make her something to eat only half an hour ago, and then Elijah showed up.
She sits up and roughs her palms over her face, looks around like she’s not exactly sure where she is. The fact that she’s able to function at all is a miracle.
“I made you a sandwich.”
“I’m not hungry,” she automatically replies. It’s the same thing she’s said on repeat for the last few days.
“Kitten, you need to eat something.”
And just like that, like she’s on a hair trigger that I just squeezed, she explodes. “Jesus fucking Christ, Fallon! Stop treating me like a child! I said I’m not hungry!”
I don’t care that she looks like she wants to punch the shit out of me. After days of tears, seeing her anger, seeing her feel something other than bleak sadness, spurs me to push.
“You’re going to eat something if I have to force-feed it to you.”
She sears me with a hot glare, and the beauty of that fire scorches me.
“Fuck you,” she spits and tries to bound out of the bed, but I pull her back and pin her underneath me, shackling her wrists when she tries to shove me off.
“You want to fight?”
She strains to break free, bucking her hips. “Get off me!”
“Bring it, Kitten. I can take it. Hit me, scream, make me bleed. I’ll give it all to you because I’d rather you hurt me than keep hurting yourself.”
“Let me go!”
I press her into the mattress and get in her face. “ Never . Do you hear me? I’m yours. Forever.”
The light switch to her rage flicks off, and she crumbles. “But you’re not. You’ll be taken from me just like everyone else I love. I can’t…lose…you…too,” she struggles to get out. “I can’t…”
I kiss her.
Just like her anger exploded, her passion erupts just as quickly, and she kisses me back. Her tears are salty against her lips as our tongues touch and taste and take. Even in her grief, her love pours out in our kiss, and I give my love back to her a thousandfold.
You’re not alone. I’m here. I love you. I will help you survive this. You are my forever.
“What happened to Jay wasn’t your fault.” She needs to hear it. Believe it.
The emotional rollercoaster she’s been riding turns sharply, diverting her back onto the track of sorrow and self-hate.
“He said he had a headache. I should have seen it. I’m a doctor. I should have seen it.”
An aneurysm in his brain ruptured in his sleep. The medical examiner said he died almost instantly from the stroke that resulted. There was nothing she could have done to stop it.
I grab her face, force her to look at me. “It wasn’t your fault.”
Her beautiful face collapses as she cries. “Why didn’t he tell me?”
That was the catalyst for her fight with Julien. He knew. He said Jay had told him and made him promise not to say anything. Jay was scheduled for surgery—microvascular clipping—the day after he and Elizabeth were supposed to get back from Seattle.
“I don’t know, baby.” Maybe because he knew she’d come running to be there for him, and he wanted to make things right with her first, and not because she pitied him. “But it wasn’t your fault.”
“I…don’t know…what I…did…to deserve…so much pain,” she chokes out. “Why does…everyone I love…die? It hurts…too much. Love hurts…too much.”
I lift her and hold her in my lap and let her tears drench my neck. “Then I will love you enough for the both of us.”