I awoke groggy, my head swimming, eyes unfocused.
“Nathan…” I mumbled. My eyes refused to stay open, my head lolling back and forth. “Nate!”
My breathing was hard. Where was he? I needed him.
“Shhh, I’m here, baby,” he called, his voice rough. I felt his hand on my cheek and then sighed, leaning into the warmth.
“Take me home,” I said weakly.
“What?”
“I want to go home.”
“Oh, Honeybear, soon.”
“Please.” Tears began to stream down my face. “I want to go home. Take me home.”
My eyes opened a tiny bit, and his brow was scrunched up, sadness etched in his features. He looked up at something, and a voice chimed in letting me know we were not alone.
“It’s the drugs,” Dr. Morgenson’s familiar voice said.
Dr. Morgenson had been in and out during my stay. We had mini sessions together. To most, it would look like a normal conversation, but what was actually going on was Dr. Morgenson playing his Jedi mind tricks on me. Some worked, others didn’t, and I was always left feeling emotionally drained. He was taking advantage of my drugged state, I thought, planting seeds and pulling weeds.
At least that was how I looked at it.
“Okay,” I said, answering the unasked question.
“Okay?” Nathan asked, confused.
“Okay. I’m okaying the schedule.”
Nathan’s face lit up and a smile began to spread before quickly fading. “You don’t know what you’re saying right now. We’ll talk about it when it wears off.”
My anger spiked, and I unleashed it upon Nathan. “I fucking said I want you to take care of me, and that’s your response? After everything? I’m agreeing, so you better fucking accept it before I take it back!”
“Nathan, it’s not the right moment to start arguing with her. She’s not lying. She may be loopy and out of it, but she means it. Let her be,” Dr. Morgenson said.
My head spun a little. I knew what I was saying, but it was coming out all wrong. Nothing made sense in my head except what I was trying to say.
His eyes were wide, and I could tell he didn’t know what to do with me. Hell, at that moment I didn’t know what to do with me.
I sniffled; my emotions were everywhere. “Don’t you want me? You said you wanted me.”
“That’s not it, baby. I just want to make sure it’s what you want.”
I pulled him to me, as close as possible. I had an overwhelming need to be close to him. I felt disconnected from myself in some ways. Tears streamed from my eyes, and his arms wrapped around my torso, his head buried into my neck.
“I love you,” I said, my breath hitching. “I love you so much. Please, please take me home. I don’t want to be here anymore.”
He pulled back to look at me. It hit me what had slipped past all the walls in my mind and heart, and through my lips. The deepest feelings I kept from him. Words I was afraid to tell him, the feelings that tore me to shreds and broke me to pieces when he left.
He buried his face back into my neck. “I love you, and I’ll wait. I know you’re saying things due to all the meds in your system right now. I’ll wait until the day you want to say them on your own terms.”
We stayed like that for a few minutes, and as the time passed, my mind began to clear. I froze with realization. Nathan’s arms stayed wrapped around me, unwilling to let me go.
He pulled back and moved the chair closer, touching me the entire time. “I want to take care of you; I want you to come home with me. We’ll go at whatever pace you want, though.”
His finger made soothing circles on my skin, and I couldn’t take my eyes off him. The world fell away, and it was only Nathan and me, at least until Dr. Morgenson cleared his throat.
“Now that I have your attention, both of you, there are some things we need to go over,” he began. The doctor was in. “I’ve drawn out a schedule for the both of you. I think it would be a good idea, considering all that has happened between the two of you, that you have a joint session, once a week, on top of your own.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Getting you both back into therapy is a necessity right now. You two need to communicate everything if you ever want to try to be together again. Otherwise I’m afraid of what could happen down the line.”
“Darren, she’s not even out of the hospital, so maybe we should wait on the therapy.”
Anger flashed across Dr. Morgenson’s face for a brief moment. “No, Nathan. We’ve all coddled you for far too long and it’s done you no good. I’m not making that mistake again. You have to bring it all into the open so you can move on and heal. You will never heal like this; you can’t even talk about her or the accident four years later! It’s the only way you two can ever be together.”
“I…ugh!” Nathan let out a strangled cry.
“Please, stop.” I couldn’t stand to see him in pain.
“He wasn’t the only one to suffer from that mass of metal and glass,” Darren said, shaking his head. “You weren’t the only one who lost that night. They lost you as well, Nathan. Your whole family has mourned your loss for the last four years. Your mother has been fighting severe depression, but you don’t see that because you never see her anymore. Erin has nightmares of seeing your bloody, broken body with your heart barely beating. You were in a coma and didn’t see the devastation it caused your family, and I’m including her side when I say family. When you woke, they had to relive it all to tell you what had happened. Horrific memories haunted them every day as they helped you during your rehabilitation. That night tore your family apart, and only you can put them back together. I believe Lila is the key to that healing.”
Nathan’s eyes were squeezed tight. “Darren, please, no, I can’t deal with this right now.”
“Have you told her how it affected you to see her on the stretcher, her car a crumpled heap?” Darren turned and asked Nathan, his voice holding an edge I had never heard before.
Nathan shook his head. “Please,” he begged in a low voice.
“This is what I’m talking about. If you want her back, then you need to start talking to her. Tell her about your panic attack, tell her about your dead wife, tell her what she does to you.” The pain and frustration was visible in his eyes. It wasn’t Dr. Morgenson I was looking at. It was Darren; Nathan’s close friend.
“Darren, I…”
“Show her the box. It’s the best way for you to tell her. Let her in; let her know you and the truth. It’ll help you both.” Darren’s face was filled with genuine care and concern as he stared at Nathan. “If, after all she learns, she still wants to be with you, you’ll have to not only accept and embrace it, but you’ll have to let go of your fears. See how this works? There has to be some vulnerability for her to trust you again. Otherwise you will hold your relationship back. Let go. It’s time to live.”
With that, Darren walked up to Nathan and squeezed his shoulder before leaving us alone. Silence prevailed as he mulled over what to say.
“I promise I’m going to tell you. Just give me a little time,” he said softly.
I nodded in response, having nothing left to say.
It was in the late afternoon three days later that I was released. Nathan helped me into the car, and as we drove away I waved goodbye to the gathering of people who had come to see me off.
The ride home was silent; I was lost in my thoughts. We were about halfway home when my hand twitched, and I realized at some point I had grabbed for Nathan’s. He didn’t say anything, didn’t move, but his thumb was drawing lazy circles on mine.
When we arrived, he left me to get the wheel chair out of the trunk before helping me onto my new mode of transportation for at least the next week. My other injuries prevented the use of crutches for a while.
The familiar static charge was in the air when we rode on the elevator, and I was very happy I wasn’t standing next to him. Instead, I fidgeted with the hospital tag I was still wearing around my wrist.
“I want to tell you,” he said as he wheeled me down the hall to my condo.
“Okay.” My eyes stayed trained straight ahead.
“Now.”
I nodded and swallowed hard.
He found something to prop the door open as he helped me in. We moved to my bedroom.
True to her word, Erin had indeed cleaned up. The blankets were gone from the couch in the living room and were returned to the spare bedroom. My own bed was made with new sheets, the floor clear of any debris.
Nathan picked me up, placed me on the bed, and began positioning the pillows around me. He helped prop me up against the headboard, making sure my leg was elevated and then he headed out to the kitchen, returning with a glass of water that he placed on the night stand next to me.
“I’ll be right back,” he said, and I nodded.
In his absence, my eyes drifted around the room. Nothing had changed, but so much had. I waited in silence, not moving. Moving was painful.
It didn’t take long for him to return, and when he did, he was carrying a wooden chest about half the size of the carry-on sized suitcase he rolled in behind him.
He climbed on the bed next to me—the box was in his hand and his eyes were locked on the clasp. I heard him swallow hard, and the butterflies in my stomach multiplied. That was what Darren had been talking about.
“I h-haven’t opened this in over three years.”
“What’s in it?” I asked in a whisper.
His hand moved over the lid, his voice a whisper. “Ghosts.”
With trembling hands he flicked the clasps and tilted it back, opening the contents to the world.
My jaw dropped when my eyes landed on the picture that lay on top. It was the first thing I noticed because I recognized the photo in question. It resided in Jack Holloway’s office. Well, most of it did. Jack had hidden the third person in the picture. It wasn’t only his daughter and him; it included Nathan.
“That’s Grace Holloway, Jack’s daughter.”
“Yes,” he agreed and swallowed hard once more, “but, her gravestone reads Grace Thorne.”
My eyes snapped to his. “Oh, my God.”
“There are a few at the office who know, those who have been around long enough. They know, but have been asked not to say anything about it.”
I couldn’t speak. Shock shut my mind down.
Things Jack said came back to my mind. I was still new when his daughter had died in an accident. He had grieved heavily for her, and I remembered being confused by some of his behavior due to my own experiences with my dad.
I remembered talking to Dr. Morgenson about my boss’s behavior.
My stomach dropped. Darren had to explain the grieving process to me like I was a child. A process he and his extended family were going through over the same loss as my boss.
“We were married after we finished our undergrad. When I went to Harvard, she came with me and got a job, working while I attended classes. It was a bit of a strain, as I know you are aware law school is, but we made it through. After Harvard, we moved to Indianapolis and found a house and talked about children. Grace always wanted a big family,” he said, his shoulders slumping while he fingered through the box. “Four miscarriages. She made it to the end of the first trimester only once, and it was ripped away.”
Thoughts about having children had never crossed my mind before the dream, so to even think about wanting them and then losing them was lost on me.
“When she finally made it to the second trimester with her fifth pregnancy, my trial of Via Marconi ended. In all my bravado, I failed to recognize the danger I put my family in. I managed a conviction of a Marconi family member, something that had never happened before. Not only that, it was the daughter of the head member of the family. All the time away from my wife and the nights without sleep, working eighty plus hour weeks while I gathered as much information on them as I could, paid off in the end.”
I remembered that trial. Young, hotshot prosecutor had done the impossible, they said. “Rising star,” they called him.
“Vincent Marconi wasn’t too pleased, and I gloated in his face,” he said through clenched teeth. “Fucking stupid.”
I couldn’t think of anything to say, so I slipped my fingers in his, giving him any comfort I could.
“It was about two weeks after my birthday that we went to Grace’s parents’ house for a combination Father’s Day and my belated birthday celebration. Her whole family and my parents were there. That was when she gave me this: the first glimpse of my son.” With shaking hands he handed me a framed photo.
The frame was wracked; the corners loose and bent. Evidence of the glass could still be seen in the powdery sand in the edges and the scratches on the picture in my hand. The ultrasound picture was in such bad shape it was difficult to read the printed words “I’m a boy!” I swallowed hard; he’d been so close to having a child.
“Not even that survived unscathed.”
My eyes looked up at him. “It happened that day,” I said, the answer coming to me, filling in the gaps. Nathan hated it when I mentioned his birthday.
He nodded in response. A sad smile formed and his arms raised, his hands making a circular form. “She had a perfectly round stomach. We’d made it to the third trimester after so long.”
Grief was what overtook Nathan. I recounted the stages in my mind: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Nathan was still stuck on step four—depression—along with his up and down visits with two: anger. It was obvious to me now he’d never moved on from there. Even after four long years, step five, acceptance, remained out of reach.
He sat there for a moment, and I could almost see the memories flickering behind his eyes. His jaw clenched a couple times. “It was just after dark when we decided to head home. It wasn’t too long a drive, about forty-five minutes, from their house to ours. There was a two-lane road that was almost a straight shot and a nice drive. We were about halfway home when this car came up behind us fast. We weren’t in any hurry, so I pulled over to let him pass. But when I pulled over, so did he.”
My chest tightened. I knew what was coming. The end. I knew the outcome.
“That was when it was obvious something was wrong. I told Grace to hold on and gunned it when I saw the driver’s side door start to open. We were up to seventy in no time…but so were they.”
He tipped his head back, trying to keep the tears at bay. I squeezed his hand in mine, my eyes beseeching him to continue.
“My mind was racing with what to do while I tried to stay ahead of them, but soon we were passing eighty. By then we’d reached the point where the road ran parallel to the interstate. They were separated by about forty feet of grass and a wire fence. It was then the fight of our lives started. They caught up, going faster to catch up in the oncoming traffic lane. I glanced over and the window was lowering. There were two men; the one in the passenger seat was aiming a gun at us. I reacted on instinct and steered the car into theirs. The motion caused them to lose some traction and they ran off the road, but were soon gaining on us again.”
He paused, his gaze on the box, his hand absently moving the objects around. “I remember telling her I loved her, but that’s where it gets foggy. An eye witness, who was silenced, said that was when the struggle began. Our car and theirs battled back and forth to stay on the road. With a powerful hit, they pushed us off the road and we went through the grassy area and the wire fence into oncoming traffic on the interstate. We were clipped by a semi, thrown into the median wall, bounced out, and hit a sedan before a delivery truck mashed us into a bridge support.”
My whole body was frozen in shock, my hand covering my mouth.
“All my fault,” he whispered as he stared blankly into the box. “It was all my fault.”
“Why?”
He blinked up at me. “Because I baited them, flaunted my success in their face, gathered enough information to begin bringing down their organization. Once I had one, the others would be easier. People would see even they couldn’t get away with everything.” He sighed. “In the end, they could. The eye witness’s testimony, the bullets they found—all evidence disappeared under mysterious circumstances. It was labeled an accident, and I ‘lost control’ of the vehicle.”
“Are they still…after you?”
His gaze met mine and he stared into my eyes, his hands bringing mine to his lips. “Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because of what I hold. The information I have on them. When I started poring over all the evidence for the case, it became a rabbit hole and I was able to link it to more and more cases.” He shook his head. “I wish I didn’t have it anymore so they would leave me alone.”
“Why don’t you get rid of it?”
“Because it wouldn’t make a difference, and because they died for it.”
“Are you sure they’re still after you?”
He let out a huff. “It’s been a while; I think they like seeing me miserable. In a way they think it’s better than being dead because I’ve suffered a worse fate than his daughter. But, yes, they still keep tabs.”
My fingers shuffled through the items in the box: pictures of them in college, their wedding day, their home. It was all he had left of her—a wooden box filled with paper and faded memories.
I stared at one of the photos, and something Jack had said to me long ago came back.
You remind me of my daughter.
“I’m not her, you know.” His brows scrunch together in confusion at my words. “Jack said I reminded him of her.”
He thought about that for a moment, his head nodding a bit. “I’ll admit there are a few similarities I noticed in you in the beginning, and it was one of the many things that drew me to you. But then I saw you, really saw you, and it was then it hit me you weren’t her and the similarities were just that. No different than how you are.”
“What do you mean by that?” I asked, the hackles on my neck standing up.
“I’ve been watching you for months. You shy away from bald men,” he said, ticking off more subtleties I’d never noticed myself. “You cringe at men wearing combat boots. Why?”
“Adam always wore them, especially when he kicked me. My dad went bald at an early age.” My voice was mechanical as I answered, and my chest tightened, the walls reinforcing themselves, so I redirected. “It’s the same with you, though. If I cringe from them, you are drawn to me. These photos show our similarities. You can’t refute it.”
His lips formed a thin line. “When I first saw you at the office, the physical similarities, your hair color and size, even some of your mannerisms were hard to distinguish. Over time I saw the pain behind your eyes, the emptiness.” He paused and looked to me, his fingers ghosting over my cheek. “I saw the mask you wore.”
He took a deep breath before continuing. “I resigned myself to a solitary existence. Convinced myself I would never love again. And then you came crashing into my life. You didn’t fawn over me like the others, and you saw through my façade into the man hiding inside: destroyed and angry.”
“You slipped around me.”
“I did,” he agreed. “You do that to me. I tried to ignore you for weeks. I saw it in you, the same pain and loneliness in myself. At first I thought it was because you reminded me of Grace in some ways, but then, after the first few times I was with you, I realized that, while it was something that drew me to you in the beginning, it no longer applied. I wanted you, craved you. I struggled every day with that knowledge. You saw the evidence. I pushed you away, along with the pull and feelings you were stirring within me. But when I took you, I gave everything I could and it was raw and primal. I craved you to the point of insanity.”
I pursed my lips, the war raging inside between wanting to believe him and wanting to protect myself. “Are you sure? Are you sure that’s what you’re feeling? Are you certain you aren’t using me as a replacement for her? If she was alive, you would still be with her, not me. You don’t really feel about me the same way I feel about you.”
He stared at me for a moment, trying to form words for feelings. “I’m struggling with the realization of my feelings for you. What it means for you and for me. I never thought I’d fall in love again. Then I met you, and no matter how hard I pushed you away or how much I tried to not feel anything, it didn’t do any good. If I believed in fate, I would say I was destined to meet you; that I had to go through all this so I would understand you and see you.”
I thought about it for a moment. The feeling I had was the same, like something tied us together. “It’s a force, but is it love?”
“I loved Grace, very much, and I’m struggling with guilt over the fact I love another and you could mean more to me than she did. That I want you more. That this connection we have is greater. To be honest, it scares me, because I would be decimated if anything were to happen to you, especially if it was because of me. Every time I said I didn’t want you, it was me trying to convince myself.”
“What about your nightmares?” I asked, finally having an arena to ask a long wondered upon thought.
“My nightmares?” He paused and looked deep into my eyes. He was gauging me for something, but I couldn’t tell what. “They were about losing you, seeing you dead. The day of your accident, I saw one of my nightmares come to life.”
My chest constricted, and I was on the verge of crying. “Why wouldn’t you tell me any of this before?”
“Because I couldn’t admit it to myself, but your accident split me open and made me look—at you, at us, at the feelings I was trying to disown. The thought that I lost you…well, you saw.”
“You’ve had a session with Dr. Morg… with Darren, haven’t you?”
He nodded in response. “I refused to acknowledge how I felt about you. I thought if I didn’t admit it to myself, then it wasn’t true and you would be safe from them. That backfired and made you unsafe from me. Darren helped me to realize everything I kept closed off. I was angry at myself and the situation I created. You didn’t deserve to see that anger.” His hands fidgeted with the fabric of his shirt that lay over his heart. “I want to live again…with you. You’ve changed my world. I’m altered, no longer stuck in purgatory.”
Tears welled in my eyes before they began to slide unbidden down my cheeks, hot and heavy. His hands moved to my face, thumbs gently wiping the small beads from my skin.
“After seeing and hearing all this, do you still want me? Do you want to try, really try?”
I thought about it; my mouth opened to say yes when something nagged at me. That voice I knew so well in my head. You’ll always be second best in his heart. I sat back and slumped against the pillows.
“No,” I replied in a whisper. I watched the hope drain from his face, his jaw clenched tight. Tears welled in his eyes, and I took his hand in mine. “I can’t be a replacement. I won’t be. You haven’t had closure and until then, after all that has happened between us, I need to matter more than a memory. Not only that, I don’t know if I can let you back in. You hurt me more than anyone else has in my life.”
He nodded. “I understand. A small part of me wants you to tell me to fuck off, because I’m afraid. I’ve only ever loved my wife; this is all new to me. I don’t want you to be hurt or killed because of me…because you’re with me. At the same time I don’t want to let you go, I won’t. I need you, so bad. It’s your decision to give it a try with me, to be in a real, healthy relationship. If I’m honest, that scares me almost as much, but I promise to work at getting better, and I won’t push you away anymore.”
“How do I know I can trust all that?”
“I’ve never made you any promises, because that would be confirmation of the feelings I wouldn’t allow myself to have. So I buried them.” He picked up my hand and placed it palm down on his chest over his heart. “As cheesy as it sounds, this changes now because I’m promising you—my heart is yours.”
My brow scrunched together. “Not all of it.”
Sadness washed over his features. He couldn’t deny it.
