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My mother’s tears-strained cheeks flushed even more, and she looked away, but not before I caught the flash of pain and guilt on her face. “If I could… I would have changed how things were. I was a good wife, but I couldn’t be a good mother.”
So, now, she cared. But too little, too late.
I got to my feet and straightened up. “Are you done?”
Silence. They both looked as if they had aged ten years since I had last seen them. Tired. Frail. Weak.
Their story explained their pasts, but it wasn’t enough. I still didn’t understand a lot of things. None of it made sense in my head, and the hospital room swayed back and forth in front of me.
“It’s too late,” I said out loud, the words were more for me than for them.
It was too late… Eighteen years too late.
There was no fixing this.
I walked out, closing the door behind me. My gaze immediately went to Lila. She was slumped in a chair, her head in her hands. She must have heard me approaching, because her head snapped up, and she straightened.
“Are you okay?” she whispered; her eyes wide. Frightened. Worried.
“He’s… sick. Cancer.” The moment I said those words, my knees weakened, and I sunk into the chair beside her. It suddenly felt… real.
This wasn’t a nightmare.
This was real.
My father had cancer… has cancer. Shit. Shit. SHIT! I felt a tick in my eyelid, my vein pulsed in my throat, throbbing. I felt… sick. The bitter taste of bile made its way to my mouth. God, I was going to throw up.
“Maddox.”
Her voice.
My name.
Her sweet, sweet voice.
“Breathe through your nose, Baby,” she whispered, running her hand over my arm.
I squeezed my eyes shut, and I did as I was told. Breathed through my nose, like Lila taught me. Like her therapist had taught her.
Once my lungs stopped feeling like they were getting crushed under a pile of rocks, I opened my eyes and stared into Lila’s brown ones. Lila Garcia was the anchor; I was the whole goddamn ocean.
“You’re thinking about it, aren’t you?” she questioned softly.
“Thinking about what?”
“What it would be like if your father is dead? You’re wondering why you care and why your chest aches.” She nodded at where I was rubbing my chest – doing so, unconsciously, until she pointed it out. Lila knew me too well. She knew me better than I knew myself. To her, I was an open book. I let my hand drop to my thigh.
“Do you know what I regret the most about my accident?”
I didn’t respond. She took my hand in hers and slid her fingers between mine, squeezing. “I never got a chance to tell my parents how much I loved them. Our last moment was us fighting… and me calling them bad parents. That’s what hurts the most, Maddox. If I could go back in time, I’d shout how much I love them. If I could go back in time, I’d beg to just spend one more second with them. Just to see their faces, to see their smiles and hear their voices.”
“It’s not your fault. The accident,” I murmured, looking down at our entwined hands. Her smaller, paler one, in my much bigger and rougher hand. We were perfect together. Had been perfect together… until we weren’t anymore.
“I know. But I still feel guilt over our argument and our last moments together.”
I frowned and looked up at her face. “My relationship with my parents is not the same as yours, Lila. It’s a different situation.”
“I know, Maddox. But trust me, when I tell you… you hate your father so much, but deep inside, you just want to be loved by him. Ten years from now, you’re going to wonder… What if? What if I gave my parents a chance? What if… I had spent those last moments with him? What if, Maddox? Those last moments won’t erase twenty or so years of a bad relationship, but it could be a beginning of something better. Who knows? Who the fuck knows… but what if?”
She rubbed her thumb over my knuckles. I was transfixed by the movement, the gentle glide of her fingertips. “I constantly live in regret and guilt, Maddox. I know what it feels like. That burden on your shoulders, the pain – nothing physical, but sometimes that ache in your heart is the worst. I don’t want that for you. One of us living through it is enough. You deserve better than that,” she said, wrenching my chest open and squeezing my bloody heart with her bare hands.
Lila reached up and touched the side of my face, cupping my cheek. “You are worthy of love, Maddox Coulter. And you deserve everything you want.”
I want you.
All I ever wanted was her. She was everything I needed.
