Chapter 31 #3
Another scream rips through the wall. She can’t seem to stop, and my heart is hammering so hard I can feel it in my throat.
I did that to her.
My hands are shaking as I stare at the wheelchair sitting beside my bed.
I haven’t left this apartment on my own in months. Not since—
Another scream.
Move. You have to move.
My arms won’t cooperate because leaving means she will see. It means navigating that hallway, that carpet, that door on my own. Means being out there where I’m not just Ridge, the writer with the fucked-up dreams, but Ridge, in the chair. Ridge, who can’t -walk. Ridge, who broke.
She screams again, and this time, it sounds as if she’s choking on it.
Fuck.
I transfer into the wheelchair, not in the careful way my physical therapist taught me, just fast before I change my mind, my hands gripping the armrests as I swing myself over.
My legs follow uselessly, and for one horrible second, I think I’m going to miss and fall, adding one more humiliation to this absolute disaster of a night, but I don’t.
I land hard, the chair rocking slightly under my weight.
The landlord keys my parents gave me for emergencies hang by the front door, the ones that open every lock in this building.
I have to cross the room to get them. Have to roll to my door, open it, go into the hallway where the carpet will drag at my wheels and make everything harder, and then I have to—
Another scream cuts through my spiraling thoughts.
She’s terrified.
“Move,” I snarl at myself and shove forward.
I grab the keys from the hook with shaking fingers before yanking open my door. The hallway stretches out in front of me with all its glorious carpet.
I’m the guy who can’t simply walk across the hall like a normal person.
Another muffled scream.
Move.
I shove forward, wheels cutting tracks through the carpet, and finally—finally—reach her door. My hands are shaking so hard I almost drop the keys, but I manage to get the right one and shove it into the lock.
It turns, and the door swings open.
I don’t know if it’s relief or even more panic flooding through me at the sight of the almost empty apartment, her screams bouncing off bare walls.
I spot the bedroom door ajar and roll toward it past a half-assembled dresser and clothes scattered on the floor, every push of my wheels feeling too slow and too loud at the same time.
She’s sitting up in bed in yellow pajamas, hands pressed over her eyes, screaming and crying as if something’s tearing her apart from the inside.
This is your fault. You did this.
“Lennon—” I roll up beside the bed and reach for her shoulder.
She startles, her eyes flying open, her hands still on her face, but keeps screaming. She doesn’t even register the chair. Apparently, she doesn’t see me at all, only whatever horror I burned into her brain.
I grab her wrists and pull her hands out in front of her. “Question it!”
She doesn’t listen, just continues screaming.
“Question it, Lennon!” I yell again, loud enough to cut through the panic and the guilt clawing at my throat. “Count your fucking fingers!”
She blinks, gasping, and stares down at her hands. After a few seconds, her breathing starts to hitch into sobs.
“How many are there?” I ask, forcing my voice gentler even though everything in me wants to scream too. “Lennon, this is reality. You’re fine. Nothing happened. It was just a dream.”
A dream you poisoned because you couldn’t handle your own shit, Ridge.
She starts to sob for real, and before I can process what’s happening, she’s climbing off the bed and settling into my lap, her legs dangling over the armrest of the chair.
I freeze—even if I can’t feel her weight settle across my thighs—and go completely rigid.
No. Don’t. I don’t deserve…
Her arms go around my neck, and she buries her face against my shoulder, sobbing as if I’m safe instead of the monster who just terrorized her.
I don’t remember the last time someone touched me. Derek or my physical therapist, maybe? But not like this.
She sobs into my neck, the wetness of her tears against my skin making me shudder, and the stiffness only holds until her crying breaks something in my chest.
My arms come up around her, one hand stroking the back of her head, my fingers threading through her hair. And fuck, she’s soft, even softer than the dream version of her. She’s so warm in my arms, and she smells like lemon, sugar, and sleep.
I breathe her in like oxygen.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper into her hair. “I’m so sorry. Shh, everything’s okay.” Before I can think better of it, I press a kiss to the top of her head. “I’m sorry.”
“You’re an asshole,” she sobs.
“I am,” I agree immediately, because what else can I say? It’s the truth.
She should push me away, tell me to get out. She should never want to see me again, but instead, she whispers against my neck, so quiet I almost miss it. “Stay with me?”
My arms tighten around her without permission, and I rest my cheek against her hair.
“I’m here,” I whisper back, even though I shouldn’t.
Even though she deserves better than me.
“I’m not going anywhere.”