“Fine, but you can wait out there.” She nodded to the waiting room behind us, and once again, my mom gave me a confused look. With a small tug on her arm, she pulled Andi down the corridor. With one last what-the-hell-did-you-do look from my mom, they disappeared around a corner. I didn’t feel drunk anymore. I felt completely and utterly sober, and it hurt. The colossal mess I had made was nobody’s fault but my own, and at this moment, it seemed unfixable. All those wants and desires I had never dared to consider felt a million miles away, untouchable. If I had never allowed myself the chance to want them, it wouldn’t hurt so much. But I had allowed myself that small moment to hope; those images of me and Andi, together, forever, were shattered like a broken mirror. Under the stark lights of the hospital waiting room, I realized I had lost Andi, and it took every ounce of strength I possessed not to break down.
Andi did indeed have a fractured hand which required setting in a cast. Three hours after we had arrived, Mom handed the tired and defeated looking country bumpkin back into my care. Back into my callous and blundering hands. With the promise she would call me later and a gentle hug for Andi, she left us in an awkward silence. With her right hand unavailable, I helped Andi complete the paperwork. We wandered out into the crisp, still dark early hours of morning. I easily hailed a cab and Andi didn’t stop me when I climbed in beside her. She didn’t acknowledge me either. The drive to SoHo was painfully quiet, and she didn’t spare me a backwards glance when she climbed from the cab in front of her shop. I noticed the lights in Casey and Lionel’s were on, and saw the door quickly open. Casey looked frantic as he raced towards Andi with Lionel hot on his heels. At least I knew they would be there to take care of Andi, she was in good hands, better hands. Mine had done nothing but hurt her. I was standing at the door of the cab, unable to look away as Casey ushered Andi inside. Lionel paused and meandered back to the opposite side of the cab, his shrewd gray eyes examining me from across the rooftop of the car between us.
“I tried to persuade her not to get involved with you. She said your past didn’t matter, it was now that counted. I didn’t agree. Your past makes you what you are today.” Well, that damn well cut deep. “When I saw you two together, I thought maybe I was wrong. You just…fit. As crazy as it was, you really did seem to make each other happy. I don’t know what went wrong, Andi won’t say, but she’s broken, Decker. You broke her. She was a ray of light that you switched off.”
I rubbed the ache in my chest and swallowed away the pain that was creeping up my throat. “I’m gonna fix this,” I whispered with a husky voice. Lionel gave me a surprisingly tender smile that bolstered my confidence. “She’s worth fighting for and I’m gonna make sure she shines again. I’m gonna put her back together again.”
He gave me an affirmative nod. “Then go home and get some sleep, you look like shit. You’re going to need to pull something special out of that damn hat, rather than your pants this time.” He was smiling which somehow pulled a reluctant smile from me. I slid back into the cab and pulled away from the curb. For some reason, my avow to fix this situation seemed to feel more hopeless the further I got from Andi. How could she ever forgive the lies and betrayal? I had dug a hole so damn big I didn't really see any way to climb out of it. I had only had her in my arms, in my life, for a moment, but the little piece of country had wormed her way into my heart and that is where she would stay forever, regardless of what happened next.
Chapter 21
ANDI