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Well, mission accomplished.
The doors ping open, making the silence starker as the sound rakes through me like some kind of omen warning me of what I’m about to find. Even if she’s all right, she’ll be scared. Georgina will be petrified, and I’ve left her alone again.
All I can see is that deer-in-headlights stare that she marked me with when she was attacked at the Opera House. It doesn’t matter that I know she’s strong. She’s one of the strongest people I know, if not for anything more other than her defiance and resilience. The stubbornness she possesses is unlike anything I’ve ever known. And there is no one in this world I could love the way I love her.
My chest howls as we step inside the other lift, the old boy still following me. The hollowness is a scorching pain. My precious thing. My heart. She’s somewhere in here, and until I have her in my sights…in my hold, I won’t be able to breathe again. Until I’m certain that she isn’t merely all right, I’ll be drowning. In my thoughts. In my guilt. In all the things I should’ve done and failed to do.
“Follow the smell of coffee and it’ll take you straight to the waiting room.” The old boy looks like he’s more worried about me than what I might find. “I hope she’s all right.” He offers me a sympathetic smile as I start down the long, empty corridor, only looking back to fully take stock of what he’s said, unless I’m really that fucked in the head, that I’m talking without realising. “Your lass. The one you’re agonising over, son, I hope she’s all right.”
It hits me right in the chest. The choice of words. The morose and deep-felt inflection in his tone. It undoes every last dredge of stoic control from me. If my dad were here, he’d say something like that, intending to be hopeful but sounding dire. As I look at him for a second too long, my vision blurs. The pounding of my pulse is so loud that it’s impossible to hear anything else he tells me.
The endless length of the corridor only serves to make my insides scream and scream. It’s impossible to hear myself think as I dodge the people standing around, and when I make it to the waiting room, she’s not there. Spinning, I take in every corner of the room, scanning it for any sign of her.
“I know that you want to wait for your friend.” Cooper’s voice filters in from outside the other doorway that leads to the operating theatres' hallway. “We need to get you checked over. Make sure that you’re not hurt.”
“I’m not leaving!” Georgina snaps, and the fire in her voice has my feet moving so quickly that I don’t have time to prepare myself for the sight of her.
Everything turns to ice and concrete as I take in all the blood. It doesn’t matter that she’s standing on her own. Breathing. Talking. None of that matters because she’s covered in it, and I can’t tell if it’s hers or not. It doesn’t matter all the blood that I’ve seen in my life. The puddles of it that I’ve cleaned up. Stood in. All that I’ve spilt. None of that prepared me for this moment. It’s all I’ve wanted to protect her from.
I failed.
I failed her. The only person that really matters.
I’m just as bad as him. All those times he hurt himself…I’ve done nothing better. Made all his mistakes. Hurt her beyond forgiveness.
Cooper pulls back. He’s almost as bloody as her, and with his movement, she spins to face me. Bloodshot, teary-eyes meet mine, and all I can do is go to her and envelop her in my arms.
“I’m sorry,” I bluster into her hair, barely capable of keeping my voice steady so that I don’t add to her obvious distress. “I’m so fucking sorry…”
Squeezing her to my chest, I hold her as tight as I possibly can, relishing the feel of her arms wrapped around me, equally as snug, her hands clawing at my back as a burgeoning swell of tears bursts from her. The sound of her sobs tears me apart. Everything in me wants to make it all better, wants to soothe her pain and staunch her grief, to wipe all of this away from existence.
“Shhh, Swan…” I press a kiss to her crown while I stroke a hand lightly up and down her nape. “It’s going to be okay.”
Although it’s clear she’s trying to reply, every gasp of air she drags into her lungs morphs into an endless sob. The despair is so fucking deep that it fills me with regret for every ounce of pain I’ve ever caused her. I wish I was better. That I was everything she deserves. That this fucking sickness inside me didn’t make it so hard to see limits and boundaries. There’s never been a time I’ve despised it as much as I do now. Even with Francis’ words whirring in the background of my thoughts—you are who you are not because of the disease, because it’s who you’re meant to be. Who we need you to be. That’s all that matters. The genetics are just statistics. Unimportant and irrelevant.
I used to think he was right. It’s what makes it so easy to keep pushing through even with my nature inclined for destruction and hurt. Now, however, I can’t stop wishing that I was like the rest of them. Better. Perfectly capable of being everything my swan needs. Perfectly capable of giving her everything she wants.
“It doesn’t matter what anyone says, I’ll find a way of making it okay, Georgina.” Lowering my arm to the curve of her back, I lean over her, trying to encompass her so completely that I can be the shelter she needs right now. Because I need to make this better. I need to be everything that I’ve failed to be.
Cupping her face, I tilt it so that she’s looking right up at me. Her big brown eyes are dulled with more sorrow than I can bear. Heavy tears roll down the sides of her face, into her hair, and while I gently stroke the hot tracks on one side, I tell her, “I promise. I swear to you that so long as he’s alive, I’ll do everything I can to keep him that way…for you. Only you.”
“It’s my fault. I should’ve gone in his car. I should…it’s all my fault…” Guilt swims in her eyes as she grapples with my shirt, blubbering into my chest. Every sniff and choking cough stabs into me, wafting my anger. “If he dies…”
“It is not your fault. No matter what happens, baby, it’s not your fault.” It’s mine.
The blame falls on me for entrusting her safety on anyone other than myself. The mistake was mine thinking that I could protect her from a distance. This is all on me. If Georgina had been with me…
“You didn’t see him. So much blood. It was…e-e-everywhere.”
As if to prove her statement, she pushes away. The hoodie I put on her the other night hangs on her small frame, down to the middle of her legging-clad thighs. There’s a tear on one side, and as she takes another step back, I notice her slight limp.
“You’re hurt.”
“It’s nothing,” she replies with a shake of her head.
Instantly, my eyes go back to the tear that’s crusted over with blood and then down to her feet. Her usually clean Converse look a tattered mess.
“We need to get you looked at. You’re limping, Georgina…”
