A Time for Us - By Amy Knupp Page 0,58

hadn’t realized how much he’d missed being this close to another human being.

And it felt twice as good to be needed. Not that he wished whatever Rachel was going through right now on her or anyone, but focusing on what she needed gave him purpose like he hadn’t had in months. It dragged him out of his own problems. Until this moment, he hadn’t realized how wrapped up in them he still was, even after all this time.

When Rachel seemed to regain control of her breathing, he squeezed her closer and kissed her forehead. “Tell me what happened,” he said in a gentle voice. He could guess a lot of it but didn’t want to jump to the wrong conclusions.

Rachel slowly, stutteringly told him how she’d been trying to keep it together ever since the asthma patient and how coming home to an empty house had magnified everything that she was trying to fight off—the girl’s death, the similarities to Noelle...

“She even kind of looked like her,” Rachel said in a wrung-out voice. “A little bit. Blond hair. Skinny. I bet she had a pretty smile.”

Her breath hitched again and she ducked her head deeper into Cale’s chest. He rubbed her neck. Ran his fingers through her damp hair.

“You know there was no hope for her last night, right?” he asked.

Rachel nodded, her eyes closed tightly. “Just like Noelle...”

“She was too far gone when we got to her.” Cale hated those cases, but over the years, he’d gotten better at accepting them. Generally speaking. Last night’s was tougher.

“After I got out of the shower, it hit me that all the stuff I was bottling up inside since last night was not based on reality,” Rachel said. “I was mixing up Noelle and that girl in my head.”

“Believe me, I had some of the same thoughts.”

“You did?”

He nodded, the sadness intensifying again. “Hard not to.”

“When I realized they were different...” She broke off and shook her head. “This must all sound crazy. When I remembered that Noelle hadn’t just died and I didn’t have a fresh loss to try to handle, I had this overwhelming relief. So I thought I could handle...this.” She flung a hand blindly toward the rest of the room.

“Your first time in?”

As she nodded, she began silently sobbing again, her shoulders heaving. Seconds later, her sobs weren’t silent; they were huge, heartbreaking sounds of grief, as if the levee had busted and there was nothing holding back months’ worth of pain.

Cale felt her bone-deep sadness on every level, had lived it and breathed it for so many months. Even though his grief had lessened with time, as he’d worked through it, now it came back, fresh and raw. He let the moisture in the corners of his eyes gather, refusing to take his hands away from Rachel.

He had no idea how much later it was when her sobs became fewer and further between. Quieter. Her breaths evened out again, though this time, she hadn’t hyperventilated. Cale rubbed light circles on her back.

“S-s-sorry,” she said shakily. “I didn’t mean to cry all over you.”

“Maybe you needed to. How long has it been since you let go like that?”

Rachel pulled a corner of the sheet from between them and wiped her swollen eyes with it. She shook her head.

“No?” he asked, confused.

As she studied the sheet intently, she shook her head again, and he saw her lower lip tremble before she admitted, “I haven’t. Cried. Not since getting the awful news that night...”

Oh, shit. “At all? Or do you mean you just haven’t cried so much?”

“Not at all.” And the tears started again. “It hurts...too much....”

“I know,” he whispered, aching for her. “It’s okay, baby, just get it out. Let it come out. I get it. I understand.”

All of a sudden, Rachel stiffened and rolled away from him. She sat up on the edge of the bed with her back to him.

“Rach? What happened? Come back here.”

He put his hand on her slender waist, but she jumped off the bed, shaking her head and putting distance between them.

“Oh, gaaaawd,” she said, as if she had some new unbearable physical pain. “Nooo. You don’t understand at all.”

He frowned and sat up. “There’s a little difference between being her boyfriend and being her twin, I’m sure. But the sense of loss is similar.”

She took a throw pillow from the other bed and hugged it to her chest desperately. If it had been alive, she would have squeezed the life out of