My gaze bounces around her face, lingering on the way her eyelids twitch for a few seconds before moving to Pierre, his empty sockets staring skyward, my eyes fixed on the knife through his neck. “The cemetery.”
“Is she…” I can hear him inhale sharply, unable to say the words, and all I can do is nod.
“She’s still with us. I’ve got her, and she’s still with us.”
I keep saying that as Pete asks about Pierre, as he says a bunch of shit about medics and police.
The words keep playing on a loop, spilling from my lips until my tongue is dry, screaming in my head until I can’t speak.
I hold Leonor a little tighter while I stare at Pierre, angry that he’s gone, hating myself for being grateful that my girl isn’t.
All I can think is how fucking grateful I am that our girl is still here.
I’ve got her.
She’s still with us.
Leonor is still fucking with us.
33
NORM
My heart hurts.
That’s the only way I can describe how I feel right now, how the guys and I have felt for the last two months, and I’m starting to worry that there isn’t anything that will make that feeling go away.
Which is a lie.
I know exactly what will help that stupid thing inside my chest start beating it’s regular rhythm again, and she’s laying in the bed across from me staring out the window without actually seeing anything.
It’s been two months of hell for Leonor.
Sixty three goddamn days of doctors and medications, detectives and security.
Almost eight and a half weeks of bathing her, begging her to eat then all but forcing her to, making sure she gets up to move at some point, as well as just watching her fucking breathe.
The four of us are total disasters, each with our own brand of trauma response, and the only thing that hasn’t let our entire life go to shit is the fact that we have each other.
Even if Leo is only here as a shell of herself right now.
Losing Pierre would have been one thing on its own.
Natural death would have devastated all of us, would have been especially hard on Justine and Leonor, but it’s a part of life we all have to experience at some point. We know that but I don’t think anyone could have been remotely prepared to handle something like what actually happened to him.
The way he was murdered… it makes me sick every time I think I about it and as soon as the nausea stops, I get so angry I can’t even think straight. Never in my worst nightmares could I conjure up something like that, nor could I imagine it happening to someone I love.
It did, though.
Pierre didn’t deserve that, no one does but definitely not him, and while my heart aches for Justine’s loss, I can’t help the sliver of selfish gratitude that’s come with mourning Leo’s dad.
Because it could have been her.
It makes me an absolutely terrible human being and solidifies my place in hell for thinking something like that but it could have been our girl with a knife through her neck, and the reality of that has terror racing through my entire body every time the thought crosses my mind.
Losing Leonor at any point is a sure fire ride to the afterlife but again? After she did actually die then disappeared from our lives for what might have been forever if she hadn’t accidentally called Lucky?
I wouldn’t survive it.
