Chapter 28 Oak #2
“My sister, Nora,” I swallow though my throat feels tight, “she came to visit me that week. She knew I wouldn’t come back home despite her and mom begging me to visit them.
You see, Miguel was very close with his mother.
He joined The Marines because of her. Everything he did was for the love of his mother.
So it felt wrong, unjust, to be around my mother who I loved so much.
Miguel couldn’t be with his, why should I be able to spend time with mine? ”
“Oak,” she whimpers and I can see the tears building behind her eyes.
I swallow again, glancing away from her eyes that hold empathy and compassion.
“So Nora came to visit. She didn’t want me to be without family knowing the anniversary of their deaths was coming.
” I smile sadly. “She has the biggest heart. Even though she’s my baby sister she was always looking out for me. Still does.”
“She loves you so much, Oak,” Grace tells me softly. “When we were talking all she wanted was for her big brother to be happy.”
“She wants me to be happy when I took her happiness away from her,” I say full of shame.
“What do you mean? Oak, I’m sure you didn’t do anything to take away her happiness.”
I laugh bitterly, my fingers increasing in tempo of their twitching.
“But I did, Grace.” I then look at her and her brows are drawn in with confusion.
“I failed my sister that night. Instead of protecting her, watching out for her, I got fucking plastered. I didn’t want to remember their deaths and for once I didn’t want to feel the pain.
I got so plastered I blacked the fuck out.
I got what I wanted but it came with a fucking cost. And that cost was Nora. ”
“He didn’t, did he?” Grace murmurs horrified and heart broken.
My stomach churns as acid mixes in with the blood flowing through my veins. A taste so foul sits on my tongue and an anger so palpable rocks me hard like thunder.
“I didn’t protect her like I should have. I didn’t make her my first priority like I should have. I wasn’t being her hero of a big brother like I should have,” I stress through clenched teeth and a tense jaw. “I failed her. And because I failed her Chris Townsend was able to get to her.”
“Oak.” My name is a heart broken whimper on her lips and I feel the pain in her voice.
“He was charming, too charming for his own good. Even had the good looks to lure the girls in and a smile that meant none stood a chance,” I spit out with disgust. “But he had a sickness. He didn’t like girls who gave into him willingly.
No, the fucker liked to take. He liked having the girls fight him back.
That’s what he got off on. And that’s what he fucking did with Nora.
” Self hatred fills me as my body becomes as hard as ice.
Grace’s hold on my hand grows stronger as she tries to reach to me, but it doesn’t work. Not this time.
“The last I saw of Nora was her sitting outside by the bonfire. I thought she would be okay. She was at the Vipers MC club house. I thought she would be protected. But she wasn’t.
She wandered off and he was there. He charmed her, used his looks as a weapon and pounced on her.
” I can taste the bile in my mouth as I fight to say the next words.
My voice sounds choked as I continue. “She fought him off as best as she could but he was stronger. He raped her, Grace. He fucking raped her and left her on the side of the road like she was nothing.” My voice is as cold as ice.
“And if I wasn’t so fucking lost in grief and drowning in my own misery and guilt I could have prevented it.
I could have saved her. It shouldn’t have happened. ”
Grace’s first instinct isn’t what I would have thought.
I thought after hearing what I had done, what I didn’t do, she would have been so repulsed by me that she wouldn’t want me to even touch her.
But no.
Grace wraps me up in her arms and presses me tightly against her. Her arms stay wrapped around me like a band of pure titanium and refuse to let go.
She kisses the top of my head and then holds me even tighter. As if she’s trying to fuse our bodies together.
And at first I don’t understand it.
I don’t understand how her first instinct is to console me, to soothe me, when I have caused pain and torment to my baby sister.
I don’t understand how she’s accepting me in her arms, how they hold me so tenderly and lovingly.
I don’t understand her soft compassionate kisses on the top of my head, nor do I understand how when she pulls back to look at me there’s empathy in those blue eyes.
“You’re right,” she begins and I can feel my heart freezing before the words come that I know will shatter it with no chance of ever being put back together.
“It shouldn’t have happened. He should have never raped her, Oak.
He shouldn’t have took her against her will.
He shouldn’t have violated her. He shouldn’t have taken what was never his to take.
He shouldn’t have discarded her and made her feel worthless. He shouldn’t have done that to her.”
And there, I don’t understand how she’s lying all the blame on him and not including me.
“And what about me, Grace?” My voice breaks at the end. “What about me?”
Breaking her arms that are wrapped around my body she holds my face between her hands. Her eyes stare deeply into mine, and with the hold they have I can’t look away.
“Maybe you could have prevented it. Maybe you could have saved her. Maybe you could have stood by her side all night like a shadow following her every move. But the maybe’s in life will kill you, Oak.
They’re already killing you, everyday the constant maybes are plunging a knife deeper in your heart.
Even if you were vigilant that night you couldn’t have kept an eye on her 24/7.
What happened shouldn’t have happened but the person to blame is the one responsible. And that person is Chris Townsend.”
“But I feel responsible, Grace,” I tell her, my voice strained with pain.
“Does Nora hold you responsible?”
I glance away from her. The vein pulses in my neck as my fingers continue to twitch. “Why does that matter? It was still my fault.”
She shakes her head sadly. “It matters, Oak. Does she hold you responsible?”
“No.”
“Does she blame you?”
“No.”
She then forces me to look into her eyes. “You need to forgive yourself, Oak, or you will never heal.”
“What if I don’t deserve forgiveness?”
“You out of everyone deserves forgiveness and you owe it to yourself to finally have it. All this pain, this guilt and suffering, it’s not helping you, Oak.
” Her eyes search deeply into mine, as if they are trying to find what little soul I have left.
“Forgive yourself, Oak. Forgive yourself and start living again with me.”
She brings her forehead down to rest on mine and our breaths mingle with each other’s. Then, in a matter of a minute, our breaths become synchronized, as do the beatings of our hearts.
My hands roam her back until they wrap entirely around her. And if it was possible I would find a way to keep her this close to me always. Meld our skins together without ever being able to be torn apart.
The feelings she evokes, the need along with possession, are too strong to deny.
I love Grace, and because I love her I’ll be damned before any other man can lay a hand upon her.
She’s mine for life and I’ll kill the motherfucker who tries to take her away from me.
Grace is my heartbeat.
And if anything is to happen to her. . .
It’s a dark thought that I don’t want to entertain.
Framing her sweet face in my hands I plant the most chaste kiss I have ever given her on her lips. A soft yet tender kiss that holds everything I want to say but can’t.
And because Grace is Grace, because she knows me so well, because she can read me like a book, she receives the kiss without kissing me back.
She allows the kiss, my lips pressing so softly and tender against hers, to say it all for me. And she accepts it. She accepts me.
As the kiss ends her eyes gaze into mine with a sheen mist and love pouring from them. “I know, Oak,” she breathes the very same words I say to her. Her lips pull in a small smile. “I know.”
I lay my hand palm flat on her chest, right where her heart lies underneath. Even if I can’t say the three words I know she’s dying to hear I can say this. “You’re my heart, Grace. And the minute yours stops beating so does mine.”