“Stay,” she whispered. “You’re brave, too.”
Brave? Me?
The only thing firing courage in my veins was Lola. Her hand clutched mine, and her head fell against my shoulder. She was still there. Without her, I was shit scared to relive this moment.
“You were with her when it happened?” Lola asked.
I nodded. “Ruth and I were on duty together when dispatch called through some teenagers who’d stolen a car.” My voice wavered and scratched like an old record wobbling around a worn-out turntable. “They were joyriding on the country highway and making a damn nuisance of themselves. A couple of drivers had reported near misses.”
I scrubbed a flannel cuff over my eyes. It didn’t help. The hot sting of tears still burned.
Fuck.
I struggled in a jagged breath. Nope. Didn’t help. I bent over, the heels of my palms pressed roughly into my eyes.
Lola’s hand touched softly on my back. “Aiden?”
I screwed my eyes shut. All my careful control was unravelling, and the more Lola soothed her fingers in a circle on my back, the quicker the threads untied.
“Visibility was shit. It was night. It was pouring. All fucking excuses. I should’ve known better. When I pulled onto the highway, it all happened so fast. Headlights headed for us in the wrong lane. A truck. I made a split-second decision. The only thing I could see was”—I swallowed—“was—”
“Oh, Aiden. This is too much for you. We can stop now.”
No. I couldn’t stop now. The truth wanted to flood out, and nothing was going to stop it. Not me trying to block it out.Not Lola jolting up from the lounge, her arms hugging around my shoulders and burying my face against the warm, protective curve of her belly. Nothing.
“I swerved right. A car pulled out from behind the truck. Those stupid damn teenagers. The truck had switched to the other lane, thinking they’d go past. I didn’t see them until it was too late.” I wrapped my arms around Lola, dragging her warmth as close to me as I could, burying my face deeper into her stomach as the first strangled sob escaped me. “If I hadn’t gone right…”
My weight collapsed into her, the soft cotton of her white T-shirt growing damp beneath my cheek. How long did I cry? I never cried. My ribs ached, burning from the pain of those memories and the sobs that escaped me in tortured gasps after being trapped deep inside me for so many years.
“Aiden,” Lola whispered as she stroked her fingers through my hair. “What happened was an accident. It wasn’t your fault.”
She was wrong.
I lifted my chin. “Itwasmy fault. If I’d turned left…”
Lola cupped my face in her hands. “Adifferenttragedy would have happened.”
“But Ruth would’ve been spared. So would those kids not wearing their bloody seatbelts. I would’ve taken the hit, and everyone else would’ve walked away without a scratch.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do, Lola. Ido.”
“If they did an investigation—”
“I don’t care if that exonerated me of any fault. Look at Ruth, Lola. Look at her! You can’t say I’m not to blame when my best friend was…was… God, Lola. Thosekids.”
“Aiden, you need to be kinder to yourself.Fairerto yourself.” She brushed the hair off my forehead, and her lips curved in a tender smile that any other day would’ve made my heart flip upside down. “I know you don’t trust doctors, but you need totalk to someone about what happened.” Her lips were even more tender when they pressed down on the top of my head.
I swiped at my face with the sleeve of my flannel. Not because the warnings of my father still echoed in my mind, but because Lola didn’t think I was weak. Somehow, that made me feel stronger. She didn’t judge me for falling apart sometimes, and she knew how it felt to be stuck in old memories on repeat.
“I used to see a shrink years ago,” I said. “I stopped going. I didn’t think I needed it anymore.” Truthfully, I hated reliving what I’d done. “I’ve been thinking about going back lately. Maybe it’ll help with the flashbacks…the panic attacks… But, Lola, talking won’t change what happened that night.”
“No, it won’t, but it will help you deal with the nights still to come. Please, don’t keep wading through the mud of these thoughts on your own.”
“What about you?”
“I’m not a psychiatrist, but I’m here to talk any time you want. Thank you for trusting me enough to share that, Aiden. I know it wasn’t easy.”
