“I…” I start to say, but I have nothing.
There’s no excuse for the way I behaved. I did everything I could to try to forget the look in Carrie’s eyes as her life drifted away.
No matter how hard I’ve tried, I’ve failed.
Every night when I close my eyes, I see Carrie’s face, hear her gasp for air, and watch her die all over again. Every. Fucking. Night.
“I know we only knew each other for a short time, but damn it, I thought you’d at least pick up the phone when I called.” She shifts in the seat, finally facing me with her back plastered against the door. “I thought if anyone knew how I felt, after the way you were with me in the hospital, it would be you. You’d be there. You’d listen. You’d help. You’d somehow make things better. A man who doesn’t care doesn’t sit at someone’s hospital bedside, holding them, comforting them, just to turn his back. Or at least, that’s what I thought…until you did.”
Her words sting, slicing through me like a piece of glass tearing through cloth. “I was an asshole.”
“Well, at least we can agree on something.” She scoffs, turning her face toward the windshield, folding her arms across her chest.
“I relive that day every night when I go to sleep,” I admit, something I’ve done with no one else in my life, not even my brother.
“You do?” she asks, but this time, her voice is gentler.
I keep a lot to myself. Carmello doesn’t need to know the gory details. He already has the burden of Carrie’s death on his shoulders; he doesn’t need my baggage to weigh him down any further.
“Yeah,” I whisper, staring out at the open road in front of us. “Every fucking night, I see her face and watch her die all over again.”
I almost flinch when Rebel’s soft fingers touch my forearm, catching me by surprise at how gently she’s touched me. “I’m sorry,” she whispers back. “That’s awful. I should’ve been awake. I should’ve been the one comforting her.”
“No,” I snap. “It’s something you wouldn’t have been able to shake. I thought you were dead too at first, that day,” I confess, moving my gaze from the road to her for a moment. “When I looked at you, you were slumped over, and I couldn’t move with Carrie in my lap until…” I swallow the bile and terror that rise in my throat every time I replay those moments in my mind. “I was helpless to save her, and if I would’ve lost you too, I don’t know…”
“You couldn’t have saved her, Rocco. No one could have.”
“I know.”
She tightens her fingers on my arm. “I’m serious. You couldn’t have saved her.”
“I know, sugar.”
“Do you?” she asks softly, her hand still on me.
I didn’t know that then. I blamed myself, thinking I should’ve been able to MacGyver something to give Carrie the ability to breathe.
“I do. I know I couldn’t have saved her life. But watching someone die is nothing like in the movies. Seeing it firsthand is something a person never forgets, and Rebel, I never forgot.”
I wish I could pull off to the side of the road and haul Rebel into my arms, wrapping myself in her goodness and forcing the bad out of my head, replacing it with only good.
“At least she didn’t die alone. You gave her comfort when she needed it the most.”
“It wasn’t enough,” I argue.
“What happened to you?” Rebel asks, sliding her soft palm up and down my forearm. “You were always so full of life and happy when I knew you.”
“Part of me died that day too.”
“There’s a sadness that clings to you now. I wouldn’t have believed Carrie’s death was so life-altering for you, but seeing you now, I feel it.”
How could I be the same?
Death hugs a person like a second skin, never leaving them after they feel it coating their soul.
“I’m still happy,” I tell her. “I know how lucky I am for every day I get walking around, doing my thing. The three of us were lucky as fuck to survive. My view of life and my mortality changed that day, though.”
“Mine too,” she says, dropping her hand from my arm, breaking the contact I wanted and needed so badly, but didn’t realize I did. A loud sigh comes from her lips before she continues. “I decided I wasn’t going to live another moment being alone and sad. I spent the first twenty years of my life like that, and I wasn’t going to do it anymore. I made that promise to myself and to Carrie.”
I think we all did that. We all made promises to ourselves and others. Mine was to never fall in love, hitching myself to someone who could rip my heart out, dying like Carrie.
“And how did that work out for you?” I mutter, and then I wince because I’ve been a total dick and I am continuing down that road with an asshole comment like that.
“You’re just a giant grumpy jerk now, aren’t you? You’re miserable and want to pass that shit on to everyone else. Is that your thing? Just being a dick?”
“Rebel,” I say in a pleading voice, “I’m really not. I didn’t mean to say that. It was wrong of me. I’m sorry.”
“You say you’re sorry a lot, but do you ever really mean what you say anymore?” she asks.
That stings, but she isn’t wrong.
I glance to the side, staring at her for a second. “I do mean it.”
“Then act like it. No more shitty comments or snark.”
“Snark?” I ask.
No one’s ever called me snarky. A dick or an asshole, yes, but never snarky. Nope.
“There’re a dozen adjectives I could use to describe you, and snarky does fit, along with assho—”
I grunt. “I get it. There’s still part of me that’s the same cocky hunk you met ten years ago.”
“Cocky hunk,” she mumbles and laughs. “I see your opinion of yourself hasn’t changed.”
I ignore her comment and keep on rolling. She can call me whatever she wants as long as it gets her talking about the things we need to know. “I want to help you. I need to help you.”
She rolls her eyes. “You didn’t have to take us with you. You could’ve left Adaline and me at the cabin. We would’ve figured things out. I’ve been on my own for most of my life, and somehow, I’ve managed to survive. We would’ve been fine. I’ve never needed anyone.”
“Absolutely not,” I tell her.
She’s a girl. A capable one, but she isn’t going to be able to fend off some creepy asshole who is looking for her, with a kid attached to her hip.
She needs men, or at least a man—me, specifically—to make sure she stays safe and keeps breathing.
“I would’ve found somewhere else safe for us to go.”
“You found some place. You’re with me now. You have us.”
She looks at me funny, her lip curling up. “I don’t have the two of you, and I’m not with you, with you. I’m a charity case at this point. Something I don’t deal well with and never have.”
I lift an eyebrow, glancing at her. “Do I look that fucking generous to take on a charity case?”