Murder_ A Sinful Secrets Romance - Ella James Page 0,165

to get to my back. I couldn’t move my body. Too doped up and…I don’t know.” His hand goes to his head. “Maybe the swelling. I don’t remember it that well. I just remember, they would turn me on my side and…touch me. Just my head…and back. I had a tube in my nose…”

“G-tube. I had one of those too.”

He nods. His hand covers my cheek.

“They would talk about me like I wasn’t there. Like they would say, ‘You’ve got those pretty eyes,’ and, to each other, ‘It’s sad that he’s blind in that eye. Wonder how much he’ll recover’ and ‘why is no one here.’ One of them said once, ‘Maybe he’s an asshole.’” He shakes his head. “They were the only people touching me. The IVs.” I see him struggle to swallow. “They had to change the catheter. All this shit that made me think about…my mom dying. I was always dizzy.”

“When I came to more, and thought about Breck…” Tears fill his eyes. My heart feels shredded. “I could talk, but I didn’t care enough. They kept testing my hand.” He draws into to himself, shaking his head.

“You were by yourself. You probably needed someone with you. Kellan couldn’t come, I guess?”

“He’d had his relapse. But he wasn’t talking to me. Just a little bit. Because…of Lyon,” he says with difficulty.

“What about your dad?”

He laughs, a small, dry kind of sound. “Tight OR schedule.” The words are bitter. I don’t even think he tries to hide it.

I think of lying in my own bed, wishing to be held. Crying underneath my covers for Elvie, who’d left me.

“I think I might write the dreams down.” He hugs me, and in a quiet voice, says, “Tell me it was different for you, Piglet.”

“I had parents there. My brother. Jamie. I talked right away, even though I cried all day too. But my boyfriend never came. He went on a study abroad program. Just couldn’t handle it I guess.”

Barrett’s eyes are hard. “I’m glad you’re not with that asshole, but him leaving like that? It makes me want to kill him.”

“It was for the best. He was all about himself, Elvie was. With parents like his, he’d been raised to think he was the second coming, there to rapture country music fans. I can tell he still thinks that. I’ve watched an interview or two.”

“I don’t care. I still want to hurt that bastard.”

“It was hard, him leaving me like that. I think his parents were embarrassed. Felt bad.”

“I hope they did.”

“Want to lay down here on the floor and go to sleep?”

“I’ll try getting up.”

We go to sleep with my head on Bear’s chest, his arms around me.

“I won’t leave you.” That sweet promise is the last thing I hear before I drift off.

The next night, I find Barrett in the bathroom rug with a little yellow reporter’s notepad on his lap.

He looks beautiful in the dim lamplight. His eyes are heavy and his face is drawn, but something about the way he’s sprawled out, legs out, one knee raised, his bare, broad back against my wall, makes him look fierce.

I step partially in the small room. “Hey, you.”

His face is tight.

“Just checking on you. I can go now.”

“No.”

He holds his hand out, and I go sit by him. I lean my head against his bicep…take his hand when he offers it. With no prompting, he passes me the notebook.

I arch a brow, and he nods once, and then looks down at his lap.

I’M DRIVING AND THERE’S MOONLIGHT, EVERYTHING IS COATED IN A WHITE SHEEN. I’M CRYING AND AN ANGEL FALLS. THE BLOOD IS EVERYWHERE. I CALL FOR BRECK. HE COMES AND HELPS ME. HE TAKES ME AWAY IN ANOTHER CAR. I GET SICK.

There’s a few blank lines and then:

EDIT—

I’M DRIVING. I HIT A SNOW BANK. EXCEPT IT ISN’T SNOW. IT’S SAND. THE SAND SCATTERS EVERYWHERE. I KEEP DRIVING. BRECK AND I LISTEN TO THE RADIO.

I hand it back to him and lean my head against his arm again.

“That looks good. That’s how I did it, too.”

He moves so that his arm is behind me.

“Sean wants me to bring it every time.”

“When you talk about it over and over, it will become boring.”

He smirks, but it’s a sad smirk, like he can’t believe that’s true.

“I’ve never understood time,” he says in a low voice. His eyes hold mine. “I saw a quote once—Einstein, maybe?—that said time exists so everything doesn’t happen all at once. I wish I was there