Bella takes a deep breath before seemingly staring into my soul.
“You didn’t kill your brother.”
My body moves as if I were physically struck, flinching away from her. Those were the last words I ever expected to come from Bella’s lips. Before I realize I’m doing it, I’m shaking my head.
She holds up a hand. “Grayson, you did not kill your brother. A drunk truck driver did.” The hand on my lap and the touchthat’s usually so comforting burns my skin at her next words. “I want you to really hear me when I say this.You did not kill your brother.Scott Inling, a truck driver from Indiana, was drunk driving and ran a red light.”
My eyes fill with tears, my hands fisting at my sides as anger and indignation rise.
“You were sober and had your seatbelt on. Even if Drew had his seatbelt on, he still would have passed away. Lewis smashed his truck into the side of your car going over ninety miles per hour.”
“No, I was driving. I didn’t check before taking off. I didn’t wait for Drew to put his seatbelt on and I?—”
“You were in the wrong place at the wrong time,” she says so softly that the tears pooling in my eyes fall. One after the other, and they don’t stop.
She scoots forward, her gentle caress on my cheek hurting all that much more because she knows what I did and she’s still so gentle with me as she wipes my tears away.
I didn’t realize I wasn’t breathing until my lungs demand air, and suddenly, I’m gasping. “But I should have waited. If I just waited two seconds, Bella, he would be here. Two seconds. It’s a blink. Just two seconds and he would be here with me.” My chest constricts, my body shaking. The grief is physical, like I was the one in the passenger seat that got thrown from the car. “He was my baby brother, Bella. I was the oldest one. I was meant to protect him. I was meant to be the one who didn’t do dumb shit?—”
“You didn’t do anything wrong, Grayson.”
“I should have waited!” I jump to stand because I can’t sit right now. Not as my heart thumps wildly in my chest. Not as every single ounce of pain since the moment my brother’s heart stopped beating floods my system.
She comes to me, tears filling her own eyes. She tries to soothe me with her touch but I can’t handle it. “No, please, I don’t deserve it. Really, I don’t deserve it. I could have stopped it. I don’t deserve your kindness. I don’t deserve any of it.”
My lip wobbles as I try to get my next breath, but I can’t.
“Two seconds,” I say on a broken whisper before I drop to the couch, weeping for the brother I lost.
Bella kneels in front of me, Bambi close on her heels. She lays her head in my lap and whines but it’s Bella who draws my attention. She pushes my hands away from my face and moves between my legs, cradling my head in her hands as if I’m something worth caring for.
“Grayson, those two seconds are not on you. I cannot begin to fathom how much this hurts. I wish I could rewind the time for you, but the person who carries the full blame of that night is behind bars, and his name is not Grayson Crawford.”
“But—”
“No, darling,” she cuts in, the sadness in her eyes gutting me. “What happened that night is the worst thing imaginable. But you didn’t drive that truck drunk and you didn’t smash it into your car. You pulled away from the curb as Drew was buckling in and you drove through a green light. You didn’t do anything wrong, Grayson. You are not to blame for this.”
I stare at her. I stare at this beautiful woman, cradling my broken heart in her hands and ever so softly trying to repair it, and it’s in this moment that I realize how much I love her.
They tell you that you need to be the one to heal yourself, but sometimes that’s too hard. Sometimes our minds are too cruel on ourselves. I can tell that if I let her, she could help me. She could help combat the angry, cruel voice that screams at me that I should have been the one to die that night.
Taking a choppy breath, I advert my eyes, her soft-spoken, kind words sinking into my mind, but I’m not ready to admit that yet. She must read that on my face because she says, “I have another thing to talk to you about.”
“Fuck, Blaze, I can only handle so much.”
“I know, but the same could be said for your mom.”
That has my head snapping up.
“Now, before you get angry, yes, I called your mom, and no, I don’t regret it. You can bitch and moan in the car to me all you want, but you need to stop hiding from them, Grayson. Theydon’t blame you. In fact, the only one who blames you for Drew’s death isyou.”
My mouth is opening and closing like a fish out of water because I’m genuinely stunned. “Y-you called my mom?”
She dips her head with a stubborn gleam in her eyes. “Yes, and it’s been long enough. This afternoon I’m driving you to your parents—” She places her finger over my lips, glowering. “No. Stop torturing yourself. You’re not the only one you are hurting by doing so. We’re going and that’s final.”
I lean back, taking her in. “When did you get so mouthy?”
She rolls her eyes. “I take it that’s a begrudging yes?”
