Asher
It had been a couple of days in the hospital. Lennon hardly left my side, spending every spare second outside her appointments sitting with me. Sometimes it felt like I was keeping her alive. She stayed with me for fear of that urge to let go resuming in full force.
Today she sat cross-legged at the end of my bed, reading to me. Something I had done more times than I could count. She stumbled over her words at times, seemingly nervous about such an intimate task with me, but she insisted.
She was reading Remarkably Bright Creatures, and the way she enthusiastically read this book, I would have listened to her read a fucking grocery receipt.
She tucked her hair behind her ears as she focused on the pages so attentively, ensuring she was capturing the tone of the book.
When she peeked up through her long lashes and caught me staring, she blushed.
“What?” she asked.
I chuckled. “Nothing. Just really enjoying this moment with you. Here. With me.”
I enunciated each word, ensuring she understood the tone in which I meant the statement. She smiled, her lips motioning in a soft manner about them that felt bittersweet.
“Why didn’t you do it?” I finally asked.
She closed the book around her finger, bookmarking her spot.
“It’s not that I’m not going to,” she disclosed honestly. “But for now, I want to see you every day. I want to see you get through this time in the hospital. I want to see you get out of here. If I can just slow down and think, day by day…then maybe, just fucking maybe, it could get easier.”
The reluctant tone in her voice was evident. But I couldn’t help it. The smile that infiltrated my features was too difficult to hide. She was trying to stay. She had reconsidered, and this was her compromise.
Fuck. If I weren’t hooked up to machines, I would’ve launched myself out of this fucking bed and tackled her to the ground. I would have claimed every inch of her.
She noticed my sudden increase of happiness painting my expression. “Don’t get too excited, Asher. Day by day means tomorrow I could fucking say that’s enough. I only have one good reason to stay—and that’s until I hurt you beyond repair.”
Lennon’s face was serious, but I couldn’t match her energy.
“Babe,” I said gently, “there’s absolutely nothing you could do to me that would make me not want to be in your presence. There will be hard fucking days, I know that. But I’m never giving up on you. I can’t give up on you. There’s no option for that.”
She stared at the ground, shyness taking over her. “You say that now—”
“I know exactly who you are, Lennon,” I cut in. “There’s no guessing with you. I’ll be here day by day, hour by hour, moment by moment, getting through all the bullshit life throws our way. You never have to walk this world alone again.”
I spoke earnestly, needing her to understand.
A knock at the door pulled us out of our own little world, and I was shocked to see it was my father.
“Am I interrupting?” he asked upon entering.
Lennon shook her head, and immediately shifted as if she was about to hop off the bed, but he motioned for her to stay.
“No, don’t get up. I just wanted to stop in and see how everything was coming along,” he said softly.
Something about him was off. He wasn’t acting like his rigid, arrogant self. He seemed…shy. Nervous to be in this room with us, and I couldn’t tell why that was.
Either hospital rooms made him uncomfortable because he really didn’t come here often when I was here, or Lennon made him nervous.
Which could be the case, because she even made me fucking nervous.
“Yeah,” I said carefully. “Come in. Have a seat if you want.”
He shook his head. “No. No. This won’t take long. I just…I have an apology that’s long overdue.”
My heart dropped into the pits of my stomach, lodging somewhere inside my intestines. I was nervous, and scared, and wanted to scream at him to not say a fucking word to her.
The air was thick with electricity of me wanting to stop the inevitable.
He extended his hand to shake Lennon’s. She anxiously placed her small hand in his, looking nervously up through her lashes.
“I’d like to formally introduce myself to you, Miss Becker. My name is Andrew Graves. I’m an Inspector of the Toronto Police Service. Approximately nineteen years ago, I was the lead investigator on an accident that took your father’s life.”
My father allowed the bomb that was just dropped to fill the space. Lennon’s hand stopped shaking, the colour draining from her face as her eyes stayed glued to him.
Between them, my gaze gradually pinged back and forth. My father looked sincerely desperate for her to say something, anything at all. The look that filled Lennon’s face was that of shock and imminent despair.
Finally, Lennon inhaled a breath that took far too long to ingest inside her body. Her shoulders rose, adjusting to the added space being taken up inside of her body.
He was the first to break eye contact, clearly unable to cope with the information that he just provided her with. “I—uh—I was first on scene.”
The breath that was filling up Lennon’s body turned into shakes as her perfect almond eyes turned a shade of bloodshot red.
“You’ve seen my dad?” she finally whispered, desperate for any scrap of details.
He nodded. “Yes. He was still alive when I arrived on scene.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed up on his throat as he confessed this out loud.
She choked out a breath, something between that of happiness and disbelief. “Did you get to speak to him? What did he say?”
My father, not typically an affectionate man, placed his hands on top of hers that were still connected to him, and finally said, “Briefly. Before he passed. He asked me to check on you. He loved you very much, Lennon. His last words were about you.”
That was it.
Lennon got up from the bed, and latched onto my dad for dear life. Her tears finally exited her body, and she allowed them to escape in such raw manner that she sobbed into my dad’s chest.
A stranger who she had never met before.
A male stranger that she had never met before.
Something beautifully tragic was happening right before my eyes. The man I had always known as an asshole, rigid and arrogant, only wanting the best of the best was displaying emotions that I couldn’t remember ever witnessing him use before.
He wrapped Lennon in his arms as he held back tears of his own.
“I am so sorry,” he said into her hair. “I am so sorry I didn’t do more for you back then. I am so sorry I didn’t find you sooner, and let you know what your father had said to me. I am so sorry. Words will never be enough, but I am. I am sorry.”
He was on repeat. My father allowing himself to be vulnerable was incredible. Had he carried that guilt all this time?
Lennon sobbed deeper into him, allowing his hug to be all she knew to hold her up as her body shook.
“No,” she managed between breaths. “You don’t need to be sorry. You told me now. That’s all I’ve ever wanted to know. To know what his final moments were like…and you had them. All this time. It just took me finding Asher to hear them.”
She didn’t lift her head from his embrace, but her words were clear. This was a gift to her. My father tilted his head back to look up at the ceiling, still holding back tears that were threatening to escape. Something was breaking inside of him.
“Thank you for telling me that,” she whispered. “Thank you from the bottom of my heart.”
That was all it took for him to unleash the tears that were hidden behind his eyes.
“I am so sorry Lennon,” he choked. “I should have found you sooner. All these years passed, and I was so focused on the next day, the next call, the next, the next, the next—”
Lennon pulled back and forced his reciprocation to meet her eyes. Her face wet and blemished, she said with finality, “I don’t blame you for what happened to me.”
Her face scrunched up with confusion that he could possibly carry that weight.
“If I would have—” he began.
“No,” she stopped him.
“Stop right there. My mother was the problem. I don’t think I deserved the things she allowed to happen to me to happen, but that wasn’t your doing.
You didn’t know me. You wouldn’t think—” she dipped her head away in shame, “—you wouldn’t think that a mother would allow those things to happen to her daughter, but she did. So, it’s not on you to carry, okay?”
I couldn’t watch the interaction any longer.
I had never seen Lennon so strong and powerful before.
She was clear and intentional in her voice.
She bore no anger toward my father. Lennon had learned that her mother should have carried that burden.
Covering my mouth, the feeling of pride washed over me.
Maybe this meant Lennon could let go of some small weight that was keeping her heart heavy.
My father nodded slowly.
“You know you shouldn’t carry this weight either, right?” she asked softly.
He inhaled deeply. “I’ve thought about your father’s accident every day since he spoke to me.
Since he told me to check in with you, those being his last words.
I carried the weight of not following through with my due diligence immediately afterwards.
I waited and waited until it was too late. I should have been better…”
He couldn’t finish his thoughts. My father, for once in his life, was stumped for the right words.
Her hand reached up and touched his cheek.
“It was supposed to be this way.”
He looked confused.
“I was supposed to find him,” she said as she looked in my direction.
“We were supposed to find each other…and we finally did.”