“When you looked at Kim at the end, when she weighed less than a hundred pounds, did you love her any less?”
Her lip trembled, and she shook her head fiercely from side to side.
He brought their joined hands to his mouth and kissed hers with all the aching sweetness he felt in his heart. “That’s how I felt when I saw you that day. No, you weren’t yourself, but I still loved you. Completely. Passionately. I promised to love you, through everything. It…hurt me to see you like that. I wanted to make it all better for you, but I knew I couldn’t.”
She sniffed loud in the quiet room. “That’s how it was when I would visit Kim. I wanted…to make her stop hurting, but I couldn’t do a damn thing. I felt so…powerless.”
“But you were there for her, and she knew it. Remember how she squeezed your hand after she fell into unconsciousness at the end.” Oh, how his throat ached now, remembering that. “She knew you were there, even then. I…wanted to be there for you like that.”
“And I picked a fight with you…about having a baby. I thought it was the most unforgiveable thing I could do to you, and that you’d let me go. But you…Blake, your capacity for forgiveness blows me away. I’m so sorry. For everything.” If only she’d told him the truth. How different might things have been?
She pressed her head to his shoulder. “I don’t want to keep hurting you. Us.”
“I don’t want you to keep hurting either, babe.”
When she lifted her face, the bleakness in her eyes almost undid him. “Then what are we going to do?”
He brought her hand against his chest. Touchdown crawled onto both of their laps, half on him and half on her, almost like he was joining them together again as a family.
“Let me walk into that dark room with you,” he told her. “I won’t leave you or think you’re crazy. And I won’t ever stop loving you.” He felt like he was renewing his vows to her all over again.
Her face scrunched up. “But it hurts, Blake. It hurts so bad. I cried in the shower tonight, and I never cry. I just couldn’t stop it this time.”
So the healing was starting. Now he could hold her through it like she’d refused to let him do before.
“I know it hurts,” he said gruffly, feeling it between them, the agony of loss. “We’ll face it together.”
“I don’t know how….” Her voice broke, like a pane of glass cracking at the center, the slivers shivering out until they touched everything in their wake.
“I never told you why I’m so…free with my emotions,” he said. “Adam used to cry whenever he got upset, but I always tried to be tough. My mom took me aside one day after I fell off my bike and forced myself to shake off the pain. She said I needed to show Adam it was okay for him to cry, or he’d be ashamed of himself.”
Everything in her was trembling against him, and he rubbed her arm to warm her. But this cold wasn’t the kind that was easily exorcised. No, it was one that dug in with its icy claws.
“At first, I did it for Adam. He always wanted to comfort me when I was hurt, and I did the same for him. Of course, it got harder for me to show my emotions as I got older. Some of the other boys in junior high made fun of me, but then I got ridiculously good at football. People started to say my emotions were what made me a great player. My teammates were willing to follow me because I always put myself out there for them.”
“I’ve…always wondered. Your emotions…sometimes they unhinge me, Blake. Whenever you cried after losing a big game…well, I wouldn’t know what to do to help.”
He’d realized that, so he’d tried to dial them back around her. What a pair they were. On some level, he hadn’t believed she could love him in all his ugliness either.
“You helped just by being there, just by holding me. And that’s what we do when the person we love is hurting. Now…tell me what you miss most about Kim,” he said and gripped her hand tight, lending strength and comfort to her as she stepped into the abyss.
Tears streamed down her face, but her lips tightened as though she wanted to hold back the words. Refuse to utter them to keep the pain at bay.
“When I first met Kim, I thought she was your sister,” he said. “You both had the same brown hair and a laugh that would make any man take a good, long look.”
A sob escaped her lips. “She was…my sister. Oh, God…I miss her so much.”
Her pain was like a bone that needed to be rebroken before it could heal, so he braced himself to finish the task. “She loved you…as much as she loved Andy and Danny.”
She started crying, the anguished sounds tearing at his heart. “I know she did…why did it have to happen, Blake? Why? She was so young. It’s so damn unfair! Sometimes I just want to scream at the sky until I lose my voice.”
He understood the whys. With Adam. With Kim. With Natalie. The answers never came.
“Then scream, babe. Scream it out until you’re hoarse.”