My mind immediately flashes to the jagged scar on his arm—the one that I’d noticed last week. Now I know why he had changed the subject when I’d asked about it. I think of a little boy cowering in fear, green eyes welled with tears as his mother unleashes on him. The ache in my heart that moments before was because of my feelings for Colton has now shifted and intensified over something I can’t even begin to understand or fathom.
The look on Beckett’s face tells me that this is news to him. That even though he’s known Colton for all these years, he hasn’t had an inkling as to the horror his friend had endured as a young child.
“Like I said,” Beckett whispers, “Lifeline.” My eyes snap up to his and he just nods with a quiet intensity. “I think you’re his lifeline.” We exchange a silent acknowledgment and acceptance before looking back down at the man we love snoring softly in my lap.
The house is quiet and still despite the bright sun shining through the kitchen windows. It’s close to noon but everyone is still asleep except for me. I’d awoken, hot and claustrophobic, with a dead to the world Colton haphazardly draped across my body. As delicious as his body felt against mine, and as much as I willed myself to go back to sleep, I couldn’t. So despite Colton lying on the pillow beside me, I slowly extricated myself from him and the bed without waking him in search of Advil for my aching head.
I sit at the table, the soft snoring of Beckett asleep on the couch drifting into the kitchen. I swallow a big gulp of water hoping it will chase away the alcohol-induced fuzziness that clouds my head. I yawn again and rest my forehead on my arms that are folded on the table. God, I’m tired.
The distant and distinct ringing of my cell phone seeps into my dreams. I’m trying to help him. The little boy with dark hair and haunted eyes being pulled away from me by some unseen force. My hand is gripping his but my fingers are slipping ever so slowly as my muscles tire. He’s pleading with me for help. The ringing of the telephone starts, startling me so I jerk and he slips away from me, crying out in fear. I scream at the loss and jolt myself awake, disoriented from my position at the kitchen table.
My heart is pounding and my breathing labored as I try to steady myself. Just a dream, I tell myself. Just a meaningless dream. I drop my head into my hands and push their heels into my eyes, trying to rub away the image of the little boy I couldn’t save.
I hear the rumbling timbre of Colton’s morning voice from my bedroom. I stand and start to walk to him when the inflection of his voice rises. “You’ve got a lot of nerve, lady!” resonates down the hallway.
It takes a moment for my mind to register what’s going on...what day it is...the sound of my cell phone interrupting my dream. I shove the chair back and run down the hall to my bedroom. “Give me the phone, Colton!” I shout, my heart racing and my throat clogging with panic as I enter my doorway.
My eyes zero in on my cell phone at his ear. On the bewildered look on his face. My heart lodges in my throat, knowing the words filled with hatred that are assaulting his ears. I pray that she doesn’t tell him. “Please, Colton,” I plead, my hand outstretched for him to give me my phone. His eyes look up to meet mine, searching for an explanation as to what he’s hearing. He shakes his head abruptly at me when I keep my hand held out.
He sighs loudly, closing his eyes before speaking. “Ma’am? Ma’am,” he says more forcefully, “you’ve had your say, now it’s time I get mine.” Her voice through the speaker quiets down at his stern tone. Colton runs a hand through his hair, his V of muscle that sinks below the sheets flexes as he tenses up. “While I am truly sorry for the loss of your son, I think your accusations are sickening. Rylee did nothing wrong besides survive a horrible accident. Because she lived and Max died doesn’t mean that she murdered him. No, you let me finish,” he says sternly. “I understand that you’re grieving and always will be, but that doesn’t make Rylee guilty of killing him. It was a horrific, accident with circumstances beyond anyone’s control.”
I hear a litany of words in response that I can’t decipher through the earpiece, my body still tense as I guess what she’s revealing to him.
“And you don’t think she feels guilty enough that she lived? You’re not the only one who lost him that day. Do you really think a day goes by that she doesn’t think about Max or the accident? That she doesn’t wish it were her instead of him that died that day?”
Tears well in my eyes, Colton’s words hitting too close to the truth, and I can’t fight them. They slip down my cheeks and images flash through my head that will forever be burned there. Max struggling to live. Max struggling to die. My thousands of promises to God those days if we could just make it out alive.
All of us.
Something flickers through Colton’s eyes at her words, and the tears come harder. There is silence between the two of them for several moments as Colton digests what she has divulged. They flash over to mine, and I’m unable to comprehend the enigmatic look they hold before darting back to look out the window outside.
“I truly am sorry for your loss, but this will be the last time you call Rylee and accuse her of anything. Do you understand?” he says with authority. “She picks up the phone because she feels guilty. She lets you bash her and accuse her and demean her because she loved your son and doesn’t want you to hurt any more than you already do. But no more. You’re hurting her, and I won’t allow it. Understood?”