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Letha was gone.
Gone.
I didn't get to tell her I loved her.
I didn't get to say goodbye.
I didn't get to hold her hand when she drifted away.
I didn't get to be there.
I don't know how I drove. I don't even remember how I got to my car. I wasn't sure how I was able to see when tears flooded my eyes so relentlessly that my shirt was damp, sticking to my skin, chilling me to the bone.
I don't even remember waiting for the gate to be opened for me - or who did it.
The next thing I was aware of was pulling my car right up to the front door, not even cutting the engine, throwing open my side door, then falling to my knees right beside my car.
"Oh shit," I heard hissed before I heard boots running, a door slamming.
God, it hurt.
I didn't even have words to describe the crumbling, empty feeling in my chest, the acute piercing, the burning in my lungs that refused to hold any air.
There was a door and boots again, several sets.
Hunched over, I couldn't see.
But I heard him.
The person I came to without even thinking of it.
"Lenny?" his voice called, sounding as horrified as I felt.
There was a dying animal noise that filled my ears, and it took me a long second to realize it came from me as I curled further forward, trying to hold myself together.
There was hardly even a pause before I felt arms slide under my legs, then my lower back, before I felt myself held against a strong chest, lifted, then carried.
I turned my face into his soft shirt, soaking his through as I had done my own. My hands curled into his shoulders, holding on too hard, I knew, but couldn't force my fingers to loosen their hold.
"What is everyone running—" Adler's voice called then stopped as he, I imagined, took in my sobbing, broken self. "Oh, fuck," he hissed as Edison led me away.
A door slammed.
Edison lowered himself down onto the bed.
His one arm held me tight.
The other stroked places reassuringly - my hair, my back, my neck - as I sobbed - loudly, uncontrollably.
He didn't shush me.
He didn't tell me it was okay.
I guess maybe a part of him knew that it wasn't, that saying so would cheapen how I was feeling.
He was just - as he had once promised - there for me.
He let me purge it until the skin on my face felt burned raw from tears, until the shirt beneath my face was soaked, until my eyes were so swollen that I suddenly felt tired even though I was sure the last thing in the world I would ever be able to do again was sleep.
But later, and I wasn't sure how much later it was, it felt like years, that was exactly what happened.
And I didn't wake up until a long, long time later, and only then because Edison was shaking me, almost violently.
"No," I hissed, trying to curl away from his hold.
"You have to get up."
His voice was soft, sweet, almost pleading.
But I was just sharp edges protecting the nothing inside.
"Fuck off."
There was a small exhale as he sat down on the edge of the bed, hand sinking into my hip, dragging me back onto my back.
"It's been twelve hours, Lenny. You need to get up. Eat. Drink. Talk to me."
"I don't want to talk. And I'm not hungry or thirsty."
"I'm sorry about your sister."
Something inside snapped at that, shooting me upward in the bed, shock flooding my system as I impatiently shoved hair out of my face, looking at Edison through small, pained eyes, a headache jackhammering in my temples. "How..."
"Your phone kept ringing in your car. Cy brought it to me. I answered. It was the hospital asking about the arrangements." I shot forward at that, trying to grab my phone, desperate to get back to them, to tell them not to release the body on my mother's word. To wait for me. I would not drop the ball again. I would not let her turn my amazing fucking sister's funeral into a dog and pony show. I wasn't going to let her cheapen her memory. Her, the woman who spent her life hating the amazing, beautiful, sweet, and wonderful person that had been Letha.
Had been.
God, the pain was enough to make me have to curl forward again.
"It's okay, I told them that you would call them back in the morning with a plan," he told me, his hand closing over mine on the phone. "She said that in light of what happened, they will make sure you are the one who handles the arrangements."
I owed them something.
Those nurses.
Someday when I wasn't pieces on the ground - if ever that stopped - I owed them a thank you for all that they had done.
