Chapter 14 #4
He lets out a slow, tight breath through compressed lips—like a tire with a leak.
"You're…you've been—you're all I think about, Lace.
When I'm alone. Trying to sleep. Trying to get back to sleep.
Trying to wake up. I've turned our whole relationship over and over in my head a billion fucking times, trying to figure out what I did wrong to make you leave me like that. "
"Cole, I—"
"Dad died. Wasn't a fuckin' accident and I know it. Doesn't even matter, really, though. I can't prove it. The man who did it or had it done is on death's door himself, and I can't prove shit. Then Mom…" his voice breaks. "Fucking…"
"Fee told me."
He turns his head slightly. "You didn't know?"
"I'd look up people from here on Facebook once in a while—like every few years. I saw posts about your dad's accident, but I…I couldn't keep tabs on you, Cole. It hurt too much. The only way I could survive was to try and move on."
"Eighteen months after Dad died, Mom went for a walk with some friends. Cold day, but a clear, beautiful day. But then her friend twisted her ankle when they were a couple miles from town—"
"Wait, what?" I ask.
He sighs. "After Dad's death, Mom…he was all she had.
Me and him. I was a brand-new deputy and working eighty hours a week.
She was alone a lot. Depressed. Spent days in bed.
Her friends…your mom, Tamra Wilson, and Vera Powell—they'd try to cheer her up, get her out of bed and out of the house.
Eventually, the only way she could ever find peace was through these long walks.
Like miles and miles. Didn't matter what the weather was.
She'd walk and walk and walk. Her and her friends.
They'd go with her a couple times a week. "
A long pause.
"Vera twisted her ankle when they were like two, almost three miles north-east of town, out by John Rogers' farm stand."
"There's nothing out there," I whisper, getting a glimpse of what must have happened. "No cell reception, either. Or there didn’t use to be, back when I lived here.”
"Exactly, and still isn’t,” Cole says. "Tamra went to get help—she headed for the main road, hoping to either get to where she had signal or a car would find her. Mom stayed with Vera. Well, in the time they were waiting for help, it clouded over and started snowing. Mom always ran hot, so she wasn’t wearing a warm jacket.
Didn't need one. She'd warm up once she started moving, she said, and she always kept moving till she got home. Well, this time, she stopped moving."
"Fee said she got pneumonia, and then some other infection."
He nods. "Bit more complicated than that, but yeah.
By the time Tamra got help back to Mom and Vera, the temperature had dropped to nearly sub-zero, and it was snowing so hard it was damn near a white-out.
Mom gave her stupid, thin little shell jacket to Vera.
Which meant Mom was hypothermic by the time help got to them.
They took all three of them to the ER. Vera made a full recovery, and Tamra was fine.
But Mom wasn't. While she was recovering from the hypothermia, she got pneumonia.
From the hospital, ironically, but that's how this shit happens, right?
And they just…they could never get ahead of it.
It got into her lungs and… I think she was so depressed that she just didn't care.
I watched—" his voice cracks and his shoulders shake.
"I watched her just fucking…disintegrate.
Right in front of me. She didn't fight. She was sad, and she missed Dad, so she just let go.
She left me. She left me." A razor-sharp, acidic pause.
"You left me. Dad left me. Mom left me. Everyone I loved fucking left.
I was…while Mom was kneeling beside her friend, waiting for help that took almost an hour to arrive, you know what I was doing?
Eating a fucking cheeseburger with Connors and Isaacson. "
"You can't possibly blame yourself for that, Cole," I whisper.
I don't think he heard me. "Everyone left me."
"Cole," I whisper. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry I left you. I'm so, so sorry."
He sucks in a breath so deep his chest and shoulders and belly fill and swell.
He straightens, tips his head back, and then lets the breath out so slowly it's almost delicate.
He turns and cups my jaw. "I'm sorry about this, Lacey.
Please don't think…" his face contorts, pained, conflicted.
"Please don't take it as me not wanting you. I just…"
I cast a pointed glance at his still iron-hard cock. "I can see very clearly that it's not a matter of desire, Cole." I reach for him, wrap my fingers around hot flesh. "Let me help. Let me finish what I started this morning. Please?"
His eyes shut as he winces at my touch, hisses, groans. "Fuck."
I caress his length. "Let me make you feel good, Cole. I want to."
He grabs my wrist, stops my touch. "I have to ask you an uncomfortable question about that, Lacey."