Chapter 48
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
SEVEN VIRTUES, NORTH CAROLINA
There is nothing better than a friend unless it’s my best friend who showed up with La Maison du Chocolat.
—Moore You Want
In the few hours of sleep I manage that night, I have a nightmare triggered by a conversation between me and my mother over wanting to tell Kensington about her diagnosis. Stretching for a few precious minutes in bed
I acknowledge her only ask of me is driving my soul into an early grave.
Throwing back the covers and shoving to my feet, I recall the vivid memories that raced through my eyes just before dawn.
There was a seemingly endless maze of corridors to navigate my way through the pristine corridors of Seven Virtues Hospital. I let out a rush of air when I burst into the late summer evening. Even though the touch of fall hasn’t brushed the Asheville region yet, I still hug myself to ward off a chill.
Twisting, I shoot a fulminating glare at the building behind me—as if the inanimate object can absorb my fury from the past mingled with my present wrath. “God, I hate this place. All it does is try to suck the life out of those that I love.”
A twisted image of my mother’s face being drunk by a straw extended from darkened skies as her eyes fixated on mine was interrupted as a nameless face fights being wedged into the same glass container that resembled the collection of Galileo thermostats at the bar. Something is shouted at me I can’t understand.
But even as it tried to take the life of my mother, warmth steals through me as Ethan’s brawny arm slips around my waist. Waves of comfort crash over me, reminding me that despite the fact I can’t share the details, I’m not alone. We gravitate together, he to offer comfort, the only thing my promise to the woman I love will permit him to in these desperate moments.
Contact, touch.
Love.
I didn’t need words from him because I knew he was there for me at my best and worst, and this was certainly shaping up to be my worst. After all, what prepares you for the imminent crumbling of the strongest cornerstone of your world?
Grabbing his hand, I drag him away from the scene, racing around straws plunging down from the sky—each of them trying to jab us in the head—ready to drain one or both of us of our souls. Reaching my car, I urge him to get inside. I slide in effortlessly before I start the engine.
Only to find him not there.
Is it a sign I should betray my mother’s wishes?