AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The coffee was kept fresh, sandwiches and snacks brought, but there was no word from surgery. An hour passed, then four. And Alyssa knew it was taking too long. There was no news, not even a hint of how Sebastian was doing.
She couldn’t stand the wait. She could feel her stomach clenching, nerves crashing through her system until she felt as though she were shaking apart from the inside out. It wasn’t tears threatening to spill, but every drop of coffee she’d consumed while waiting.
Rising to her feet, Alyssa moved to the bank of windows that looked out to the parking lot. There Falcone, Raeg, and Summer were talking. Summer, with her usual flare for drama, was using her hands to emphasize a point. She probably drove Falcone crazy on a daily basis, and poor Raeg, she gave him hell every time they were in the same room.
There was definitely a lot of history between the southern belle and her father’s chief of staff. One of these days she was going to have to ask Summer about it.
Turning away from the windows, her head lowered, Alyssa wrapped her arms over her breasts, frowning as distant memories teased her mind but refused to come into focus. Summer beside her bed. Summer was crying, but Alyssa was as well. Not the quiet, gut-wrenching sobs coming from her friend, but silent, miserable tears. Why was she crying with Summer? She couldn’t remember a time she’d ever done so.
There was her father; he wasn’t crying, but he was telling her something she couldn’t quite understand. Distant memories of Margot sitting next to her, and those really confused her, continued to tease at her mind until she thought she’d go insane.
There were simply too many people around her. She couldn’t seem to think for the quiet background conversations and the anticipation each time a nurse was glimpsed moving up the hall.
Glancing around, Alyssa found Shane with Lucien and Murphy, deep in conversation. Lark sat alone close to the entrance to the room texting on her phone. Moving to her, she asked the younger girl to let Shane know she was heading to the ch
apel. She needed to think, to recover the memories she’d pushed back as she’d pushed her emotions back.
At Lark’s silent nod Alyssa left the waiting room and moved down the hall, pushing the door open to the Chapel. Candles lit the interior, the quiet, solitary atmosphere more peaceful than she’d expected.
Moving into one of the pews, Alyssa let that peacefulness wrap around her, over her. Wiping a hand over her face and breathing in deeply at the ache tightening her chest and the constriction at her throat.
Tears were for grieving, she reminded herself, and there was so much she’d never allowed herself to grieve over.
“Now, I need you to make me a promise.” Margot leaned close, the tears on her face dried now, though her eyes still glistened with moisture. “Promise me you won’t cry over me, Alyssa. Remember, tears are for grieving only. There’s no reason you should ever grieve for me. I don’t deserve your tears.”
“I always loved you,” Alyssa had to force herself to speak, it was so hard. The fever clouded her mind so much, made everything seem like a dream. “You were always my momma, Margot. No matter your faults.”
Margot seemed to freeze for a moment before she lowered her head slowly and wiped at her eyes.
“I don’t deserve it,” she finally muttered.
“You made me strong,” Alyssa sighed. “Taught me how to be patient. I’ve had to be patient.…” She had to wait for Shane and Sebastian, as much as she’d hated it.
Margot’s head lifted as she leaned forward slowly and kissed Alyssa’s brow. “I have always loved you, squirt,” she whispered. “You were so tiny, so fragile, I never knew what to do with you. But I have always loved you.”
Margot didn’t look at her again. Straightening, she left the bedroom as Alyssa tried to call her back, tried to make her return so she could explain why there would be a reason to grieve.
“Don’t go…,” she whispered as the fever dragged her under once again. “Don’t go.…”
*
“Come on, Alyssa, don’t go like this.” Gia stood at the door as the driver carried Alyssa’s luggage to the car.
The other girl, suntanned and dressed in cutoffs and a bikini top, leaned against the door frame, arms folded, a frown on her face. “At least tell me what’s wrong.”
“Nothing’s wrong, Gia.” Alyssa looked around, making certain she hadn’t forgotten anything.
Then again, the apartment had been mostly cleaned out sometime yesterday while she slept, waiting for Shane and Sebastian. Everything was gone, even the little white test stick she’d left in the bathroom for them. Even the pictures of them were gone. Every last one. There wasn’t even a memory for her to take with her.
“Something’s wrong. First those hunks that sneak in here completely disappear; now you’re leaving and you weren’t even going to tell me good-bye. That’s not like you.”
“I would have stopped by your apartment,” Alyssa lied, wondering when Shane and Sebastian would finally stop her, keep her from leaving. They weren’t going to let her leave. She knew they wouldn’t.
“Yeah, I hear you.” Gia was still frowning at her as Alyssa moved to the doorway.
“It’s been a great summer, Gia,” she said softly, painfully. “I’ll see you back in D.C.”
Stepping past her, Alyssa had almost turned down the hall when Gia’s door opened. She barely glimpsed the young man who stepped into the hall. She’d paid him such little attention. And she hadn’t wanted to remember leaving the apartment she’d shared with Shane and Sebastian.
