Lowering his face to her hair, he whispered, “Walk with me.”
So that’s how it went. Sonja took his hand while holding onto mine and together we closed the distance to the place that would allow Baxter to rest in peace. Again, I turned away, wanting to give them a moment. My eyes caught the bloodstain on the floor, and I remembered how Disco had saved my life, unwilling to let me go. That reminder made me even more uncomfortable. The weeks after my attack he had pampered and cared for me as no one had since my parents had died. Those weeks were some of the happiest of my life. There was no fear, no anxiety, no worry of what came tomorrow. It was just the two of us, getting to know each other, spending night after night talking and teasing each other like any other couple.
I missed that so fucking much.
I missed him.
Then, I heard Baxter whisper, “It’s so breathtaking, everything I hoped it would be. Thank you,” and I was back inside the room, listening to their goodbyes, caught in the shared moment I shouldn’t be a part of.
A soft sound and a whimper told me they were sharing a parting kiss, driving the phantom stake in my heart a little deeper. I didn’t want to think about Disco and what he’d done. I didn’t want to forgive and forget. He was someone who’d hurt me, broken my trust, and didn’t deserve a second chance. But deep down I knew if he persisted I’d eventually break. Seeing him all the time, remembering how good it used to be between us, would send me into arms.
I miss you.
I’m sorry.
All I want is another chance.
I’m asking for forgiveness, even if I don’t deserve it.
Call me, Rhiannon. Please.
How stupid I was, thinking I could keep him away, that my animosity would continue despite my love for the man. Disco was right. My stubbornness was the roadblock. I couldn’t teeter-totter on the fence. After all, neither of us knew how much time we had left. The future, no matter how much I wanted to change it, was never certain. Yet I had wasted the time, using my anger to keep him at an arm’s length, even though it wasn’t what I truly wanted.
“I love you,” Sonja whispered.
“I love you, too. So much.”
I felt like a lovelorn voyeur as I watched Baxter take a step with Sonja clinging to his hand, imagining myself and a certain vampire in their place. The image of the two of them was a permanent firebrand etched into my mind, making it a moment I would never forget. Their fingers slid against one another’s, until they held on by the tips, and then the physical contact was gone. Baxter walked to the wall, into the light we couldn’t see, and vanished. Sonja released my hand and fell to her knees, sobbing. What she didn’t know was that I was weeping right along with her, my tears invisible, my cries silent.
Done. It was finally done.
I had seen to a promise I made months before, but back then, the notion seemed idealistic. Help a man cross over to the other side, do a good deed, and feel happy about it for the rest of the day. Who wouldn’t want to save a lost soul? What I couldn’t possibly have known at the time—what I hadn’t even fathomed—was I wouldn’t be doing Baxter a favor at all. It was the other way around. When I helped him cross over, he’d returned the gesture full force, giving back a part of me that I thought was there but had been tossed aside, making me cold and bitter, detached from everyone and everything around me.
It wasn’t Baxter’s soul who needed saving.
It was my own.
Chapter Twelve