The paper felt heavy in my hand. After years of wondering why I wasn’t enough, of building walls so thick that even Tessa had to fight to scale them, I might finally uncover the truth.
“You going to go there?” Jace asked.
I took a deep breath, folding the paper with deliberate precision. “It’s time,” I said. “Time to bury some old wounds.”
Jace nodded, then looked up and down the street with guarded features, like a man expecting shadows to come alive.
I’d noticed it before, how Jace’s normally sharp wit seemed to dull around the same time each year. At first, I’d assumed it was grief. The anniversary of his mother’s death had nearly broken him in college. The guy who’d built an empire from his family’s ashes after his father’s murder had almost crumbled when cancer claimed her too.
He’d recovered on the surface with cutting remarks and brilliant business moves, but something remained guarded about him. Until falling for Tessa, I’d never questioned why Jace lived alone. But watching him check his phone again with that haunted expression, I suspected something darker lurked beneath the surface.
And I started to worry that whatever ghost was hunting him, it was getting closer.
76
BLAKE
When I walked up the concrete steps of the faded gray bungalow, my feet felt encased in lead. The peeling paint matched the broken pieces of my past: worn down, neglected.
My knocks echoed accusations.
You. Left. Me.
You. Broke. Me.
When a short woman in scrubs opened the door, my stomach dropped.
“Does Sarah Vega live here?”
She nodded. “Who’s asking?”
Who indeed? Her former foster son. The boy she’d discarded when he needed her most. Because she claimed she was sick.
Claimed. The word evaporated as I stared at this woman who was obviously a nurse.
“Blake Morrison.”
Her eyes widened with recognition. “Oh, come in.”
The door creaked open to a living room converted into a hospital room. And there, in a bed that dominated the space, lay a ghost of the woman who’d haunted my memories.
The unexpected sight made me freeze for a moment.
Sarah’s once-vibrant eyes were sunken. But what caught my doctor’s attention was the central line port in her chest for long-term IV access.
The realization hit me all at once, making me feel instantly ill.
“You really were sick.”
Every word I’d dismissed as an excuse had been true. Years of anger crumbled to reveal something worse: Guilt that while I’d cursed her name, she’d been fighting for her life.
“Misdiagnosed back then.” She waved a skeletal hand, her smile weak. “Wasn’t a degenerative illness after all. Just a tumor mimicking the symptoms. I fought it for many years.”
Jesus. I couldn’t miss the parallel to Tessa’s illness. If I’d stayed in touch, could I have helped her?
I eyed the gray color of her skin. “How long do you have?”
A coughing fit racked her fragile frame. The nurse rushed to help, offering water, and after a minute, Sarah waved her off.
