Chapter 29 #2
“I kept telling myself I should make him pull over.” His tone starts escalating, getting rougher and angrier. “I should make him hand over the keys. And let me drive. But I didn’t. I fucking didn’t, and I should have.
“We were so close to the restaurant. I thought, what’s a few more blocks? And then it would be over. No scenes. No drama.
“My dad had just asked Madison something. I can’t remember what.
She was about to answer when I saw a car speeding through the intersection.
I shouted for him to stop. He slammed the brakes and yanked the wheel hard, but it was too sharp, too fast. The tires lost traction, and we veered off the road.
He kept trying to correct it, and then another car hit us.
We rolled once, twice. I lost count. Madison screamed, glass shattered around us, and everything went black. ”
I’m so shocked I’ve barely noticed I’m crying.
Henry cups my face and wipes the tears with his thumb.
I should be the one comforting him, not the other way around, but imagining a world without Henry is like trying to breathe underwater.
“I’m right here,” he says. “Not going anywhere. Ever.”
I throw myself into his arms and clutch him hard against me, uselessly hoping I could carry some of the weight pressing down on him. But I can’t. And even if such a thing were possible, his stubborn ass wouldn’t allow it.
“Is Madison …?” I ask, my voice muffled against his chest.
“She’s alive,” he says.
“Is she okay?”
“Madison was sitting right behind me,” he says, his voice tightening.
“When the car rolled, my seat collapsed backward into her. Pinned her leg between the frame and the backrest. She couldn’t move. She was screaming.”
He goes quiet, staring at the floor for a long moment, jaw clenched so hard it trembles.
“God, Bells, she was screaming, and I couldn’t do anything to help her. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t reach her.”
He buries his face into the crook of my neck, needing the closeness. Needing to ground himself.
“I still hear it sometimes. Even when I’m awake.”
I flinch. Hard. But I reel it in and try to be strong for him. Strong enough to hold us both without breaking down to pieces.
“And your shoulder?”
“I got slammed into the door so hard it tore my shoulder apart. The seat belt saved my life, but it nearly ripped my arm out of the socket. And when the windshield shattered, some of the flying glass cut straight through my face.”
I run my fingers gently down the scar slicing his eyebrow, shaking my head in denial, refusing to imagine the scene he’s describing.
“My dad … he didn’t make it,” Henry finally says, his voice breaking. “He took the worst of it on his side. He was probably gone before the car even stopped rolling.”
“I’m so sorry.” I cup his face and stare at his beautiful, broken features. I kiss his brow. His cheek. Let my hands slide around his neck and pull myself into another hug. “I wish I’d known sooner.”
We stay like that, suspended in time, nothing but the frantic beating of our hearts and our uneven breaths filling the space between us.
“We should’ve hailed a cab. Grabbed the L or a fucking bus,” he grits out, squeezing me tighter against him. “And we didn’t. I trusted him to do this one thing for me. For us. And that trust got him killed. All because of me.”
“You are not guilty of anything, Henry.” I pull back just enough to see his face. His jaw is clenched so hard it trembles.
“Oh, I am.”
“No, you are not.”
He looks away and bites his lower lip like he might chew it off.
“I’m responsible for ending Madison’s career, too.”
“Madison’s career?” I whisper.
He nods once.
“She was a ballet dancer. A damn good one. She had just been offered a spot at Juilliard before the accident.”
He drags a hand down his face, as if trying to erase the memory.
“Her leg was crushed with multiple fractures. She can walk now, but dance the way she used to? That’s gone. I took that from her.”
“No, you didn’t,” I say. “You didn’t cause this, Henry. Your dad was sick. He made the choice to get behind the wheel. This was an accident. A horrible, tragic accident, but it was never your fault.”
He shakes his head like he can’t let himself believe it, like the guilt is fused into his bones.
I grip his face, forcing him to look at me.
“You hear me?” I whisper. “It’s not on you. It was never on you.”
His chest shudders against mine. He’s crying again. Silent, shattering sobs he probably hasn’t let out in years.
I hold him tighter, wishing I could peel the weight off him.
“How could I walk back onto a court when she can’t walk back onto a stage?” he mutters.
“What do you mean?”
He pulls back slightly, enough to see me, but not enough to let me go.
“The doctor gave me three options after the accident,” he says, his voice flat and mechanical. “His first suggestion, surgery. Long rehab, painful, but a real shot at full recovery.”
He swallows hard.
“And?” I ask, even though I already know the answer to this question. I need to understand his logic.
“I said no.”
My eyebrows pull together, my pulse stumbling with the helpless ache of knowing I can’t change the past.
“The second option was intensive physical therapy. Longer odds without surgery, but still a chance at regaining full strength and mobility.”
He shrugs helplessly.
“I said no to that, too.”
I blink, barely breathing, feeling the frustration spiraling inside me.
“And the third?” I whisper.
He lets out a hollow, humorless chuckle.
“Manage the pain. Deal with it. Avoid too much strain. Accept the limitations. Learn to live with it.”
“And that’s what you chose?”
He nods.
“It was the easiest punishment,” he says quietly. “The one I deserved.”
I stare at him, stunned. The pieces clicking into place so fast my brain can barely keep up.
“So you’re telling me,” I say slowly, my voice trembling with the force of it, “the doctor told you the injury was fixable, and you’re choosing not to operate and forfeit your lifelong dream of having a professional tennis career because you feel like you have to punish yourself for something that’s not your fault. ”
“Correct,” he says, like he’s signing his own death warrant.
“No mames …”1
I fly up from my seat and bring my hands to my face. I’m so angry I could scream. At his stubbornness. At the way he keeps punishing himself for a tragedy he didn’t cause.
I start pacing the room, my thoughts going a thousand miles a minute. Thinking. Processing. Fuming.
Henry has always been a stubborn son of a bitch. But this? It’s beyond excessive. This is cruel. This is self-inflicted torture he doesn’t deserve.
Thank God he told me. Because now I can fix this. Now I can straighten him out.
And I better get started.
I stop pacing and turn to him, breathing hard and resting my hands on my hips.
“So you’d rather drag yourself through life half-alive than fight for the future you deserve? The future you dreamed of since you were old enough to want anything.”
I can feel the heat rising up my neck.
“You think your dad would want this for you?” I taunt. “For you to give up on yourself like this? And what about your mom?”
Henry says nothing. He just sits there, staring at me like I’m speaking a language he’s never heard before.
“If Madison loved you like I imagine she did, she wouldn’t want you to forfeit your dreams just because fate, or chance, or whatever the fuck you want to call it had different plans for her.”
I cross the room and take a seat next to him.
“Listen to me, Henry Mitchell,” I say, my tone leaving no room for escape. “That accident didn’t take your life. Don’t you dare let guilt do it for you.”
He shakes his head, slow and wrecked.
“I’m so tired of carrying it, Bells.”
He grabs my hands and presses his forehead to mine. His voice breaks on the next words, so raw and small it almost doesn’t reach me.
“I’m not ready.”
Not yet, perhaps. But I will be damned if I don’t help him find the way back to himself.
I tighten my hold on his hands, refusing to let him drift further into the darkness threatening to swallow him whole.
Refusing to let him forget the promise we once made to take on the world together.
“It’s you and me against the world, Henry.” I echo his words back at him. “Remember?”
His fingers twitch around mine, like he’s trying to hold on to that oath.
He stares at me, scanning my face. A hint of a smile tugs at his lips, flooding me with hope.
Maybe the world has flipped upside down.
Maybe this time, I’m the one anchoring him to it.
And I’m not letting go.
1 You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. (Not literal).