Kiss To Forget (Blairwood University #2) - Anna B. Doe Page 0,85
calm her a little.
We stay on the side, letting the nurses work. They hook Mom to more machines, the insistent beep-beep-beep measuring her heart rate filling the room. I hate and love that sound with equal ferocity. It’s a sign that she’s still alive, her heart still beating, but at the same time it’s counting down slowly until her heart gives up completely on us.
Finally, the nurses give us the go-ahead and leave. Not waiting a second, I move closer to the bed, sitting on the very edge and taking Mom’s hand in mine. At some point, they hooked her to an IV. I trace the prominent veins on her hands before covering her cold one with mine. It swallows hers completely. The hand that once held mine as she introduced me to the world around me, the hand that soothed my pains and fears, the hand that led me to my first day of school, my first practice, gave me my first football, brushed away my tears, has now come to this.
I’m not sure how long I sit there just holding her hand.
“You should get something to eat,” Yasmin says from behind me, her hands landing on my shoulders and giving them a firm squeeze.
“Not hungry.”
“She wouldn’t want this for you, Nixon.”
“She isn’t awake to say so, now is she?” I snap at her.
I expect her to back off, but she doesn’t even flinch. Closing my eyes, I force myself to take a deep breath and count to ten; only when the tension in my shoulders eases a little do I look at her. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have yelled at you.”
“It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not.”
Yasmin doesn’t deserve my anger, not when she did her best to make things easier for me. For all of us. She shouldn’t let me slide just so she doesn’t upset me.
“It’s not,” she agrees. “You can make it up to me by going to the kitchen and getting some coffee and pancakes into your grumpy ass.”
“Yasmin…”
She crosses her arms over her chest and gives me a hard, you-don’t-want-to-mess-with-me look. “I’ll stay with her while you eat. You don’t want to be an asshole when she wakes up, now do you?”
When she puts it like that, what can I say?
Chapter Twenty-Nine
YASMIN
True to my word, I take Nixon’s place, taking one of his mother’s hands between mine as I watch her chest rise and fall at a slow but steady pace.
Although still pale and thin, sleeping like this she looks peaceful, almost… normal.
“I’m afraid that losing you will break him,” I confess softly, the empty room my only companion. Mindlessly, I trace the lines on her hands with the tip of my finger.
I’ve never seen somebody care so much as Nixon does for his mother and sister. But when you lose an integral part of yourself, you learn how to love the ones that stayed fiercely. I know that better than most people. And Nixon, Nixon loves more fiercely than most.
“H-he…” I lift my head when I hear a soft wheeze. Her voice is so low I have to strain to hear her.
“Helen?”
Her eyelids flutter a few times before she finally manages to pry her eyes open. It’s as if they’re too heavy for her to lift them on her own.
“Are you okay? Do you need me to call somebody? A nurse? Nixon?” I ask, trying to keep my voice calm and steady. She doesn’t need me to panic the fuck out, although that’s exactly what I want to do.
Her fingers twitch between my palms. “F-fine.”
“Should I call somebody?” I look at the door, hoping that somebody, anybody really, will come here and tell me what to do.
“Y-Yas…”
Hearing my name draws my attention back to the woman lying in bed. “T-take c-care…” A coughing fit interrupts her already stuttering words. I lean closer, soothing my hand over her back, pretending I know what the hell I’m doing when in reality I don’t know shit.
“Helen, I really think we should call the nur—”
Her hand grips mine with more force than I thought she had. “N-Nixon… p-please… c-care… N-Nix…”
My heart squeezes painfully as her stuttered words finally register in my mind.
“I-I n-need…”
I return her squeeze with one of my own, sniffling so I prevent the tears from spilling. Even on her deathbed, she still puts her children first.
The sudden urge to call my mom, see her, hear her voice, is overwhelming.
“I’ll try my best,” I say weakly, giving her the best promise I can muster.