Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 134212 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 671(@200wpm)___ 537(@250wpm)___ 447(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 134212 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 671(@200wpm)___ 537(@250wpm)___ 447(@300wpm)
A honk from behind me pulls my eyes to the lights, and I pull off slowly. My car is bathed in silence for the rest of the journey to Lo’s. Silence really is the most powerful scream. My head is fucking ringing. I make an excuse to wait in my car, telling her I have calls to make. I’m not up to facing their family home again.
While I sit, twiddling my phone, I get a message from Tia.
Loving someone can screw you up as much as losing someone. X
I laugh under my breath, thinking she’s not far wrong. I feel thoroughly screwed up. The ultimate love is loving someone who can’t love you back. Unrequited love. With or without Lo, I’m in pain. But, again, my feelings are at the bottom of my pile of priorities right now. Lo is losing the future she’d believed was hers. Losing the man she chose to be by her side long before I met her. She comes first.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Rolling to a stop in the drop-off zone, Lo turns to face me. “Will you come in with me?”
Her request knocks me back. “Into the hospital? I’m not sure—”
She grabs my hand. “Please,” she begs.
What can I say? I promised I’d be here for her. Here means anywhere. That includes the hospital. I discreetly breathe in, put the car back into drive and park up in the carpark opposite. As we walk together to the area of the hospital we need, I quietly observe Lo. Her gaze is focused straight ahead, her small body walking taller with every step as feigned strength lifts her. She’s bracing herself for what news she’ll be met with today.
All the nurses we pass through the ward offer sympathetic smiles to Lo, all of which she acknowledges with her own. I wish they wouldn’t. I know she hates that. And yet she’s just too fucking nice to yell her frustration.
I can smell death, the scent drifting up my nose and practically suffocating me. Billy’s room is at the far end of the ward, the blinds closed, the door closed. Closed off from this world. Lo takes the handle and pauses, her shoulders rising as she inhales one last dose of fortitude before she faces her reality.
Hovering a few paces behind, I study her attempts to calm herself. I have to resist telling her to stop trying to be strong. “I’ll be here if you need me,” I say quietly. She looks back to me as I point aimlessly over my shoulder. “Or I could go get us coffee? Something to eat?” The latter is far more appealing to me. I need to keep moving, focus on something, even if it’s the mundane task of fetching food and drinks.
“That would be nice, thank you.” She takes a deep breath and disappears through the door, closing it quietly behind her. I don’t hang around outside the room. I make my way back to the entrance where I saw a café and order two coffees and a muffin, taking my time about it. I take a seat and empty two sachets of sugar into my cup and slowly stir it in. When my phone rings, I’m grateful for the excuse to remain where I am for a while longer.
“Hey, bud,” Todd says, his tone unusually soft. “How’s it going?”
“Horribly,” I admit. “Fucking hell, Todd, the guy isn’t even thirty. How the fuck does this shit happen?”
“It’s tough, man. Really tough. How’s Lo?”
“Pretending to be strong.” I reach up to my temple and try to massage the stress away, then immediately feel shame for it. I know nothing of stress. I know nothing of suffering. “She shouldn’t have to deal with this.”
“Kind of puts things into perspective, doesn’t it? There’s me going into meltdown over a trashed apartment. At least I still have my health. I’m seriously revaluating my life.”
Hearing my best mate—the mate who could be labelled shallow and selfish—talk so deeply is alien. But I get it. “In what way?”
“I don’t know. I’m forty-two years old. If I ever got ill, the only person I have to worry about me is you. How fucking sad is that? I guess being on the outside looking in has just made me realize how empty my life is.”
“Your life if full,” I point out. “Of women.”
“Plural. Maybe I need just one.”
I laugh under my breath, turning my coffee cup on the spot. “Just don’t fall in love with someone who you can’t have, yeah?”
His silence speaks volumes. “Be strong, bud. She needs that.”
I smile through my mental exhaustion. “Pops okay?”
“I just delivered him back to jail. Tia and The River have gone to see her mother.”
“Oh dear.”
“Yeah, expect a call.”
My memory is quickly jogged, the bombshell I was dealt last night coming forward through all of the shit currently polluting my head. “He asked me for Tia’s hand in marriage.”