22. Reyna
CHAPTER 22
“How are you holding up?” Bianca takes her cup of coffee and sits at a two-seater table in the hospital cafeteria.
“I’m tired, but otherwise okay.” I join her, even though I’m more than ready to be back in the room with Michael. Leaving his side was hard, but after everything we went through, my mind is a mess.
“I can’t imagine why you’d be tired,” she replies with a grin.
I like Bianca. She seems to call it like it is, and there isn’t much of a filter there, but her candid honesty is refreshing. “Thank you for saving him.”
“There are very few things I wouldn’t do for those guys. They’re great men.”
“They are. You all served together?” I’d gotten half a story, but there hadn’t been a lot of time or energy to give me the rest.
“Briefly. I was stationed overseas at the same time they were. Pulled bullets out of them a time or two.”
“You were the one who saved him after the?—”
“After the IED? Yeah. It took a team of us.”
I think about the scar on the side of his face. Of the way I’d held Margot as she broke down after hearing the news. I’d barely managed to keep myself calm when all I wanted to do was lie down and cry with her.
I don’t think I’ve ever prayed so hard in my life, until now.
“When he came out of the anesthesia, he asked for you.”
“What?” My stomach twists.
“He kept saying your name over and over again. ‘Reyna. Reyna. I need Reyna.’ I hadn’t known who you were, but it finally made sense why he never looked at me the way I’d wanted him to.” Once again, her candid honesty is unexpected.
“You have feelings for him.”
“Had,” she corrects. “We’re friends now, barely, but I did have a good little crush on him for a while. He is one of the nicest men I’ve ever met. Someone who’s kind straight down to his soul. You don’t often meet ’em like that.”
“I can’t argue.”
“Can I ask what happened between you two?” she asks. “I never got the story, and given how much I know he loves you, and how clear it is you love him, I can’t quite figure out what went wrong. I’m nosy. Blame my upbringing.” She laughs awkwardly but doesn’t continue.
“He left without a word,” I tell her. “I woke up one morning, and he was gone. I didn’t even know he’d joined the military until his mother told me. I remember just standing there, staring at her as though she was going to start laughing and tell me it was one big joke.” I take a drink of coffee. “One minute he was there. The next he was gone. And I was furious.”
“Men can be really, really stupid.”
I laugh. “Isn’t that the truth?”
“How do you feel now? About him, I mean. Obviously, there are feelings still there. And for the record, this is just me being nosy, I am not in the least bit interested in him in that way anymore.”
“I love him.” I say it out loud for the first time in years, and the admission lifts a huge weight from my shoulders.
“I know that. I want to know if you’re going to do anything about it. My vote? Yes. If you’re asking. We did just meet and all, so I’m not entirely sure where you stand on my opinion.”
Laughing, I take another drink of coffee. “You know, I like you, Bianca.”
“I like you, too, Reyna.” She gently taps her coffee cup to mine.
“As far as he and I are concerned, I’m not entirely sure what to do about us yet. But I’m trying to figure it out.”
With a second cup of coffee in hand, I step back into Michael’s room. He’s sitting up in bed, staring out the window, though when he hears me enter, he turns his head and smiles at me, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “Hey,” he greets softly.
He looks worn out. Stressed.
“Hey. I brought you some coffee. But if they show up and yell at you for having it, you didn’t get it from me.”
He chuckles as I set the cup on his bedside tray. I take a seat in the chair beside his bed. “I’ll keep the secret.” Michael takes a drink of the coffee, then leans back and groans. “That’s good. But given how long it’s been since I had coffee, it could technically be terrible.”
Silence settles between us as we drink our coffee. I lean my head back in the chair and close my eyes.
“Lance said that Jaxson can stay at your house. If you wanted to go home.”
I open my eyes and stare at him. “You want me to leave?” It hurts to think he doesn’t want me to be here.
“No. Not at all. Not even a little bit. When you walked out the door with Bianca to go to the cafeteria, I about lost my mind.”
Relief settles over me, and I get up from the chair to sit on the edge of the bed. After setting my coffee beside his, I take his hand in mine. The feeling of his large, calloused palm against my smaller hand takes me back to happier times.
To wearing his letterman jacket and walking through the park, not a care or concern. We’d had our whole lives planned out, and I’d been so certain of our future. It never occurred to me that he was struggling with his present.
“I don’t want to leave.” I lift my gaze to his.
“I don’t want you to go.” His gaze drops to my mouth, then darts back up to my eyes. I lean forward, ready to give in to my desire to taste his lips again. To restart what never really seemed to end in the first place.
And then the door opens.
“Michael!” Michael’s mother rushes forward, and I stand, getting out of the way just in time for her to throw her arms around him. Delilah cups his face and stares down at him. “You scared us!”
“You really did, son.” A man in a wheelchair rolls in, and I immediately recognize Michael’s father.
Unexpected anger churns in my stomach as I stare down at the man who drove Michael away from me. Who didn’t think I was enough to make his son happy—or whatever his ridiculous reasoning was.
“Reyna, it’s good to see you.”
“I think I’ll go call my mother.” I need distance from him. From all of this. “Mrs. Anderson, it’s good to see you.” I walk out the door, breathing easily as soon as I’m not sharing space with Michael’s father anymore.
“Reyna?”
Why? Forcing a neutral expression on my face, I turn toward Michael’s father, who has wheeled out into the hallway. “Yes?”
“I’m glad you’re all right.”
“Are you?” The words are out of my mouth before I can stop them.
His brow furrows. “Of course I am. Just because you and Michael didn’t work out doesn’t mean I ever stopped caring for you. You were at my house practically every summer, hanging with Margot and Michael.”
“And why didn’t Michael and I work out?” I snap, stepping toward him. The fury is blazing in my veins now, and even though I know I should stop, that he’s here to check on his son who nearly died, I can’t. Because the hurt is right there, cheering the anger on.
“I’m not entirely sure,” he replies. “Though I sense you believe I had something to do with it.” The man was a cop before his injury. I would even go to the range with him and Michael on the weekends. He taught me to shoot, taught me some self-defense right alongside Margot… I loved Michael’s entire family.
Which is why this betrayal might sting even more than Michael leaving.
“Did you tell him that he shouldn’t marry me?” My bottom lip quivers.
He runs a hand over his face. “I said a lot of things I regret. Things I didn’t realize I regretted until—” He glances back at the hospital room. “I’m sorry, Reyna. Truly, I am. I have always wanted what was best for both of my kids. I wanted them to have more than I ever did, and I believed—at the time—that Michael was throwing away a future because of?—”
“Me. You can say it. We’re both thinking it.”
“Yes,” he replies. “If I’m being completely honest, that is what I believed. I never imagined he would run off and join the military though. I never thought he’d nearly die just to get away from me.” His father chokes on his words, and a tear slips from his eyes.
His genuine emotion chips away at my anger. “You made him leave me.”
“I— I am so sorry, Reyna. I wronged you both by what I did, and what’s worse is I hadn’t even realized until now that I was the reason you two split. Truth be told, I didn’t talk to my son until a year after my accident. And I never asked about anything in his life because I was too prideful.” He wheels a bit closer, and I stand my ground.
“I loved your son. He loved me. We could’ve had a happy life together. He was enough for me as he was. If he’d wanted to go play professionally, I would have supported him. But he only ever played football for you.” I wipe tears away from my face. “How could you not see that?”
His father’s eyes widen briefly, and I see that it’s complete news to him that Michael never even wanted to play ball. “I didn’t know.”
“Of course you didn’t. Because you never asked.”