While shaking my head, I take a step back, certain he isn’t saying what I think he’s saying. He is talking about Demi in past tense like she’s no longer here.
“Where is she?” I push past my brothers, determined to make it to the door no matter how hard they strive to hold me down. “I want to see her.”
“She didn’t make it through surgery. We did everything we could.”
“Where is she!” I scream into Dr. Falgar’s face, my world crumbling as effectively as my legs when my brothers drag me to the floor.
I fight them with everything I have, uncaring of our mother’s begs for us not to fight. My heart is breaking, shattered into a million pieces. I can’t come back from this.
“Demi!” I punch, bite, and scream, then I call her name for the second time. “Demi!”
After stabbing my fingers under Saint’s ribs, I push Caidyn off me before I spring to my feet and bolt for the door, sidestepping Landon on my way. I almost make it to the corridor when the one man who can stop me with only words steps into my path. My dad’s face is shattered, he is as devastated as me, but his heart breaks even more when he pulls his youngest son’s wet face into his chest to hold him while he cries.
Shoes.Who would have thought something so insignificant was a requirement on your darkest day? When Caidyn packed my belongings, he packedeverything, unsure if Demi and I would ever return to Ravenshoe. The knowledge saw my mother requesting for us to pop by the cabin on the way home. She doesn’t want me walking into the funeral home shoeless, unaware my feet aren’t the only part of me barren.
The cavity in my chest is just as bare.
“Do you want to take anything else?” Saint asks from his station near the bedroom door. A packed-in-a-hurry suitcase is in one of his hands, and a pair of polished dress shoes is in the other. “I can come back later and grab the rest. Sloane will help—”
I halt his offer with a brisk shake of my head. “I don’t needanyof this.”
There was only one thing I wanted in this cabin.
She’s no longer in it.
My steps to the front door slacken when a memory pops into my head for the briefest moment. I barely had the chance to give them the shock they deserved because I stumbled onto an almost unconscious Demi only a second later.
“Head out. I’ll join you in a minute.”
Saint immediately shakes his head. “Madd—”
“I don’t need a fucking shadow, Saint. A shadow won’t bring her back.Nothingwill bring her back.” I ball my hands into fists, choosing anger over grief. “I just want a fucking minute to wrap my head around this. Just a moment of peace. Can you not give me that, Sebastian? Can you not think about whatIneed for a change?”
“This hasalwaysbeen about you, Maddox.Allof it.”
He doesn’t say it, but I know he’s remorseful for how long he kept Demi and me apart even with him having a reason to gloat. This isexactlywhat he predicted.
A heartbreak like nothing else.
Pure fucking devastation.
“If you can’t see that, then you’re more blind than even I realized.”
After tossing over a stack of drawers like they’re weightless, he pivots on his heels and stalks away. I hate that I made him upset, but my devastation is too perverse to fix all the mistakes I’ve made right now. My mind is elsewhere, where it should have been all along.
A rattling breath parts my lips when I lower the bathroom door handle. Even with her leaving the bathroom hours ago, Demi’s scent lingers in the air. It’s a subtle smell that reminds me of long walks in the wilderness followed by a hefty helping of cranberry pie. It’s sweet and addictive, a brutally horrifying reminder of just how much I’ve lost.
The pain in my chest is intense. I’m shocked I can function through it. However, it has nothing on the grief that rips through me when I stop in front of the very things responsible for the intermission in my grief. Three little white sticks are lined up in a row. They’re all positive, but they aren’t wonky like they were placed down by a shaky hand. They’re in an exact line, as symmetrically perfect as the woman who took them.
Their careful placement exposes Demi wasn’t devastated by the news she was going to become a mother. She was happy about the prospect. I’m so confident in my assessment, I truly believe even if she knew how much danger she’d face to carry my child, she still would have gone through with the pregnancy.
She was fearless like that.
Incapable of being taken down.
The strongest woman I’ve ever known.
And now she is gone.
