Chapter 55
Emmett
Dragging the last bag to the trashcan outside feels like hauling bricks made of bells with all the glass bottles inside it. They clatter and rattle like crazy when I get them to the top of the pile outside, and when it finally settles, the sudden silence makes my ears ring.
It’s hot. Too hot for this hoodie, but as I swipe the dampness from my brow with the sleeve, the idea of taking it off makes my stomach turn.
I should.
But it’s Tristen’s and it’s making me feel like he’s here.
Instead of out there, doing what he does.
Saving lives.
He walks into danger for a living, and I …
I hide.
Holding the screen door so it doesn’t slam, I step back inside, my head low and my shoulders high. My spine hunched over, and my fists covered.
I don’t think I want to anymore.
Being here again for the first time since … since I tried to end it all … is like walking into a dream I didn’t agree to. Like waking from a nightmare only to fall right back into it when going back to sleep.
Except this time, the shadows on the wall are accompanied by the steady beep of the monitor signaling my mother’s heartbeat.
And the stupid part of me?
The childish part of me?
Just … wishes she’d wake up. Be okay. That she’d finally come back to the person she was.
That she’d wake up and love me like she used to.
Missing that version of her, the one u have for a long time, and not this one settles like rotting shame in my gut.
I find myself staring down at her sunken and slack face, unable to recognize the women from my memories.
“I hate that I want you back,” I whisper to her profile, her nose pointier than I remember. Her chin appearing longer. “Because you’re not a good person.”
My eyes burn and I grab her hand. Squeeze hard.
“You just had to tell him about the kid on the playground, didn’t you? You were so fucking proud of me that day. I remember it. I remember it so vividly, because your smile was like the sun and it was all because I chose to defend a boy I didn’t know.”
Our joined hands stain with my tears and I jam them into the thin mattress when there’s still no response from her. No noise. No movement.
“Fuck you, Mother,” I say with almost no heat and all the pain in my chest as I toss her hand back across her midsection and turn away. “Fuck you.”
I’m swiping angrily at my face and the moisture tracking down my cheeks that she doesn’t deserve when the knock on the door makes me jump.
Then freeze.
“Bubbles, it’s me.”
It comes through the panel softly, slowly, and my chest inflates.
I run.
My breath hitches when I swing the door open to Tristen’s blinding smile that shows off his crooked tooth, his muscular arm raised high like he’s holding onto the door frame and completely exposed in his black tank.
“Are there tattoos in your armpit?” I ask in a rush, but don’t stop moving forward until I collide with his chest. Wrap my arms around his ribs. Inhale his freshly showered scent.
Sage and musk.
Leather and home.
He just snorts and slides his arms along my shoulders. “Yeah, there is.”
“I like your tattoos,” I mumble into his pec and squeeze him tighter.
The grunt he lets out makes me loosen, even though I really don’t want to.
“Not so tight, baby. Bruised ribs.”
“That’s your own fault.”
His chuckle echoes through the ear I have pressed into him. “I’d do it all over again. Can I come in?”
Looking up at him without letting go, I rest my chin on his breastbone. “In a second. I’m not ready to move yet.”
The look in his eyes soften, making the brown seem lighter. Smoother. His brows less harsh, and the scar through the one less intimidating.
Should I have not said that?
“Me, either.”
The rest of the tension in my chest releases and I bury my nose in his earthy scent.
“I …” I missed you.
My throat goes thick, the admission sitting heavy on my tongue.
“You what?” he asks, the rumble of his voice tickling my nose.
“I—do you want some toast?”
His snicker fills something inside me that I didn’t know was empty and I lean back, putting just a smidge of distance between us.
“No offense, bubs, but unless you went to the store while I was gone, there is nothing here that I want to eat. I brought us some shit.”
My hands slide away when he folds to pick up a grocery sack and a duffle bag from the porch. His muscles flex with the movement as he slips the strap over his shoulder, then flashes me a smile.
He’s so fucking pretty.
Always smiling …
“I guess that’s okay,” I mutter with an eye roll and step into the house, his chuckle following after me.
I haven’t wanted to eat the shit here, either.
But Tristen is here and I’m finally … not alone.