Chapter 25
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Paul
The phone rings twice before I answer.
“Dr. Bennett here.”
“Paul.” Mrs. Vaughn’s voice is thin, and the way she’s still sniffling slightly tells me she’s been crying.
Dammit.
“What happened?”
“Her breathing. It’s gone irregular again, even worse than last week.”
I set my pen down on the open journal article in front of me entitled Anoxic Brain Injury and Prolonged Disorders of Consciousness.
“Okay. Inform the doctor and keep an eye on it.” I force calm into my voice, needing her to calm down.
I’d rather not leave the house to go comfort her now that we’re finally all home, but I will if I have to.
“We will figure it out. We are as close as we’ve ever been to bringing her back.
I need you to keep talking to her. And let Derek come by if he wants to. ”
“Derek has been here with Melanie today. She brought Tessa a drawing. A purple horse. She’s such a gem, that little girl. That could’ve been my…” She trails off. “I ruined everything for everyone.”
I don’t disagree because she’s right.
“Do you want me to come by?” I ask instead.
“No. No, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have… I didn’t mean to say that.”
“You don’t have to apologize to me for grieving out loud.
” I mean it, but I also know better than to push on it.
“Derek and Melanie could use someone in their corner. Everyone can. We could all use more people in our corner who are actually on our side. It takes a village. It can still be a village, even now. You don’t need to share blood to be a family. ”
The silence stretches on the other end before she whispers, “Thank you, Dr. Bennett.” Then she hangs up before I can say anything else.
I sit there with the dial tone for a second longer than I need to, the phone still against my ear.
Tessa’s breathing is back to irregular and getting worse.
We need to hurry this up, even though I have no idea what, exactly, to do in the first place. Lennon and Nevan came home from the inn hours ago, shaken.
Seraphine had confirmed what I had already suspected. Promises in dreams mean more than in waking life.
I set the phone down and take off my glasses. The bridge of my nose aches, telling me that I’ve been wearing them too long, and I press two fingers into it, breathing out through my teeth.
It’s been a long-fucking-day.
I’ve spent most of the afternoon reading journal articles while simultaneously contemplating magical contract law.
Medical school did not prepare me for this.
At least the stairlift for Ridge got installed today, a small mercy.
I lean back in my chair and stare at the blurry ceiling.
If a promise requires permission to break, then what happened with mine? Did Ridge break it when he stepped into my dreamscape? Or did This Man release me from it when he did?
Had he simply been waiting? Waiting for a reason, an opening to step across the line and pin Ridge down too? That would be worse because it means he’s not reacting.
He’s planning.
Lennon will lose her best friend if we don’t figure this out, and it looks like Nevan is just as deep into this without even knowing it.
We’re running out of time.
Seraphine’s words echo in my mind again. “Sometimes we have to sacrifice ourselves for the ones we love.”
I would, without hesitation. The problem is I don’t think I have anything This Man wants in exchange for these promises, and that realization is somehow more frightening than the alternative.
Because if he doesn’t want anything from me, how am I supposed to get them out of this?
I press my thumb against the edge of the desk, the sharp bite of the wood a reality check in and of itself.
There has to be something I’m missing.
There always is.
The trick is finding it before somebody dies.
There’s a knock on my partially open door.
“Come in.”
Lennon pushes it all the way open with her shoulder.
She’s wearing sweatpants with lemons printed all over them and a white T-shirt that is sheer enough that her black bra is visible.
Her feet are bare on my floor, and something about that detail does something to my chest that I don’t have a clinical name for.
Probably should look that up.
“There you are,” she says, crossing the room toward me with a smile. “I was wondering where you went.”
I push my chair back and pull her straight onto my lap.
She tries to keep some of her weight off me out of some misplaced sense of politeness, but I hold her tightly until she gives up and settles into my lap properly.
She smells like lemon, and I breathe her in before I kiss my way up to her mouth.
“Sorry,” I murmur against her lips. “I had to take a call.”
“Are you okay?” she asks.
“How are you feeling?”
“Don’t deflect.” She frowns as she pulls back. “I feel like you’re tired. Hell, we’re all tired, and that has to mean something, given how much we’ve all been sleeping lately.”
I tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. “Lucid dreaming isn’t sleep, not in the sense of rest.”
“I know that.” She settles deeper against me. “I still think you’re exhausted.”
I smile because she’s not wrong, but I’d hoped I was hiding it better.
“Mrs. Vaughn called,” I say, because if someone needs to know, it’s her.
Lennon sucks in a breath. “Tessa? Her breathing?”
I nod, watching her process it, the small swallow, the nod, how her jaw sets stubbornly. “Okay, that means we actually need to sit down and figure out what we’re doing. She doesn’t have time left for us to keep circling this and try stuff. We need a plan.”
I love those words. I love her.
“I’m all for plans.” I kiss her lips with a small peck. “I think we should all get together at the inn tomorrow. If Seraphine’s so knowledgeable, maybe she could help with that too.”
Lennon frowns at me. “That woman is not really reliable.”
“It’s worth a try.”
“Nevan is stuck on the idea that this could be the reason why he and his mom are not particularly close.”
“He’s not wrong to wonder, but he’s wrong to feel guilty about it,” I say, choosing the words carefully. “This Man may have been involved. But Seraphine started failing him long before that. She did that part herself.”
“Then why would he want that from Nevan? What’s the benefit to him?”
“Probably nothing.”
“Then why do it?”
“I don’t know, darling. I don’t know a lot of things when it comes to This Man.”
“Maybe to keep Nevan from getting hurt? In some twisted version of caring?”
I scoff before I can stop myself. “No. I’m fairly certain that’s not it.”
“Then what could it be? It’s driving me crazy.”
“I think he’s bored,” I say it plainly, because it’s the truest thing I have, while my hand strokes down her back. “I think he’s been alone a very long time, and people with sleep problems are easy for him to manipulate. He finds it entertaining.”
“He is lonely,” she says, frowning.
“Do you feel sorry for him?”
“Naked truth?”
“Always.”
She breathes out something close to a laugh, not quite. “I hate him. But yeah, I do.”
“Naked truth?” I kiss her neck again. “I love that you’ve got a big enough heart to pity the villain of your story because I’m basically the villain too.”
“You’re not.” She shakes her head.
I kiss lower, along her collarbone. “I almost killed you.”
“You found me,” she says, but it comes out breathy.
I kiss her properly then, but holding her wrecks something loose in my chest that I’d kept stacked and sealed for longer than I want to think about.
And when Seraphine is right, I’m gonna lose her again.
My hands aren’t quite steady where they’re resting against her back, and she notices.
Of course, she notices.
She pulls back. “What’s wrong?”
“I think it’s catching up with me.”
“What is?”
“Everything.”
She frowns and reaches up to touch my face, her thumb moving along my jaw. “You’re carrying a lot, aren’t you?”
I shrug, which isn’t an answer. We both know it isn’t.
“Everyone puts everything on you,” she continues. “Because you’re the responsible one. The capable one. You’ve got Tessa, and Nora, and Ridge, and Nevan, and me.”
“I will always have you.”
“And I’ve got you.” Her hand stays on my face. “I’ve got them, too, but I’ve also got you. If you’ll let me.”
“Lennon, my darling Lennon,” I whisper against her mouth, feeling the way she stills, how she always does when I use her name like that, as though it’s something she’s still getting used to being handed.
“Let me,” she whispers again, leaning back to look into my eyes. “I promi—”
I press my mouth to hers, kissing her soundly to stop the word. “Don’t,” I whisper. “Don’t promise me anything, not after we learned how binding those can be.”
She pulls back and levels me with a look.
“Paul Bennett. I promise you. I’ve got you.
Always. And if that binds me to you, I’m glad, because I won’t take it back.
Ever. No matter how this ends,” she whispers, snuggling close again, “… or what we have to do, I have you, and you have me, and we both have everyone else, together. I’ll show up for you every day as long as you’ll let me. ”
Years of reflex have me wanting to shake my head. To tell her no. I will handle it. But then something clicks. Something that makes my eyes go hot, and my chest constrict as I think about everything this woman has ever done.
“I believe you,” I say, the words sounding as surprised as I feel. Not because I doubted her, but because I doubted myself. My ability to ever trust that someone else could handle things alongside me.
I suck in a shaky breath as the revelation sinks into my bones. “I trust you.”
The three words are not nearly enough to adequately express this epiphany that shouldn’t have been one.
I trust the sun to rise and set. I trust scientific processes and data.
I trust this woman, with her soft heart, capable hands, and extraordinary capacity to love others the way they need to be loved.
How I need to be loved.
“I’ll show up for you, too, darling,” I say, my voice cracking. “Just be patient with me for the rest. I will do my best to let you, to let you sh—”
She leans in and kisses me sweetly, and it feels like thanks and praise all in one.