Chapter 31 #2
But I want to share it with Austin. I want him to know me in a way that no one else does except Jonah, but this is different than even that. Jonah had been there with me through it all, he’d lived it too. Sharing it with Austin is choosing to give him a piece of me that no one else has.
“His name is Leo,” I say quietly, and though I’m prepared for it, the pain makes my breath catch, memories rearing up out of the pit I keep them in inside my chest. It feels like a line of spikes being slowly dragged down my body, each inch sending new shocks of agony ripping through me.
It’s been so long since I let myself really look, that I let myself remember…
But I swallow hard and keep going.
“And he belonged to my daughter, Gabby.”
Austin inhales quietly. I know that he probably suspected who the stuffed animal had belonged to, at least a vague idea, and that he assumed that I’d lost a child after that first night at FOS when I’d told him how I was sure he hadn’t had children, but hearing it confirmed is different, I guess.
“Was it…was it Bloodies?” he asks gently.
“No, nothing like that. I was losing her before the end of the world. She was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia a few months before everything went to hell.”
“Oh God, Melody, I’m so sorry.”
I give him a sad smile, that one that you give people when they tell you that they’re sorry for your loss. The one that says it’s ok even though it’s far, far from ok, but it’s all you can offer them.
But no, it isn’t all I can offer, not this time. I reach over and take his hand in mine, and he squeezes it gently.
“She was only six and it was…aggressive. Even with treatment, the odds weren’t in our favor.
So…well, we were on borrowed time.” Tears burn my eyes but I don’t want to stop.
“A good friend from the bureau found out about what was happening with the Bloodies before news broke, before everything got so out of hand and the bombs dropped and—” I take a deep breath, forcing myself not to spiral.
“He shouldn’t have told me, but he did and he’s the reason I’m still here.
He warned us about what was coming—the outbreak and the zombies and the bombs that they planned to use to try to contain everything—and told us to get as far from D.C.
as we could. Mitch and Sean—that was Jonah’s husband—died years before that, so it was just me and Jonah and Gabby against the apocalypse.
” I cast my mind back to the very beginning again, letting all of the memories hit me.
“We gathered as many supplies as we could and we went to Jonah’s lake house out in the middle of nowhere.
That’s where we spent the first few years after the end.
It’s where…it’s where Gabby died.” A tear rolls down my cheek and Austin reaches out to wipe it away before pulling me against his chest. With his arms wrapped around me, I can keep going.
He’s here to hold me together, giving me permission to break if I need to.
“We were able to shield her from everything out there, so she had no idea what was going on in the world. Thankfully, the property was pretty secluded, so we didn’t have to worry about many Bloodies or other people wandering in.
She just thought we were having a great family vacation,” I say with a laugh that fades quickly.
“She was happy. She spent her last month on earth happy and that’s all I can ask for, especially given the state of the world.
She started to decline pretty quickly after those first few weeks, and we knew it was time.
It was…peaceful. We had a lot of pain medicine and we were able to make the end bearable for her.
She went to sleep in my lap, one arm wrapped around Leo and holding my hand. And that was it.”
I can’t speak for a long time as I let the pain wash through me, letting myself really feel it for the first time in years.
Maybe for the first time ever. I barely remember the days afterwards.
I remember Jonah digging a grave beside Gabby’s beloved swing, the one Mitch had built for her by hand.
He’d carved their initials into the seat and it was her special place, especially after Mitch died.
I remember kissing her forehead one last time and Jonah taking her from my arms because I couldn’t be the one to put her in the ground.
I remember kneeling in the mud as the rain pelted down on me, feeling completely numb and utter agony all at once, and I remember screaming.
But after that, it’s just darkness. It’s like I went to sleep for months, not really seeing or feeling anything at all, not truly accepting everything.
I knew that Gabby was gone. I wasn’t in denial, exactly, but it was like when I thought about it, it seemed like a dream, or like I was looking at it through a pane of warped glass. Everything was there but also…not.
Austin gives me as much time as I need, just holds me as I cry and reassures me without words that he’s there. After a while, I find my voice again.
“After that, everything became about survival, about keeping Jonah alive and safe, and that was it. I went to a very, very dark place that really, I probably shouldn’t have made it back out of.
I was ruthless. I was cruel. I was brutal.
I did anything and everything in my power to keep Jonah safe and I didn’t care if that took every drop of humanity out of me.
He was all I had left and I wouldn’t…I couldn’t lose him.
” Austin flinches ever so slightly, understanding now why Jonah is so important to me, why leaving him at The Cove meant so much.
I squeeze him reassuringly. “I eventually came back, piece by piece, but that had taken me years, and even then, it’s like I kept this wall around myself, letting very few people inside. Mull, Renee, Wynn, Abuela—and you.”
I lean back to look at him and slide one hand over his cheek, gently stroking my thumb over his cheekbone. I lean in and kiss him, slow and deep and saying all the rest of the things that I can’t say out loud right now. I shift on his lap and lose myself in him for a while.
“Thank you for telling me all of this,” he says quietly, hours later as we’re finally drifting off to sleep in the middle of the afternoon. My head’s on his chest and I’m wrapped around him, pressing my body as close to his as I can. His fingers play in my hair and my eyelids droop.
“Thank you for…everything,” I whisper.
“Melody?”
“Hmm?” I murmur, sleep pulling me under like a riptide. I’m not even sure if what I hear next is real, but I fall asleep with a smile on my lips.
“I think I’ve gone and fallen in love with you.”