“Yes, little bird, that’s why. I needed to know how to save you. If you would even want to be saved.”
She turned again, looking out over the ocean. The crashing waves, almost soothing, as if it was washing away everything that had been there.
All of the past.
“Do you think you can find out more about my family?” she whispered, the waves starting to turn blurry.
“If you want me to, yes,” he said, his body wrapped around her.
His strength.
Right then she needed that strength, because her own was failing her.
With a great heaving sob, she broke down. Letting it all out, letting the past, the pain, the anger, all of it loose.
The tears ran down her cheeks, washing it all away.
Just like the waves around them.
She was laying in her bed sound asleep, the tear tracks still visible on her face, and his chest was still aching from hearing her cry.
He had stayed in the hallway, dragging a chair there, so that he would be close by if she needed him.
Sitting there all night long.
He had been afraid that after talking about everything, dragging it all up, that she would have nightmares, but she had slept deep.
Never moving or waking.
By the end of it all, she had been so exhausted that he’d had to carry her back to the truck, tucking her under his arm, holding her as he drove them back to the cabin.
It had taken everything that he had to not react to her words, to the point that his jaw had ached from clenching his teeth so hard. He had known that it was going to be bad, but hearing it had been harder than he had thought.
Fucking bastard Ernesto!
Her father wasn’t any better.
When he had first rescued her, he had thought that the solitude would be good for her.
For both of them.
Now though he was wondering if it would be good for her to go with him to Florida. If being around Christine and Alice would help her.
Although they hadn’t been through the same things as Winter, all their pasts were traumatic, and being together could help her.
