Текст книги "Hothouse Flower"
Автор книги: Becca Ritchie
Соавторы: Krista Ritchie
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Текущая страница: 26 (всего у книги 29 страниц)
< 59 >
RYKE MEADOWS
They haven’t booked me yet. I sit alone in a holding cell, my nerves jumping every time a cop walks by, expecting them to usher me out for a mug shot and fingerprints.
Statutory rape.
Rape.
It’s something that makes me physically ill. I’d rather be falsely convicted of murder. My throat burns, and I rest the back of my head against the cement wall, silent and trying to be numb. I don’t know what happens from here. I don’t know how much evidence Samantha could try to use against me. What witnesses can she pay to lie for her? I’ll be tried criminally. It’s not like I can settle this fucking case by paying someone off. I’m looking at fucking jail time.
I remember all the cameras flashing as I climbed out of the cop car, all the questions yelled at me.
“Ryke?! Are you innocent?!”
“Ryke?! Are you guilty?!”
“What kind of evidence do they have against you?!”
And then I entered the police station, cuffed. I fucking hate that ‘rape’ is going to be beside my face on headlines of magazines. Nausea barrels through me, but I already puked once. I shut my eyes and take a deep fucking breath.
Everything will be fine, my friend.
Not even Connor’s magic fucking words can unknot the ball of pain inside my chest.
“Ryke Meadows?”
My eyes open. An officer stops by my cell, cutting into my thoughts. My stomach still flips. I don’t move off the bench, but he unhooks a set of keys on his belt and sticks one into the lock. They’ve come to officially book me.
He swings the cell door open. I’m about to stand, but he says, “There’s someone here to see you.”
I stay fixed to the bench, my limbs solidifying into stone as soon as the person saunters down the hallway, buttoning his suit jacket. My father stands there.
My fucking father.
With a hard gaze like mine.
With a severe jaw and dark brown hair and my fucking eyes.
I look more like him than my brother. But Lo would say it’s better to fucking look like Jonathan than to be him, to act like him, which Lo wades into on occasion.
But if Lo was here, he’d want me to make nice. He’d want me to bury the resentment. Back in Utah, he asked if I could do that. I told him the truth. I don’t know. A part of me wants to try. The other part just wants to push Jonathan so fucking far away.
One side is stronger.
“You can close the fucking door,” I tell the officer.
My father cocks his head. “Don’t be a little shit. You’re sitting in a cell right now.”
“I never asked you to fucking be here,” I retort.
“But I’m here, Ryke. And I’m not going anywhere. Whether you want me to or not, you don’t have much of a choice.” And then my dad steps into the jail cell. “Can you give us a few minutes?” my dad asks the officer.
“I’ll have to lock you in.”
I expect my father to pull out a wad of cash, to threaten or bribe, but instead he just nods and says, “That’s fine.”
I frown, watching as the cop shuts me in a cell with my father, and my dad doesn’t balk, not fucking ashamed to be here. He just stands opposite me, hands in his black slacks.
After the loud bang of the door shutting, the cop disappears down the dark hall.
Why are you fucking here? I should ask him. But I’m back at that country club, quiet, seventeen and hateful, no matter how much I just want to let it all go.
“I have my team of lawyers sorting through this mess,” he says. “It’s being taken care of. You should be out of here in fifteen minutes.”
I open my mouth to tell him that I don’t want his help, but he cuts me off.
“You are my son. I don’t know how many times I have to fucking remind you of that—it’s like Sara fucking burned my name out of your head.”
My jaw locks tight. I don’t want to reignite all of those issues. I don’t want to hear him call her a bitch or shout about how she’s brainwashed me. I just want to sit here in fucking peace and deal with the charges myself.
“Ryke,” he says my name like it means something to him. “What do you want from me?” He extends his arms, his palms flat like he’s opening himself to me, like he’s trying so fucking hard. “Or am I just swinging at an invisible ball, here? That’s it, right? There’s nothing I can fucking do. You’ve made up your mind that you don’t want to have a father anymore.”
Something snaps inside of me. “Stop acting like this is your noble way of getting your son back,” I growl, rising to my feet in hot anger. I point at him. “This has never been about just wanting me in your life.”
He frowns with clear confusion, not contrived. “Then what has it been about? Please, fucking tell me.”
My stomach hurts. I don’t want to have this conversation. I don’t even want to look at him. “Just get out of my fucking life!” I run a hand through my hair, pulling at the strands. “Fucking leave!”
He doesn’t even flinch. “You’re angry at me. I understand that.”
“Oh, do you?!” I just keep shaking my head, my neck aching. “You shit on me for years. You shit on Lo. And now you want to be my father? How fucking convenient. My mom blows your cover, the world knows my fucking name and my relations to you, and now, now you want to say, that’s my son, right there. Look at him. He’s mine.” I point. “Fuck you!”
“I’ve always wanted to be a father to you—”
“LIAR!” I scream at the top of my lungs, my throat burning. “You fucking liar! If you wanted me as a son, then why the fuck did you choose to protect yourself over me?! You chose to hide me so you could save your fucking reputation! So tell me, Dad, how the fuck am I supposed to feel anything but hatred towards you?”
He looks away, and that empowers me.
“And now,” I continue, opening my arms. “You’ll do anything to have me back in your good graces. You want me to come forward to the media, to tell them how you could never molest my little brother. How that evil deed isn’t in your fucking nature.” I’m boiling alive, my blood coursing through my fucking veins. “Ten years later, Dad, and you want me to protect you again. That’s all I am to you. Someone you can use when it becomes fucking necessary.”
He just watches with a hard gaze, not recoiling, but there’s something deep in his eyes, something foreign. Something sad.
I take a step towards him, pointing at my chest. “You can’t fucking use me anymore. I won’t be the son by your side, making you look like a fucking hero when you’re the worst fucking villain.” I breathe hard, trying to catch the air in my lungs.
I don’t remove my searing glare off of him.
“Are you done?” he asks roughly. He takes my silence as an answer. “Maybe you should remember, Ryke, but I never once asked you to say anything about me to the media. That’s never what this has been about, and if you continue to think that, then it’s your own delusion guiding you to that goddamn place. Not me.” He shifts on his feet, but he doesn’t break my gaze. “I can live with these allegations. What I can’t live with is losing you, losing Loren. I would die protecting the two of you, and if you can’t see that then I don’t know what more I can do to show you.”
He doesn’t say I’m sorry for putting you through hell. I’m sorry for kicking you aside and yelling at your brother like he was a piece of shit loser day in and day out. “Why can’t you just fucking apologize?” I ask. “Why can’t you admit that you fucked up?”
“Because I didn’t,” he tells me, burning a hole through my chest. “I made a tough decision back then, and if I was put in the same position, I’d make it again. If I didn’t lie about you, Ryke, then the alternative would be to admit to something that would send me to the place you’re standing in right now.” He motions to the cell. “And then where would Loren be?”
My stomach drops as I think of my brother, conceived from statutory rape. My father would have gone to jail and my brother…born from a mom who didn’t want him. Would he have landed in foster care? Or would Jonathan have given him to Greg Calloway to raise? Were they even fucking friends back then?
“I love you,” he tells me. “I’ve always loved you. Whether you can believe it or not is up to you. I’m not here under false pretenses. I don’t want your fucking statement to the media. I don’t want your forgiveness. I just want you in my life. I want my son. If that means having to listen to your insults every goddamn dinner we have, fine. But I’d rather have that than nothing at all.” He spreads his arms wide. “Your decision, Ryke.”
I run my hand through my hair. I want to believe him. In the core of my soul, I want this all to end, and I want the fucking father that he claims to be. But beneath this unconditionally, fucked up love—there is years and years of pain. How does that ever go away? “How am I supposed to accept you?” I ask, my voice low.
“Ask me anything. I don’t have a problem being honest, even if you don’t like my fucking answers.”
I don’t know why I realize it now of all fucking moments—but I curse just like him, just as frequently, just as badly. What does that mean? He rubbed off on me? He was around enough that he could influence me somehow. That even if he lied about me—he was there, trying to be a part of my life.
I take in my surroundings, the metal toilet, the sink, the bars behind my father, the grimy cement wall behind me. My father is giving me an out. I’ve only ever seen black and white when it comes to my family. But maybe this is too gray—maybe there’s no right and wrong choice. There are just decisions that will hurt my brother and decisions that’ll hurt me.
“Why am I even here?” I ask, needing someone to verify my suspicions.
He scrapes his finger against the pole, irritation pooling through his eyes. “That would be Samantha Calloway’s fault. She apparently emailed her friend mid-flight to call the cops on you. She went a little fucking overboard on her anger.” He looks at me. “Her daughters are all a bit nuts, so you know exactly where they get it from.”
“She called the fucking cops on me,” I retort. “That’s not nuts that’s—”
“It’s nuts,” he rebuts.
“It’s fucked up.”
“That too,” he says. “But what do you expect when you stick your dick around a fifteen-year-old girl when you’re twenty-two.”
I glare. “I didn’t—”
“I know,” he says. “Like Greg, I believe you, son. But Daisy is their youngest daughter, the last to leave. You’re encroaching on Samantha’s fucking territory.” He checks his watch. “Like I said, you’ll be out of here shortly. She has a few fake statements that’ll hold you in here for another ten minutes.”
“They’re going to book me soon.”
He nods. “They’re backed up in there. I’m sure they’ll want to fingerprint you in a half hour.” I do the math easily. He’s saying I’ll be out of here before they can even fucking charge me. He smiles at me, knowing I understand.
“I resisted arrest—”
“I talked to the officer. They’re dropping it.”
I breathe through my nose, my heart beating quickly. I don’t know why all of a sudden I feel so fucking overwhelmed. I realize that I’m thankful that he’s here. And the sad thing—I don’t want to feel that way. I’d rather stay angry. Why do I have to hate all the good parts of a person? My mom—I think she fucking taught me that. Every time I thought about my brother in a good light, she’d crush that vision, she’d focus on the bad, and so I did too.
I can’t do it anymore.
I rub the back of my neck. “What about Lo?” I ask my father, not willing to dodge this topic.
“What about him?”
“You’re fucking terrible to him,” I say in a deep breath. “What you say to him—it makes me sick. You beat him down, and then he returns to you like a wounded dog. I can’t be around you when you treat him like that.” I’d rather Lo not be around him either, but we’ve tried that way, and look where we are now. Lo loves our father, and he’s going to keep going back, even if it kills him.
My dad absentmindedly unclips and clips his Rolex watch on his wrist. “He’s not you, Ryke. He dropped out of college. He can’t even fill a resume. He shit his life away, and if that means I’m a little tougher on him, fine. But I’m not going to fucking watch him continue to throw his potential down the drain.”
“So tell him like a normal human being!” I scream. “Stop saying things like he shit his life away.”
“This isn’t about Loren. This is about you and me,” he refutes, cutting off that topic. As if there’s no room to even discuss it.
Fuck him. “If you love him, like you say you do, you’d support his sobriety and you’d stop tearing him down every chance you get.”
He glares. “If I didn’t motivate him, he wouldn’t be where he is. That’s love. You’ll understand when you have your own children.”
No fucking way will I ever raise my kids like him. Fuck that.
I stare at my father for a long moment. He will never change. He is so fucking rooted in his beliefs. It’s either I accept him like this or do what I’ve been doing—try to forget he even exists.
He opens the door further for me. “Are you ready to put this bullshit behind us, or do you still want to hold onto the fucking past?”
I’m frozen again. Stuck to the middle of the floor. There’s no nasty retort on my tongue. It’s those words that get to me the most.
Do you still want to hold onto the fucking past?
I’m living back there. Where my dad leaves my mom. Where I’m lying for years and years about who I am. Where I feel lost of an identity to call my own.
But I have all of that now. Fuck, I have more than I ever dreamed of.
I have a girl I love.
I have a brother.
I have a mom who loves me, even if she fucks up.
I have a dad who wants to be there for me…I look up at him. Who is here for me.
And I’m Ryke Meadows. I’m a free-solo climber. I’m a celebrity. I’m a fucking sober coach. I have an identity that’s mine. No one took it from me.
I glance over at my dad again, and I want to see the villain, but I think, maybe, all this time the villain was me. For not moving past this, for not realizing that he’s free to make mistakes too. I don’t know if I’m willing to forgive him right now, but he’s not asking for that.
He’s letting me take all the fucking time I need.
I inhale strongly, and I say, “I may never see eye to eye with you.”
He nods. “I’d rather fight with you at every Sunday dinner than never talk to you again.” He shrugs. “That’s the goddamn truth.”
“You love me that much?”
There are fucking tears in his eyes. “More than you can possibly understand, son.”
A pressure bears down on me, and I ask him something that I’ve never fucking asked him in my entire life. I just always thought I knew the answer. Now I’m not so sure. “Would you be willing to stop drinking for Lo and for me?”
After a heavy silence, a single tear rolls down his cheek. I see now that he’s fighting an internal battle probably just as powerful and just as rebellious as the one Lo has, as the one I have.
What he does will change everything.
< 60 >
RYKE MEADOWS
“I still can’t believe it,” my brother says while I drive to our father’s house with Lily and Daisy in the backseat, my Infinity speeding along the roads until I get stopped by another red light. The girls are quiet, both looking out their windows.
“Me either,” I say. “Seems fucking surreal.”
“He threw out thousands and thousands of dollars’ worth of booze.” Lo shakes his head. “He had a rare two-hundred-year-old scotch he was planning on giving me as a wedding present, you know that?”
My eyes flicker to him. “He wanted to give you booze when you’re sober?” Lo has visited our dad almost every day since he started this long journey. It’s been one week since his proclamation in the jail cell, and he hasn’t backed out.
In my father’s words, He’s no fucking pussy.
“No, he told me that he was planning to drink it at my wedding himself. He’d have an extra glass for me.” Lo stares off for a second and then he smiles. “We ended up watering the plants with the scotch.” He laughs and says, “You know that son of a bitch has three sober coaches to keep him in line?”
I hear the happiness in my brother’s voice, and it lifts me to a new place. I’m proud of my father, for finally going to this length for us. It’s not an easy decision. It’s not an easy road. It’s one that Lo knows better than me, and he can say, firsthand, how much pain there is in giving up a crutch rather than relying on it.
But we’re both going to be here for him.
“I expected a fucking army,” I tell Lo. “If he’s not going to rehab, he’ll bring rehab to him.” I glance in the rearview at Daisy, who is abnormally still on her seat. Her faraway gaze clenches my stomach. She’s been ignoring her mom after I got arrested. It’s not something I ever wanted for Daisy.
I drive through a gated community right in the suburbs of Philly, and I park in my father’s driveway. I snap off my seatbelt, and both Lily and Daisy climb out of the car and shut the doors before Lo and I get out. I turn to my brother, a gnawing question surfacing while we’re here.
“I meant to ask you something,” I say under my breath.
He removes his gaze off Lily who nervously bites her nails. She’s been more anxious than usual, and I haven’t really talked to my brother about it. But her health is not really my main concern right now. “Yeah?” he asks.
“Does Lily have many conversations alone with Jonathan?”
I’ve asked her this once. When I first met her. She told me that she tries to avoid the Hale household—which I took to mean Jonathan, seeing as she was always over the actual house.
“Is this about the rumors?” Lo wonders with a frown.
The molestation rumors. They’re still there, growing…festering. Lily’s name is being thrown around, but she’s publicly denied the allegations that Jonathan had any influence on her addiction.
Add in my “almost” charge for statutory rape, plus our father’s sudden moment to seek addiction counseling, and our family seems like a perfect soap opera.
“It’s about Daisy,” I say. “I want to make sure I know how much shit she’s going to endure now that she’s dating me. He’s still an asshole, even sober.”
Lo lets out a short laugh. “Yeah, he told one of his sober coaches to lose twenty pounds and then come back to him.”
“In those words?”
“No way. I think he made a forty-year-old man cry.” Lo nods to me. “Don’t worry about Daisy. He won’t talk to her unless it’s about you.” I just don’t want her to be torn down by his harsh comments. He absentmindedly checks his phone, as if something’s been on his mind too. “So I have a list of ten comic manuscripts that I have to narrow down to three. I’m having some trouble deciding. I thought maybe you could help me.”
I don’t hide my surprise. “Lily and Connor weren’t available?” I know I’m his third fucking choice. I always am.
“I didn’t ask.” He pauses, an insecurity bubbling up suddenly. “But if you don’t have time or don’t want to, I can have Lily read them. It’s not a big deal.” He goes to check his phone again, but I’m pretty sure there’s no new text.
“No,” I say quickly. “I want to help.”
It’s his turn to look surprised. “You sure?”
Something swells in me. I actually feel like his brother—not just a fucking sober coach he pushes away. “Yeah,” I say with nod. “But I can’t promise that you won’t hate my fucking opinions.”
“I can definitely promise that.” Lo smiles, not a half-one, not dry or filled with resentment for not being here sooner. It’s a real fucking smile. “But that’s the point. I need someone to look at them a lot differently than me.”
And I’ve always seen everything different than Lo. Life. Love. Family. It’s like our lives are reflected in a mirror, upside down and flipped. It’s nice to finally meet in the middle, somewhere that makes sense for both of us.
< 61 >
DAISY CALLOWAY
I lie on my stomach beneath Ryke’s sheet, naked. In his apartment. I have my head buried underneath the pillow and my hand shielding the blue glow of my phone, trying not to wake him.
3:14 a.m. blinks on the top of my cell, reminding me that not even a night of wild sex—from his kitchen counter to the floor to the bed—puts me to sleep for long. I average a solid four hours, which sucks.
I open a series of missed texts from my older sister.
I need out of this house. We’re considering moving to an apartment, but Lily says I would hate it. What do you think? – Rose
We’ve been on the East coast for a whole week, which has given our publicists enough time to make a press release: Rose Cobalt is expecting a baby! Gossip sites are going crazy speculating the baby’s name and the gender. Lily said the paparazzi tried to climb the hedges the other day, wanting a photo of Rose’s belly. She’s not even showing yet. I heard Connor strengthened the security around their Princeton house, but Rose must have called it quits.
I send back: You’d absolutely hate it. Not enough closet space.
And then I open another missed text.
We’re looking for places in Philly or around the area. – Rose
I smile. I’m in Philly. Ryke is in Philly. But there are other reasons they’d choose this location too. Calloway Couture and Cobalt Inc. are located here. Nothing is tying them to Princeton, New Jersey. Their commute already sucks, and Lily finishes her final college class in December. She’ll be an official graduate, free to move wherever she likes.
If they decide to keep living together, that is.
No one has talked about the separation of Lily and Lo / Connor and Rose yet. They’ve been rooming in the same house for so long that it’d be kinda weird for them to split up. But Rose is pregnant now. Maybe everyone’s just going to move on with their own lives.
My smile fades. If that’s the case, then I barely got any time with my sisters before they started their own families.
Being the youngest blows.
I click into another text.
I’d really love to talk to you. Please, Daisy. – Mom
I delete it almost immediately. I don’t even want to think about what she did. I don’t want to let those emotions in, so I push them away like I’ve seen Ryke do so many times before.
Last unread message:
Ugh. I need a fucking drink. Pregnancy is making me empathize with Loren. I already hate it. – Rose
And then my pillow is flung off my head. I’m caught red-handed. Ryke edges closer to me, fully naked, and his leg brushes against mine as he grabs my phone. He checks the time, and his eyes harden. “You slept for a fucking hour, Calloway.”
“I know. I feel badly about that,” I say. “You can go back to sleep. I won’t disturb you anymore.” I’m about to slide off the bed, but he spreads his strong arm across my back, keeping me on my stomach, right here on his mattress.
The place between my legs clenches. Oh God. Again? I am so insanely attracted to Ryke Meadows that my body doesn’t know how to handle it.
He shifts on top of me, and his lips brush against my ear. “That’s not how this works, sweetheart,” he breathes. “I want you in our bed, all fucking night.” Our bed. I smile, being reminded that we’re moving in together. We haven’t told anyone, and we’ve been bouncing back from his apartment to mine, not sure which one we should pick.
It feels normal though.
And I guess, in a way, we’ve been doing this since I graduated, just without the sex.
He pushes the covers off of me, exposing my bare back and bottom underneath him. He kisses my shoulders, his tongue stroking my skin with each deep, sensual kiss. It’s torture—his kisses. They’re the best because they heighten every sensation, but they also make me crave for something hard between my legs.
I turn my head to watch his broad muscles flex, the lines of his abs sharpening. He is so effing hot. I blink, just to make sure that this isn’t a dream—that I’m truly with the brooding, rough, sexy guy that I’ve known for years.
His lips descend to my ass, holding my bottom as he kisses my smooth flesh. Ahhh… I feel wet just by the way he’s staring at my body. We share the same expression, the same attraction.
He flips me over, and I pant heavily. He’s kneeling, towering above me, and my eyes trace his sculpted, lean muscles, the darkness in his eyes. I feel small beneath him. Not because of my age. Just feminine. A girl to his man.
I need him inside of me. “I think…I think I’m addicted to sex,” I say, not able to catch my breath and I’m just lying here, looking at him.
He almost smiles. “You love sex. That doesn’t mean you’re addicted to it.”
“How do you know?” I breathe shallowly.
“Because you’d be insatiable. You would’ve been looking at porn on your fucking cellphone right then, even after I came inside of you tonight.”
My lips rise. “Twice.”
“About to be three times, Calloway.”
I bunch the sheets in my hands around me and turn my face into the mattress. “You aren’t real,” I say dramatically with a big smile.
And then he suddenly steps off the bed and yanks my ankle so I reach him. Oxygen rushes out of my lungs. I look at his cock that’s a lot harder than before. There’s not as much pain when he fits inside of me, but if I’m not wet enough for him, he’ll grab lube. He’s really aware of how easily he can hurt me, and his attention to this only makes me love him more.
But he doesn’t fill me yet.
He bends my knees, and his head drops between my legs. I gasp before his mouth even touches the tender, aching place that begs for his skill. Ryke excels in many areas, but this has to be on a whole other level.
I grip his hair as his tongue and lips work on me in sync. I like that he’s the only guy who’s every gone down on me before, who’s ever kissed that intimate spot. He locks my legs from moving, his arms around them as he holds my waist with two strong hands.
I alternate from clenching his hair or placing my hand on his. “Ryke,” I gasp, my breath quickening. “Oh God…I can’t…” My back starts to buck, and I clutch his head.
His mouth is right there.
His head is between your legs.
He’s kissing you.
He has your body in his grasp.
He’s naked.
I’m about to freak out.
I cry, my mouth opening and my fingers scrunching his thick brown hair. Oh my God. I barely catch my breath as I watch him stand up and then place one knee on the mattress. I’ve seen him do this move so many times before—the one knee on the bed to get a little closer to my body. But never without clothes. Never with an erection and me lying naked below.
He pulls my leg up to his waist, and as he grips his shaft, he slowly slides his hard cock inside of me. I think I just whimpered.
Normally I’d sit up to meet him, but my limbs have jellified. I let him pound against me just like this. And I watch him absorb the way our bodies meet, his hardness rocking into me with a pulsing rhythm. I feel so full—I can’t even describe. There’s no room for anything else but him.
A nerve electrifies, and I moan. The sensations never die down. His gaze focuses on me. He looks intoxicated by my reactions and body’s responses. His lips part at one point, and he ends up putting his hand on the mattress, lowering closer to me, and his erection goes deeper. Still one foot on the ground.
“Ryke!” I cry, the pleasure too much. I cover my face with my hands. I’m done. Blown away. A million pieces. But that’s not true. I’m still climbing this freakin’ mountain. It’s so intense that I just want to reach the top already. I suffocate for breath, but my lungs won’t cooperate.
He tears my hands away from my face, and I rest them against his neck as he kisses me strongly. He helps me breathe with the embrace, forcing oxygen to my lungs, and then he lifts my leg a little higher, and my head tilts back.
He drives into me without stopping. His pace picks up, and his eyes flicker between his dick hammering into me and my mouth that refuses to close, cries breaching my lips.
He groans. “Fuck.” He moves faster and faster. So hard. So crazy. So fucking insane. “Dais…”
“Ryke…” My hands find his, one on the backside of my thigh, raising my leg, the other on the bed beside my hair. I hold both, and with one more thrust, he’s true to his word.
He releases, and I feel my body clenching around him. I shut my eyes and breathe. I just ran around the world in thirty-five minutes.
He stays inside of me while he crawls onto the bed and pulls me into his arms. We kiss for probably another five minutes. And then as we both relax against each other, he says, “This wasn’t to help you fall asleep.”
He’s mentioned on numerous occasions that he would never medicate me with sex. “It was a just because fuck?” I ask with a smile.
“No,” he whispers, “it was an I love you fuck.”
I brighten. “No wonder it was my favorite.”
He combs my hair, my breathing beginning to match his steady rhythm. “Do you need me to check the doors?” he asks.
“I’m okay.” I’m not as paranoid as I was before we were together. I don’t think starting a relationship necessarily fixed my problems. But knowing Ryke will be here for me one-hundred percent—it’s a security that I didn’t have before. It squashes most of my irrational fear.
I rest my cheek against his chest. I don’t fall back to sleep right away. And he stays awake with me for however long it takes. Just holding my bare, tired body until slumber finally calls me to a peaceful place.
I drift to sleep in his arms, where I know I’ll be safe.
