Chapter 50
FIFTY
We are all sitting around Lina’s hospital bed. Her men are beside her, clutching her hands and feet, while Sophia, Chiara, and I are on stools against the wall. Both of them are holding one of my hands too.
I don’t know who is giving strength to whom right now because I try to give as much as I get. But it is hard.
My Mary died just like that. Hurt in a hospital room, surrounded by her loved ones. All of them were there to hold her hands and pray for her, me, front and center. But it did nothing for her. She still left me. Left me alone in this godforsaken world.
In this numbness.
First, there was grief and anger, all-consuming anger. But after those feelings left me, the only thing I was and could be was numb. It felt like an endless void, consuming every inch of happiness left.
Until she found me.
I smile to myself, thinking back to the day nearly five years ago when I sat in my usual space, eyes closed and head leaning against the brick wall, waiting for another night to finally end.
I don’t like the nights.
They are cold.
Each one darker than the last.
She came out of nowhere, sat next to me, and opened a burger package, starting to eat.
I hadn’t eaten anything for days, not seeing the point in it anymore, hoping to get too weak to take this life any longer.
But the smell of the burger made my stomach growl, and somehow, I got hungry for the first time in a while.
It was almost as if my senses remembered how to feel.
She didn’t even look my way when she pulled out a second burger from her backpack and extended it to me. I looked down at the burger packet in her hand and back at her, hesitating.
“Take it,” she said around a mouthful.
I did, and she went back to eating hers. When I opened the package, I let the smell drift in my nose and nearly drooled.
“Thank you,” I said, but she ignored me.
When we both finished eating, she sat there for a while and took deep breaths, neither of us saying a word. I looked at her more closely and saw that the kid was maybe sixteen or seventeen, and her eyes were rimmed red. She radiated the same despair I was feeling a long while ago.
“Howard,” I said, letting my head fall back to the concrete wall again.
“Carolina,” she replied softly before she stood up and took her backpack. “See you tomorrow.”
And with those three words, she gave me my life back.
Something to look forward to.
Hope.
She kept me alive for years with her sass, her kindness, and her burgers, without asking for anything in return besides a place to breathe for a few minutes.
The unexpected savior of my lost soul.
I look around once more at the faces of the people sitting here. They are her people now. I know she finally found a place for herself—more than just those few moments a day she spent with me.
Wake up, Lina. You deserve to have this home you made for yourself.
The one you made for us.
Chiara leans her head against my shoulder, a tear rolling down her cheek, and I squeeze her hand.
“Everything will be all right,” I whisper to her, hoping like hell that the universe doesn’t make a liar out of me.
“Kitten,” Clay breathes, making us all look at Lina, who seems to open her eyes and blink heavily.
“Fuck,” Xander grunts out, his voice sounding watery while Joshua releases something between a laugh and a sob.
“That girl is so fucking tough.” Sophia sobs from my other side, tears streaming down her face, and she strokes them away with the back of her hand.
“A vacation doesn’t sound so bad anymore,” I remark, making her laugh.