“El, you’re shaking.” I felt Sully’s hands on my shoulders, running up and down my arms, and the violent shuddering of my limbs seemed to quieten. “Eleanor, baby, I’m here.”
He was here.
He was here.
Thank God he was here.
“Why is she shaking?” He looked wildly around, eyes landing on someone in scrubs. “Is that normal?”
“Are you her…?” My kind nurse left the inquiry open-ended, and Sully gave an incredulous look, like he didn’t understand why his question hadn’t been answered.
“Boyfriend, husband, whatever I need to be so you don’t kick me out.”
“No worries of that.” A soft smile. “I was just about to give Ellie something to calm some of her nerves. It should help with the shaking.”
I closed my eyes, trying—for the millionth time—to take a deep breath, but I couldn’t.
“It’s already better,” I said.
Not the breathing, but the rest.
Sully’s hands were still up and down stroking my arms.
It was already better—the shaking.
Sully was here.
“We haven’t administered it yet,” she said calmly.
“I know. But it’s better.”
Always better with him.
“Everything’s going to be okay, Eleanor,” he said, and because it was Sully and I’d only ever trusted Sully, I let myself believe it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
ellie
“ISHOULD HAVE?—”
“Please. Please don’t.”
We were in the back seat of Theo’s car again, and Sully had his hand clasped around mine. He sat in the middle seat, his legs too long to fit. If the circumstances were different, it might have been comical, the way he was folded up and squished in so he could sit next to me as I stared out the window. I thought about telling him he could scoot over, that the one foot of distance wouldn’t make a difference, but I realized that might be a lie.
His body was warm against mine, and it was the only thing keeping the chill away. I hated to admit it, but I needed him this close right now, even if he was trying to silence me.
“But—” I tried.
“El, I don’t want to hear a single word out of your mouth blaming yourself,” Sully murmured in my ear as I watched pieces of Rosewood pass me by, all shrouded in a grayish morning light. A quiet Sunday morning. Theo had picked us up from the emergency room just before dawn, but the sun was nowhere to be seen, covered by clouds and rain. How fitting. “It’s going to fucking destroy me to hear you say anythinglike that.”
He sounded so torn, so broken, like he was already destroyed. Another tear rolled down my cheek.
The very last thing in the world I wanted to do was to hurt or harm Sullivan London any more than I already had. But I was really struggling to move past what they’d said. That if maybe I hadn’t put off taking the Lovenox an extra day or two, I’d still be pregnant.
Because I wasn’t.
I wasn’t pregnant—not anymore. And maybe if I hadn’t been so fucking scared, so goddamn paranoid about taking medication that was supposed to help me, we wouldn’t be going through this.
