Careless(8)

“Willow,” she croaks.

“She’s not here,” I say.

I reach out to her and taking hold of her arm, I pull her inside. I shut the door and take hold of her shoulders so I can make sure she’s okay. I can feel her trembling under my hands which makes worry fuse with the anger still burning in my chest.

“What happened?” I’m not even going to ask if she’s okay. It’s pretty clear she’s upset.

I swallow my own rampant emotions which isn’t an easy thing to do.

Leigh looks dazed as she stares impassively at my chest.

“Uhm… Marcus,” she whispers. “Can you call Marcus and ask him to bring her home?”

“Sure,” I say.

She shakes her head, and a devastated look crosses her features.

“Leigh,” I whisper, leaning in as I try to catch her eyes. “What happened? Is it something I can help with?”

She shakes her head again and turns away from me. When she reaches for the door, I move fast and grab hold of her hand.

“Where are you going?”

“The apartment. I’ll wait there for Willow.”

I hate the hollow sound in her voice. There’s no way I’m letting her walk back to the apartment with the state she’s in.

Wanting her nowhere near the front door, I pull her into the living room. I frame her face with my hands, forcing her to look at me.

“Tell me what’s wrong.”

Her breathing hitches and she grabs hold of my wrists.

“She had an accident,” she groans, and it sounds so painful, I feel it in my gut.

“Who?” I ask, immediately worried about Evie and Della.

She moves slowly as if it’s too much effort to even talk. She looks up at me, her eyes filled with devastation. It makes them look bruised, as if someone has crushed her spirit. I move closer to her, wanting to fix whatever’s wrong.

Her nails dig into my skin and her face crumbles.

“She’s dead, Jaxson,” she cries. The words rip through me like a hurricane.

“Who, Doc? Who’s dead?”

I dread hearing her say that it’s Evie or Della.

“My mom.” Her breathing comes in bursts as the shock hits her again. “Mom’s dead,” she groans, and her body convulses from the hurt tearing through her.

This is the first time since Marcus that I can actually feel someone else’s pain. I felt sorry for Rhett and Mia. With Marcus, and now with Leigh, I can feel what’s happening to them.

I feel the blow of the words as if someone punched me. I feel the hopelessness knowing there’s nothing I can do to ease her pain.

My heart breaks under the heavy weight of her grief.

“Fuck, Doc,” I breathe the words past the pain. “I’m so fucking sorry.”

I pull her into my arms and press her face against my chest. I hold her tightly, wishing there was a way I could take this pain from her.

“Jaxson,” she gasps as her hands clutch my sides. “My mom died. She’s gone, and there’s nothing I can do to bring her back.”

I hold her tighter, pressing my lips to her hair. She must’ve just found out. She’s bouncing between shock and the horrible reality of what happened.

“I’m sorry, Doc,” I whisper. There’s nothing else I can say that will make this any easier for her.

For minutes her gasps of sorrow fill the air. She wraps her arms around me as another wave hits her.

“I can’t cry,” she whispers. “I wish I could cry. It’s stuck inside of me. I feel sick.”

Fuck, this is killing me.

I pull back so I can frame her face again. Not knowing what to say, I press a kiss to her forehead. A raw sob escapes her lips, which makes me kiss her cheek. I rain kisses down all over her face, trying to give her some of my strength.

This is easily one of the worst nights of my life. I’ve never felt so helpless before.

“You were right,” she breathes. “Feelings hurt.” She grabs fistfuls of my shirt as a silent cry rips through her. She gasps for air, and I worry that she’s going to start hyperventilating.

“It hurts.” She slams a fist against her chest as if she’s trying to ease the pressure building inside of her.

“Jaxson,” she gasps my name.

I can’t fucking handle seeing her like this. I slip one arm under her knees, and the other behind her back, lifting her up against my chest. I rush up the stairs to my room, and as soon as I kick the bedroom door shut behind us, I let her legs drop to the floor as my mouth crashes against hers.

The need to ease her pain overwhelms every part of me.

She brings her hands to my neck and standing on her toes, she tries to get closer to me. My tongue surges into her mouth, and when she kisses me back, a foreign ache spreads through my chest.

I hurt because she’s hurting.

I break because she’s breaking.

I’m lost because we’ll never be together even though she feels like home. We’ll only end up destroying each other the same way my parents did. I can’t do that to her. She deserves so much more.

I start to pull back, but she moves with me.

“Don’t stop. Please, Jaxson,” she begs. I close my eyes as the crack in my heart deepens. “Help me.”

“You’re upset, Doc. Fuck, that’s an understatement. You’re in shock. We’re both a mess right now. This will be a mistake.”

She shakes her head and pleadingly looks up at me.

“Help me feel anything but this pain. I can’t process it. I can’t comprehend it.” Panic tightens her features, and I can see her mind working to make sense of her loss. “There’s a solution to every problem. If death is the problem, what’s the solution? I can’t solve the equation.”

Fucking hell, I’ve never seen anything more heartbreaking in my life. She’s trying to rationalize her way through the pain.

“Doc,” I groan, pressing my forehead against hers.

I swallow the emotions as they threaten to suffocate me.

“You can’t solve it. It isn’t a problem. It’s life.”

Her breaths burst over my lips.

“What’s the reason then?”

I close my eyes and give her the only answer I can. “It’s to remind us that we’re just human.” I can see my answer isn’t enough so I add, “People die so others can live. Think of it, Doc. If we were immortal where would everyone live? It’s nature.”

She nods, and even though the ground has just been ripped from beneath our feet, it’s amazing to watch her extraordinary mind absorb the facts. She might be a genius, but at the end of the day, she’s just a nineteen-year-old girl who lost her mother.

“I don’t know how to process the pain.”

“You can’t, Doc. You need to ride the wave. It will get easier eventually. I know it fucking sucks right now, and it will suck even more tomorrow, but this time next year you’ll feel better.”

A desperate sound escapes her as she struggles to breathe through the finality of death.

“I can’t remember the last words I said to her.”

“Don’t think about things like that. Not now.”

I caress her jaw with my thumbs, keeping my forehead pressed against hers.

“I wish I could take your pain. I’d do anything to make this easier for you.”

She presses her mouth to mine, and feeling her trembling lips, breaks my heart a little more. Tonight is changing me. I’ll never be the same again.

All I know with unwavering certainty—it no longer has anything to do with me wanting her, but all about her needing me.

∞∞∞



LEIGH



I can’t cope with the thought that I’ll never see Mom again. I’ll never hear her voice again.

She won’t be here to see me perform my first surgery.

She won’t help me plan my wedding.

My children will never know how amazing their grandmother is… was.

Her heart stopped beating. It’s no longer pulsing blood through her veins.

My entire life I’ve been obsessed with the heart. I wanted to know everything about it. I wanted to conquer it, but instead, it conquered me.

I need a moment’s relief from the pain, or it will drive me insane.

I pour all my heartache into the kiss, silently begging Jaxson to give me this moment I desperately need.

“You’re hurting,” he murmurs against my lips.

“Please,” I beg, not caring about how I’ll feel tomorrow. This moment is what matters. Tomorrow I have to face the harrowing reality of life devoid of my mother. I have to go back to a home which will haunt me with echoes of my mother’s life. I only have this one chance with Jaxson to take the edge off my harsh reality before I’m forced to face it.

When he tries to say something else, I stop his words by deepening the kiss. A deep groan rumbles up his throat finding an echo inside of me.

When he pulls away, I grab hold of the hem of my shirt and yank it over my head. I shove my panties and shorts down my legs and kick them away.

“Fuck, Doc, you’re killing me,” he growls.

I need him to growl. I need him to hate-fuck me. I need him to devour me so I can find relief from this intense ache and futile sense of emptiness.

I grip the hem of his shirt and relief eases the pain when he allows me to pull it off. I press my mouth to his chest, and as a wave of despair hits, I sink my teeth into his skin.

“Fuck,” he hisses.