him,” Luna said. “That man has done nothing but make your life hell for more than a decade. You lost everything because of him and you’ve had to claw your way back despite all the debt and stuff he left you with.”
I swallowed hard. “Yeah, but is that really a good enough excuse for asking Chris to let him die?”
“You didn’t ask him that,” Cyrus said. “You thought it and it slipped out. It doesn’t even really matter because he didn’t do it.”
“He didn’t, but now I think I might be pissed off with him about it. If I think about all the grief we could’ve been spared if he’d just not done anything…”
I couldn’t say any of the words, but with Cyrus and Luna, I didn’t need to. They knew what I meant anyway.
“Hey, listen to me,” Luna said. “You’re allowed to be peeved with him. We get peeved at the people closest to us even when it doesn’t make any sense. They love us, and therefore, they have to live with the brunt of our emotions.”
“I don’t know if he’ll see it that way.” My teeth sank into my lower lip. “I also don’t know if I can see it that way. Not right now anyway.”
“If he doesn’t see it that way, he’s not the right guy for you,” Cyrus said. “Trust me on that one. He knows what you’ve been through with Craig, right?”
“Right.”
“Then he better fucking understand, and if he doesn’t, fuck him. Metaphorically, of course.” He cleared his throat. “Sorry. Excuse all those fucks and replace them with fricks.”
“Got it.” An unexpected smile spread on my face. It was so sweet when he was trying to pacify Luna by taking back all the cuss words that so often came out of him when he wasn’t even thinking. “So you don’t think he’ll worry that I have murderous tendencies?”
“You do have murderous tendencies.” Luna’s voice was gentler now. “But only when it comes to the safety and wellbeing of your daughter. You’re one fierce mama bear, but every child deserves a mother who’d be willing to kill for them. Maybe not literally, but you know what I mean.”
“Especially when the father is an asshole who wouldn’t lift a finger to help,” Cyrus chimed in. “Also, she might say you shouldn’t be willing to kill for your child, but I would be. I’m ninety-nine percent sure anyway. It’s too early to tell for that other one percent.”
“Too early?” My eyebrows shot up and my own troubles leaped into the backseat. “Does that mean—”
“We found out this morning,” Luna said. “We’re just on the way to the doctor. It should be around six weeks. That’s what we think anyway.”
While I squealed like a lunatic, sitting on a bus bench in the middle of the city, I realized I’d been wrong earlier. There were people who cared when your life had been irrevocably changed. All you had to do was reach out to them and hope they could help you find the silver lining.
Luna’s pregnancy might not change my circumstances directly, but it did give me hope. New things were always happening. New relationships were formed, tested, and sometimes, if you were lucky, they survived.
It’d happened for Cyrus and Luna. Now if I could only figure out how to get past my own mental baggage and roadblocks, maybe it could happen for me.
Chapter 33
CHRIS
“Did they let you know that he made it through the surgery yesterday?” Hunter asked as we were setting up for our first patient of the day.
I nodded. “I can’t say I’m surprised. Parasites don’t die that easily.”
“Not unless you let them.” He gave me a meaningful look. “That was a hell of a thing you did.”
My heart did the strange clenching thing it had done every time I thought about what it would’ve meant to April if Craig wasn’t around anymore. “I know.”
My friend was silent for a minute while he unpacked a new tricycle I’d ordered for one of our much younger patients. We needed to work on his balance and his birthday was coming up. I’d been looking forward to the look on his face when I gave him this gift for weeks. Now that the day was finally here, I wasn’t feeling very festive.
The way April had looked at me after I’d told her I’d saved Craig’s life did not bode well for any future between us. Ultimately though, I’d done what I had to do. I desperately wanted her and Adi