Page 176 of First in Line

“Go to Monaco,” I harshly interrupt him. “You’re not needed here anymore.”

Dismissing his dinner, he walks up to me, his uneven gaze hard. “You think I don’t live with that guilt every day? I know I have a responsibility in this, Evangeline. But you can’t put it all on me. It’s not fair.”

It becomes hard to breathe. “What are you implying?”

He thinks for a while about his words. Not which ones to say, but if he should say them. When they come out, I know he’s been thinking them over and over for two months. “Four days,” he says. “She was in distress for four days. Suffocating, dying. You could have noticed. You could have gone to the hospital and saved her.”

His accusation is like a stab through my heart. I can’t believe he’d say that.

Those things I’ve been telling myself every day since it happened, the ones my therapist tries to rip out of my head twice a week, sound infinitely worse coming from him. It’s not just in my head. It’s true. I killed our baby because I wasn’t paying enough attention, too busy worrying he’d die on a racetrack to notice she was the one dying.

Realizing just how terribly harsh his words were, he tries to backpedal. “Sorry, I didn’t mean that, princess,” he tries. “My head’s all messed up.”

I don’t believe him. It sounded too true. Almost rehearsed. I know he’s been thinking of it as much as I have. My voice is broken, as if I’m being torn apart from within, when I whisper, “You think I killed our baby…”

“I don’t. Evie, I’m so sorry. I should never have said that.”

“You hate me for it, don’t you?”

“I could never hate you, Evie.” When he tries to take me into his arms, I don’t let him. I swerve away from his touch, wrapping myself in my own embrace instead.

“Go to Monaco,” I say again, almost begging this time.

“Princess, I can’t abandon you like this.”

“I’ll be okay. I promise, Jax. Just… go. It’s important. There’s no need for both of us to stay here. It’s not like we want to be near each other, anyway.”

He doesn’t deny it. No matter how much I need him to, he doesn’t correct my statement. I didn’t think my heart could break more than it already has. But I was clearly wrong.

“I’ll tell Rosie I’m going,” he eventually decides. “But only if my mom can make the flight and spend those few days with you. I don’t want you alone, Evie.”

“I’ll be fine on my own. I’m not a ticking bomb.”

“It’s for my peace of mind, then, okay?”

Part of me wants to argue, but I can tell it’s either him or his mother. I don’t have much of a choice. “Okay,” I reluctantly agree.

“I’ll give her a call right now.”

I nod, then watch him take his phone out and leave the room. He probably doesn’t want me to hear what he’ll tell her, how worried he is about me, how she needs to come and make sure I won’t do something stupid while he’s gone.

It’s not like I can even blame him. I’ve had those thoughts. Too many of them. It seemed easier to make it all stop than to keep going. But they have mostly vanished thanks to the antidepressants. Now, it’s like I barely get any thoughts at all. And when I do, they don’t stick.

Turning around, I face the sink and the broken plate in it. This is how I feel. Torn apart, shattered. And every sharp edge of me is a danger to others. To Jax especially. Those fractured pieces might slice through him at any time. And I think his broken pieces are doing the same to me. I’m not sure we can fix ourselves back the way we used to be. Let alone make sure we still fit together by the end.

As if drawn to it, I grab a piece of the plate. My thumb comes to the sharpened rim, barely grazing, testing out just how cutting it is. And then I push the pad against it. Like I can’t help myself.

I press and press, welcoming the pain that pierces through the haze of the antidepressants. Until glass breaks skin and crimson appears between them. It’s the same blood that pooled within me two months ago, insidiously lethal.

Jackson is right. I should have noticed she was moving less. I should have gone to the hospital when the light spotting returned, instead of dismissing it. I could have saved her. It’s my fault more than his.

Blood slides along the broken edge, then drops into the sink. I watch it, remembering how so much of it poured out of me that night, soaking my silk pajama shorts and the floor below me. It should have killed me, not Ophelia. I deserved to die for not noticing, not her. She was innocent. Pure. She should have lived.

I sense Jackson’s presence behind me before his hands come on each side of me, gripping the edge of the sink. Immediately, I let go of the broken piece and ball my hand, hiding my bleeding thumb in it. He remains right behind me, not touching me, but close enough that I can feel the heat of his body in the spacebetween us. I stay perfectly still, closing my eyes to fight the tears his closeness brings.

When he rests his forehead on the back of mine, I swallow down a strangled sob.

“I want to be near you, Evie,” he breathes out. “I just don’t know how to, because you won’t let me.”