Chapter 39
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
SAVVY
It feels like a lifetime of being poked, prodded, and sent for test after test before I’m finally wheeled back into my room, where apparently Grey has been pacing a rut into the flooring for the last six hours.
His eyes are red and puffy.
He’s sporting a freaking beard, and I don’t hate it.
But it’s the vacancy in his eyes that burns like a branding.
I put those shadows there with my callous words and lies.
The nurse engages the lock on my bed, then checks my vitals for the fourth time this hour. We won’t know the extent of my injuries until more tests are run, but cognitively, they believe I’ll make a full recovery.
A recovery no one but Grey thought would happen.
While the nurses took me for tests, they told me how stubborn and bossy Grey has been.
He hasn’t left my side. Not once.
When the doctors told him my chances of waking up were essentially nonexistent, he told them to get out and brought in new doctors.
He’s been my advocate, my caregiver, my protector, even when all evidence told him he should prepare to move on.
The nurse wheels over a table with a plastic cup of ice water, then leaves the room.
Grey stands sentinel in the corner, almost as if he’s afraid to make any sudden movements. I’m so tired, but I have so much I need to say.
“I’m sorry,” I say. The weight of releasing those two words attempts to lull me to sleep.
“Stop. We don’t have to do this.”
I flinch as though he struck me. His words are so similar to the ones he uttered when he learned I was Firefly, and it sends panic racing through me.
I knew this would happen, right? I knew that lying to him a second time would be the final nail in our coffin.
Without making eye contact, I lift my hand to keep him from speaking. I have to get this out before he leaves.
“I didn’t mean any of it. I swear I didn’t. I don’t hate you. I don’t hate anything about you.”
He crosses the room with three long strides.
“I know you don’t think of me as a replacement for your sister. I know that you want to fix my demons, not me. I know that you loved me, and I’m so sorry I lied to you again. I’m so sorry I broke us.”
Greedily, I gulp for air. “You are my hero, Grey. You’re the hero in my story, and I’m sorry I said words I knew would hurt you. I’m so sorry.”
He leans down and presses a kiss to my forehead. “Are you done now?”
Feebly, I shake my head no. “I have so many other apologies to make, but everything hurts, so I’ll have to make a full apology tour at a later date if you’ll let me. But I need you to know one thing.”
His thumb gently caresses my cheek. “What’s that, Monroe?”
“I love you. With my whole heart, body, and soul, I love you.” The heaviness in my chest squeezes a little more tightly.
“I know. That’s why I’m here. My love isn’t past tense, sweetheart, it’s here, now, alive and thriving.
I saw through your plan the moment you ran.
I knew you were choosing words as the most painful weapons in your arsenal, but I understood what you were doing.
And even if I didn’t know how you felt about me, I know you would have never left Clover in that condition if you had any other choice. ”
Clover. What happened to Clover?
My unasked question must show on my face because he frowns. “Do you remember Clover passing out when Valen showed up?”
“Valen?” I attempt to sit up too quickly, and it feels as though I’m being electrocuted by a million live wires.
“What do you remember, sweetheart?”
“The line dancing and the fair. I remember Madi being hungry. Then…then yelling really horrible things at you. But I don’t…
” I search the room as though it will fill in the blanks for me.
“I’m missing things, Grey. Like a hole in my memory.
” Tears slide down my face in a constant stream of emotion.
“Will this, what if I can’t remember? How will I testify to put Riley in jail? Oh, God—”
“Hey, hey.” Grey runs his palms over my biceps, careful to avoid the fracture at my elbow that has apparently already had surgery. “That won’t matter. There were enough of us there that witnessed everything…” He chokes on a sob. His chin quivers, and the torment is written all over his expression.
“We saw it happen, baby. There are enough witnesses, plus your phone records and what happened at Blissy’s. You won’t even have to testify if you don’t want to. He won’t be getting out this time. I’ll make sure of it.”
He slides into a chair at the side of my bed—the nurses told me this is where he’s spent the last two weeks, and we cry together.
It’s messy and incoherent. It’s blubbering and sobbing words of love and fear.
It’s cathartic.
It’s healing.
It’s teamwork.
When I start to fade into sleep, he speaks again. “When he hurt you the first time, you were all alone. I don’t think any of us truly understood just how isolated you were until this happened, but you won’t ever be alone again.”
He twirls the engagement ring he placed back on my finger before they wheeled me off for testing.
“After Violet died, I felt so alone, even though I had Braxton, Ace, and baby Sage. Nothing was ever about me again. I wouldn’t allow it to be.
I put all my energy into being the kind of parent Sage would need, the kind of grandson Ace would want, the kind of friend and brother that Braxton would choose. ”
“Oh, Grey.”
“I was safeguarding my heart, but really what I was doing was making myself an island that no one could get to. Somehow, you airdropped into my remote way of living and you blew it up spectacularly.”
I’d laugh, but it hurts. Four broken ribs are pure hell. “I do have a way of blowing up people’s lives.”
“But that’s it. Before you, I wasn’t living.
I was existing and experiencing life secondhand through my brother and my nephew.
You showed me what it means to live, and I refused to spend one minute living without you, so I sat here, swimming in the guilt because when it comes down to it, I was the one who sent Roman’s men away.
I’m just as responsible for you being in this bed as Riley is. ”
“No. Absolutely not, Grey. You don’t get to carry this guilt around your neck.”
He stares at me with so much pain in his eyes that I know he doesn’t believe me—he thinks this is all his fault.
“I prayed,” he whispers. “I begged. I pleaded and bargained for you to come back to me.”
“And I did.” My eyelids droop, and it’s harder to open them this time. The pain meds are starting to kick in.
“You did. And I’ve never been more thankful for anything in my entire life. I made you a deal a while ago, but I’m ready to renegotiate.”
I smile even as my eyes flutter closed.
“Legally, we’re married, and while I don’t regret doing it this way, I do want to do it again, the right way, for you.”
Someday soon I’ll yell at him about marrying me this way but today is not that day. Not when he wants a big fancy party just so he can declare me as his for all to see.
Honestly, that’s sounding really good to me too.
“Sleep, sweetheart. I’ll be right here when you wake up.”
And I know he will be. The innocence I lost as a little girl raising herself throws up a giant two-handed fist pump.
Greyson Reyes has healed a childhood wound I thought could only be patched up and boarded over.
That little girl who sits in the corner of my soul, sobbing into her folded knees, wipes her tears and smiles.
I’m going to be okay.
Grey and I are going to be okay.
We’ll be better than okay, because we have forever to get there.
“You’re going home today. Are you excited?” Madi moves about my hospital room, packing up cards and gifts that have accumulated over my two-month-long stay.
I am excited, but also nervous, though I don’t tell her that. I still have to use a walker—my broken hip on the right and broken leg on the left caused so much damage. It’s been a painful recovery.
And we’re still not sure if I’ll ever walk without some kind of limp again.
“I tested out the elevator Grey put into your house.” She means his house. I’m still struggling to come to terms with it being ours since I didn’t buy a damn thing for it. “It’s going to make it so much easier to get around.”
“I told him he didn’t have to do that.” I’m bitter today, and I don’t know why.
“Sav. I think that man would build you a 50,000-square-foot castle, complete with a moat and private gardens, if that’s what would make you happy.”
Maybe that’s the problem. I haven’t done anything to deserve his devotion. If I’m completely honest, I’ve done everything possible to push him away time and time again.
The hurtful words I hurled at him the night Riley hit me with a truck take up so much real estate in my mind—the intrusive thoughts filling my every waking moment—and I don’t know how to silence them.
“What’s wrong, Savvy?” Madi drops into Grey’s chair. With only five days left until her due date, she’s swollen everywhere, but she’s scary enough that Grey finally went to check on the house and left me in her care.
“I’m struggling,” I admit.
Madi’s easy smile and kind eyes do little to ease my worries. But I love her for trying. “You’ve been through a lot.”
“I guess.”
“Can I…ask you something?” Her hesitancy puts me even more on edge because it hits home what a shitty friend I’ve been.
“Always,” I say, meaning it.
“Why didn’t you talk to us? Me and Clover, at least. We’ve known you since we were nineteen.”
Emotion saws at my throat with a rusty serrated knife.
“If you’re not ready to talk, I understand,” she says gently.
“But you were my rock when Braxton’s family attacked me.
You’ve been Clover’s emotional support person for eleven years.
You’re the friend that stepped up and protected us anytime we couldn’t do it ourselves, but we never got the chance to be that person for you. ”
She grabs a tissue and dabs at her eyes.
“Were we so self-absorbed that we completely missed the signs? I feel like we failed you in every way.”