When Stars Collide (Light in the Dark #2) - Micalea Smeltzer Page 0,95
side and take her hand, bending to kiss her forehead, each of her cheeks, and finally her lips.
“Are you okay?” I ask, brushing her hair off her forehead so I can see her better.
“They made me wear the stupid gown.” She pouts.
Despite my worry, I laugh. “That’s the first thing you have to say?”
“It’s really ugly,” she reasons. “And itchy.”
I chuckle. “I don’t care about the gown, I care about you, what did the doctor say? Have you seen one yet? Do I need to get one?” I ramble.
She presses her hand over my mouth, shutting me up.
“They’ve looked me over thoroughly, I promise.” She forces a smile. “I have a minor concussion from the fall, and they said he fractured a bone in my cheek when he slapped me. Didn’t even know that was possible,” she mutters the last part.
Anger simmers beneath my skin. “How do they fix a bone in your face?”
“They don’t,” she sighs. “It has to heal on its own. They said they’d give me pain medicine and something for the swelling.” She shrugs and her hand flexes around mine.
“I should’ve been there,” I whisper.
“You were there,” she counters.
I shake my head. “Too late to protect you, though.”
“You’re not Superman, despite what you seem to think, and from where I’m sitting, I’m okay. Beaten and bruised, sure, but I’m alive and that’s what matters. You risked your life by coming into the house. You didn’t know what was happening and you could’ve been hurt too.” She moves her hand up my chest, brushing her fingers over my cheek. “You’re still my hero, though. You always have been, and you always will be.”
I close my eyes and grab her fingers that linger by my cheek and bring them to my lips, kissing each of her fingers.
“All of this is so crazy,” I tell her. “I feel like none of it would have happened if we hadn’t gotten married. You wouldn’t be lying right here, right now, hurt.”
She shakes her head. “That might be true, but I don’t regret it.”
“You don’t?”
“No.” She smiles. “Sure, things didn’t go perfectly, but life never is perfect. Don’t get me wrong, I was completely against this whole marriage thing, but not anymore. Having you as my husband isn’t so bad. In fact, it’s pretty great. You bring me McFlurrys. What’s not to love?”
I laugh heartily. “McFlurrys, huh? That’s all you love me for?”
“I love you for a million reasons, that’s just one.”
I grin. “Does this mean you’ll marry me for real? In front of all our friends and family?”
She smiles back, her eyes shining with happiness and not tears this time. “Yeah, I’m game for that.”
I don’t know what the future holds for us, and knowing us, the road is bound to be rocky, but with my partner in crime by my side, something tells me it’s going to be the best time of my life.
One Month Later
Something I’ve learned in the last four months is how quickly things can change. At the start of the summer, I believed it would be like any other summer. Boring and over all too soon.
Well, it certainly did end too soon, but it was anything but boring.
I thought my accidental Vegas marriage would be the craziest thing to happen. Little did I know that it would be the catalyst for much bigger things, like the implosion of my parent’s marriage, and finally bringing justice to our family.
The break-in and attempted murder—since it turns out my dad was the one with the gun and my mom managed to wrestle it away from him after he grazed her with a bullet—ended up on almost every news station. It was weird seeing us on TV for something like that and the attention has been too much to bear at times, but it’s finally dying down, at least for most of us. Not Cade, though. After the news that broke earlier in the summer, coupled with this, he’s been roped into interview after interview to speak about the abuse. He doesn’t like it, and he could say no, but he knows that his voice could help someone else out there and so he’s finally willing to talk about it. He won’t admit it, but I think it’s helping him heal to put it out there.
Now that all the darkness is behind us, I can finally focus on the good in my life.
Like, for starters, I finally figured out what I want to do with my life.