Chapter Twenty
Bray
ICAN SMELL the fruity scent all around me.
I smile—that’s Reilly. That’s my girl’s fucking delicious smell.
I don’t know where I am. I feel like I’m floating, but I can’t see anything around me, surrounded only by a whiteness.
I keep getting to this spot. I can hear voices.
I can smell, but I can’t make anything else out, no matter how much I try.
She’s here though. I can feel her presence surrounding me. Reilly is here with me. I just need to find her. I hear her voice like a musical melody calling to me, reaching for me, but I’m trapped in this whiteness.
“Bray, you can wake up now. It’s been a week. Stop being a lazy ass and get up. What would your coach say when he hears you’ve been asleep for a week?”
Coach would rip me a new one, I want to reply, except she never hears me.
“Bray, please, you promised me. You promised that you would always fight for us. I’m begging you to fight your way back for us.”
Her cries rip through my heart. I want to hold her, to tell her that I’m fucking fighting. I’m fighting to get back to her. I just need to find her. Where are you, baby?
I can feel myself slip back to darkness, to nothingness. The sounds around me, the beeping, the talking, it all fades out.
I’m back in the whiteness. I inhale, hoping to get a whiff of that fruity fragrance. It’s not there. She’s not here. I want to let myself slip back into the darkness, then I hear Ella.
“Bray, I moved into my dorm at the university. You were meant to help me, you know. You were meant to do all the heavy lifting for me. I had to take Zac and Dean—guess how that turned out? Zac decided that the dorm room was unacceptable accommodations. His exact words. I never knew how much of a snob our big brother was. Dean agreed, saying the security was not high enough. It’s a bloody girls’ dorm room, Bray.
What the hell do I need security for there? ”
I’m hoping that Zac ended up refusing her move into the dorms. Like I originally did. I knew those dorms would suck. I may not have gone to university, but I spent many days in the girls’ dorms when I was younger.
“Do you know what Zac went and did next? No, you don’t know because you won’t wake up.
He went and bought an apartment near the university and said if I had to move out, that was the only option.
So, now I have a not so little two-bedroom apartment, five minutes away from the university.
No sharing a tiny dorm room with a stranger for me.
I gave him hell for it though. I’m not admitting that I love that apartment way more than a dorm room.
And if you wake up and tell him I said that, I’ll knock you over the head and put you back to sleep. ”
Thank the Lord she is not in those dorm rooms. I can’t believe Zac had to be showy and buy her an apartment. I would have talked her into moving in with me if she didn’t want to continue living with Zac.
“Bray, wake the fuck up already. It’s been three weeks.” It’s Zac; he sounds pissed, which is nothing new. I’m used to him being pissed at me.
“Bray, I can’t do everything without you.
You need to wake up. If not for me, do it for Reilly then.
That poor girl has not left this hospital for weeks.
She won’t leave your room for any longer than five minutes at a time.
You can’t do this to her. You can’t do this to me, fucker.
You don’t get to just sleep while the rest of us are here suffering and worried. ”
I’m fucking trying. I want to get back to Reilly. I want to hold her in my arms more than anything. If I can just find the way. How the fuck do I wake up?
“Bray, you promised me that you were great uncle material. Being asleep is not being a great uncle. Wake up. Your nephew needs an uncle who can teach him how to fight and how to get all the ladies. That’s right.
I said nephew; we found out it was a boy.
Although, if he takes after his father, he won’t need any help.
That man is so skilled. The stories I could tell you.
And if you don’t wake up soon, I might just start spilling my guts and torture you with the horrid details of your brother’s and my sex life, amazing bloody sex life.
I know you can hear me, Braydon Williamson. Wake the hell up.”
Fuck, pregnancy has made Alyssa grouchy. Where the fuck is Reilly? I can’t smell her fragrance. All I want is Reilly.
“Bray, I’m falling apart. I don’t know what to do.” Mmm, I can smell that fruity fragrance. Reilly is here. She sounds so fucking lost though. How can I reassure her that I’m still here? No matter what I do, I can’t seem to pull myself out of this, whatever the fuck this is.
“You said you would fight. You promised I would never be alone again. Well, I’m feeling pretty bloody lonely right now, Bray. Please wake up. I will do anything. You want to run off to Vegas and get married? Let’s do it. Just wake up, please.”
Please, God, let me remember that when I eventually make it out of this fog. Let me hold her to that promise of marriage.
“Please,” she sobs. I can hear her cries and can’t do a damn thing about it. As much as I try to tell my body I’m ready to get this show on the road, nothing happens. The darkness just keeps taking over me again and again.