The forced smile I wore turned genuine.
But then it fell.
Completely vanishing.
And it did so because I realized these were the last few moments I’d ever spend with either of them.
The realization hurt.
A whole lot.
Lucca huffed, clearly offended. “I won’t tell.”
Gracie’s eyes narrowed. “Good.”
Running my fingers through Lucca’s curly black hair, I swallowed, the pain in my chest increasing with each second that ticked by. “You know that I love you, don’t you, little man?”
Lucca nodded. “I love you too.”
His words hit me straight in the gut.
“But you can’t cry no more,” he continued, thinning his lips. “I don’t like it, and it makes Mama upset.”
It did make our Mama upset.
Which was another reason for me to go.
All I did was hurt her, the woman who’d saved me.
It wasn’t right, and it surely wasn’t fair.
It needed to end.
“You won’t see me cry anymore,” I said, fighting back the sob that was building in my throat. “Promise.”
He nodded. “Okay.”
Focusing my attention on Gracie, I slipped my finger under her chin and tilted her head back, forcing her sapphire-colored eyes to meet mine. “I love you, Goldie. With every broken piece of me.”
Tilting her head to the side, she stared up at me, confusion dancing on her freckle-covered face. “Uv you, Ashy. Ever and ever and ever.”
I felt like I was suffocating. “Forever and ever and ever.”
Wiping away the tears that continued to stream down my cheeks without fail, I focused back on Lucca. “Little man, I need you to do something for me.”
He quirked an expectant brow.
I almost smiled.
Almost.
“I may be gone for a little while”—I pulled in a quick breath—"so I need you to take care of Ziggy for me, okay?”
He crossed his arms over his little chest. “Where are you going?”
It was an answer I couldn’t give him. “Just promise me.”
“Okay,” he agreed, his eyes filled with confusion, just as Gracie’s had been moments before. “I will.”
“Alright, Goldie,” I said, squeezing Gracie tight. “I need you to do something too.”
“Yeah!” she squealed, obviously excited.
Brushing her bangs out of her face, I said, “I need you to keep an eye on Angel for me while I’m gone. Make sure Uncle Fe-fe doesn’t overfeed him.”
“O-tay,” Gracie agreed, bobbing her head enthusiastically. “Me take care da cat.” She paused. “And Un-ka Fe-fe.”
Hands trembling, and knowing I needed to get them out of the room before I broke down completely once more, I kissed Gracie for what I thought would be the last time. “Love you so, so much, Gracie,” I whispered, my voice breaking. “Don’t ever forget that okay?”
Looking up at me, Gracie cupped my cheeks, just as Chase always did. “I uv you, Ashy.”
Another crack formed across my heart.
“I don’t like this,” Lucca said, capturing my attention. “My stomach hurts.”
Reaching over, I ran a knuckle down the side of his cheek. “Love you too, ya little turd. Everything will be okay. Promise.”
It was a lie.
Nothing would be okay.
“Gracie! Lucca! Go brush your teeth, it’s past your bedtime!” Both kids jumped up at the sound of our mother’s shouts from downstairs. “I mean it, don’t make me come up there!”
Standing, Lucca grabbed Gracie’s hand, helping her climb to her little feet. His assessing eyes roamed over my face, taking in every inch of my expression. “Will you be here in the morning?”
I nodded. “I’ll be here...”
It was the truth.
Come morning, I’d still be around.
But by afternoon I’d be gone.
That was the plan at least.
“Now, y’all had better get a move on before the Mominator comes up here and rips us all a new one.”
Gracie giggled because she knew that even though Mama yelled at times, she’d never rip anything. She’d throw herself down the stairs first. “Remember what I said, you two. I love you both.” I pressed my palm to the place where my broken heart laid. “With every broken piece.”
Raising her free hand in the air, Gracie blew me a kiss. “Uv you.”
Lucca rolled his eyes. “Girls.”
“Hey!” Gracie hollered, ripping her hand away from his. “Hush!”
At that, more shouts came from downstairs. “I don’t hear water running! You two have exactly three seconds. One, two—”
“Bye, Ashley!” Grabbing Gracie’s hand once more, Lucca took off, dragging her with him.
Despite the heart-wrenching agony exploded through every inch of my body, I smiled as I watched them go. But the moment they disappeared through the door, everything started to collapse around me.
My chest, my stomach, my head.
They all hurt.
So bad.
But knowing I still had two phone calls to make, I picked up Ellington’s phone and slipped it between my mattress and box spring, the same place I always kept it and stood. Then, grabbing my own cell off my nightstand, I plopped down on my bed.
Hands shaking, I stared down at the screen, watching as the illuminated numbers change with the time. “This is the right thing to do,” I whispered, clutching it tightly. “It always has been.”
Swallowing down my grief, I quickly scrolled through my contacts and dialed the first number. Lifting it to my ear, I waited for the person on the other end to answer.
It took exactly four rings.
“Hello?”
I dropped my head forward, the pain becoming nearly unbearable. “Heidi...” I paused, my grief choking me. “Are you okay?”
“I’m okay,” she replied. “Are you?”
Deciding it was better to tell her the truth than a lie, I shook my head. “No... because I have to let him go.”
“What?” she asked, sounding panicked. “What do you mean you have to let Chase go?”
I’d only said him...
Yet she’d known.
“One day he’s going to find out,” I whispered, my biggest fear rising to the surface. “And when he does, I can’t be here.”
“Ashley—”
“I’m going to break his heart,” I continued, interrupting her. “And he’s going to hate me because abandoning him is the one thing I swore I’d never do. But I’d rather him hate me for walking away, than look at me with disgust when he finally realizes exactly who, and what, I am.” Heidi said nothing, so I kept talking. “I’m not what he thinks I am. I’m not... good.”
“You have gotta be shitting me,” she fussed, sounding just like my Mama. “Ashley Moretti, you are one of the best damn people I’ve ever met. You may not realize it, though I don’t know how that’s even possible, but you are—”
“—a whore,” I interjected, harshly.
“You are not a whore.”
“Yes, I am. You know it, I know it, and most everyone in the entire town knows it. It’s only a matter of time before Chase finds out. After today, I’m sure he’ll start digging—if he isn’t already—and when he does, he’s going to find enough dirt to bury every feeling he’s ever had for me.”
“No... I won’t let you throw away one of the best things that has ever happened to you because of fear that someone else instilled in your head. Especially when that someone is a child-abusing scumbag who I’d like to stab in the eye with an icepick!”
She pulled in a breath.
“You are not what was done to you as a child, nor are you what was done to you as a teenager. Those things that happened to you, as horrible as they were, do not define you, and what those people forced you to do isn’t your fault either. You were a victim, Ashley. And now you’re a survivor.�
��
She didn’t understand!
Her words were beautiful.
But my reality wasn’t.
“I can’t do this,” I said, feeling myself begin to break as panic crested and crashed inside me. “I can’t keep pretending to be something I’m not, and I can’t live in a place where people hang my darkest secrets over my head, like a guillotine poised to strike.”
Losing every ounce of control I still possessed, which admittedly wasn’t much, I picked up a glass off my nightstand and slung it across the room, watching as it shattered into dozens of little pieces. “I’m not what he needs,” I said, between sobs that were now breaking loose, one after the other. “And I’m not what you need either.”
“You are not leaving me! Ashley,” she cried, her voice cracking. “You can’t go. Please just let me come get you. I’m on the way to the station, but I can turn around. Are you still at home? Please talk to me...”
Legs buckling, I collapsed, my knees hitting the ground. Covering my mouth with my hand to muffle my screams, I wailed into my palm as every ounce of pain and anguish that I felt poured out of me in an endless stream.
“Ashley, I’m begging you, say something.”
I dropped my hand, fisting it on the carpet beneath me. “I’m so sorry,” I whispered, a combination of snot and saliva sliding down my face.
“Dimples, you can’t—”
Heidi’s voice disappeared as a horn sounded through the phone, followed by a blood-curdling scream, one which I knew belonged to her.
“Heidi!” I yelled, my heart leaping high into my throat.
Her only answer came in the form of more screams. In the background, the sound of squealing tires and a second horn came.
Then, impact.
“Heidi!”
More screaming; more impacts.
Boom!
Boom!
Boom!
Boom!
Boom!
“Bug, please!” I continued to bellow, my screams mixing with the sounds of metal groaning and glass exploding.
One final crash came.
Followed by nothing but an eerie silence.
Mouth gaping, I dropped my phone to the floor and jumped to my feet. Staring down at the screen as if it were a snake about to strike, I slowly crept past it and to my bedroom door. Then, snapping out the fog that surrounded me, I took off down the hall.
“Mama!” I wailed. “Help me!”
She came flying up the stairs just as I reached them. “Ashley, honey, what—”
Grabbing her by the arms, I began to shake her. “Heidi’s hurt!” I cried, my face mere inches from hers. Waving my hand toward my bedroom, where my phone remained. “Help her, please!”
Wide-eyed, she wrapped her hand around my jaw, holding my face tight. “Where?” she asked, her voice calm and steady, whereas mine was the exact opposite. “Ashley, answer me! Where?”
My chest rose and fell as I fought to get the words out.
Talk!
Don’t let her die like Carmen and Jade!
“S-she,” I stuttered, the boa constrictor wrapped around my throat, tightening its hold. “On the way to the s-station. She w-wrecked. I c-can’t—”
She released my hand and turned before bolting down the stairs. “I’m getting help! Stay here!” Reaching the first floor, she bolted toward the kitchen, disappearing from my view.
Alone in the silence, I broke.
Collapsing once more, I hit the floor, hard, and bent forward, pressing my forehead to the carpet. Hands clenched, I slammed them against the floor as I began to scream, as loud and as long as I could.
Over and over.
“Oh God,” I hollered, the pain shattering me like the glass I threw at my bedroom wall. “What did I do?” A complete mess, I sat up, clasped my hands, lacing my fingers together, and looked up. “Please,” I begged the heavens above. “Don’t take her from me. Not this time,” I cried, rocking back and forth. “If you need someone”—extending my arms, I slowly climbed to my feet—“then take me. Please... just take me.”
It was a cry that went unheard.
Just like all of the ones which came before it.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Ashley
It was a Friday morning.
Consumed with grief, anguish, and the inability to fix anything I’d broken, I sat next to Heidi’s hospital bed, holding her hand. With Ty sleeping in a chair opposite me, the room was silent except for the steady beep of the machine that monitored every beat of her fragile heart.
With only my demons to keep me company, concentrating on the steady cadence that pulsed through the surrounding air kept me grounded because it was proof that she was still alive.
And fighting.
Eight harrowing days had passed since her accident, and not once had she woken up. Riddled with injuries, including a fractured skull, serious spinal injury and extensive cerebral edema, the doctors weren’t sure she’d ever open her eyes again.
It was an outcome that I feared.
And one that would be all my fault.
Just like everything else.
Taking her limp hand in mine, I laced our fingers together, careful not to touch the IV port protruding from her bruised skin. “Bug,” I said, looking at my best friend and the girl I loved like a sister. “You’ve been sleeping long enough, sweet girl. I need you to wake up now.”
Silence met my ears as I briefly glanced at Ty.
Like everyone else, he was a mess.
Barely holding it together, he didn’t eat, hardly slept, and I was reasonably certain he hadn’t left the hospital once in the past week. If it hadn’t been for Maddie and my Mama forcing him to shower and change clothes, I doubt he would’ve even done that.
Not that I blamed him.
The man loved Heidi with his entire heart, and not knowing whether she would ever come back to us was killing him, one excruciating second at a time.
Again, every bit of it was my fault.
Well, not all of it.
The person—a man whose blood alcohol level was over three times the legal limit, that had crossed the yellow line, hitting Heidi head-on—was responsible too.
I hated him like no other.
Leaving nothing but torment and scars—both emotionally and physically—in his wake, he’d been nothing short of evil. A man who’d spent his entire life terrorizing others, feasting on their pain, and reveling in the misery he caused, he was a monster.
And his name was Clyde Jacobs.
May he rot in the fiery pits of Hell.
Pronounced dead at the scene of the accident, he no longer served as a threat to Ty, to Chase, nor to me, but in one final act of wickedness, he may have succeeded in stealing one of the most beautiful souls I’d ever encountered, from all of us.
It wasn’t fair.
Not at all.
Like Carmen and Jade, Heidi had never done anything to anyone. She didn’t deserve the crap situation she’d been handed, one which I’d helped personally deliver to her.
If I hadn’t called her, and if I hadn’t told her that I was leaving, maybe she would have been paying better attention, and maybe—just maybe—she wouldn’t be laying in the hospital right then, her body both broken and battered.
Because of my weakness and inability to cope with the life I’d been handed, one of the people I loved with every beat of my scarred heart was fighting for her life, a life which hung in the balance, perilously close to slipping away.
It was killing me.
Though my hands had been sullied with blood ever since I watched Carmen and Jade be murdered before my eyes, the stain continued to grow, tarnishing my tainted soul even further.
Part of me doubted it would ever stop.
Not unless I made it.
Which was something I’d fight to do.
“Heidi, please,” I whispered, my hand shaking against hers. “Open your eyes for me.” When no response came, not even the slightest bit of an eye flutte
r, the pain in my chest grew, branching out and spreading like wildfire. Growing more desperate, I squeezed her hand the slightest bit. “I promise I’m not going to leave anymore”—throat tightening, I swallowed—“and I swear I’m going to do my best to get better.”
Still nothing.
“But I need your help because I can’t do this without you.” A single tear slipped down my cheek as I trailed my fingers up her inner arm. “Especially not when I’m still going to lose him.” I pulled in a shuddering breath. “I told you I’m not going to run anymore,” I continued. “And I’m not. But even with Clyde dead, I can’t change who I am, nor what I was.” My eyes slid closed on their own accord as a hint of the agony to come stirred in my belly. “It’s time for me to let him go”—another breath—“even if I don’t want to.”
Continued silence.
Straddling the precipice of losing my mind, I knew I needed to go. Me breaking down in that room, with my best friend busy fighting for her life, wasn’t the right thing to do. Even someone as screwed up as me realized that.
Standing, I gave Bug’s hand one last squeeze before leaning over her bed and pressing my lips to her pale cheek. “I love you, Heidi. With every broken piece of me,” I whispered as my heart completely shattered. “I’ll be back tomorrow, first thing, and I expect to see your pretty blues the moment I walk through the door. If not, I may just shove my foot up your behind.” A shaky smile crossed my face, but it didn’t last long before vanishing completely. “Please wake up.” The tears falling down my face and clogging my throat began to grow, their numbers increasing ten-fold. “It’s selfish, I know that but I’ve lost enough already—with more to come—and I can’t lose my best friend too.”
I kissed her one last time.
Then, with my heart in pieces, I left.
* * *
My soul is dying...
The heart-wrenching thought echoed through my head as I sat on the living room floor, my shaking arms wrapped around my torso. Rays of sunshine kissed my skin through the large bay window to my right, but it did little to heat my frame. The coldness that possessed me, oozing from the marrow of my bones, was too strong.
I’d never be warm again.
Every Kiss You Steal: A Redeeming Love Novel (Book 7) Page 26
