Page 123 of In Your Wake

“I mean, after everything we’ve done, nothing about this should faze you.”

“And I’m not fazed. I’m completely unfazed.”

A deep, husky laugh bursts out of me, and it feels too good, reminding me of how things used to be between us. The ease of our conversations and how we could pick up on the subtlest details.

A faint vibration sounds nearby. I reach for my phone on the nightstand, but come up empty.

“Shit. Where’s my phone?” I sit up and scan the room.

“In your pants?” Max suggests.

I groan. My clothes are scattered all over the place, so I’m not sure where my pants are. If a fire were to break out this instant, and I had to get dressed in a hurry, I’d be screwed.

“Think I should ignore it?” I ask, uninterested in leaving the comfy, warm bed, but already rolling out of it.

Beside the wingback chair, where I sat while Max rode me raw last night, I find my pants crumpled on the floor and pick them up. The phone keeps vibrating, and something unnatural upsets my stomach. When I pull it out and read the screen, my entire being seizes; my heart and my body grow icy.

Alert, probably noticing my expression, Maxine sits up in bed. “What’s wrong?”

“Mom?” I answer to her crying on the other end. Not crying, sobbing. She’s muttering something about Bill having another stroke. Her words are so jumbled it’s hard to be sure, but deep down, I already understand. “Is he okay?” I ask.

Her crying stops abruptly. An eerie silence takes over, as if all the sound in the world has disappeared. All that’s left behind is the whooshing of my heartbeat between my ears.

Her faint “no” breaks through the wall in my brain, hitting me like a sharp smack across the face.

“I’m on my way.” I’m not sure, but I think I press End before letting the phone drop out of my hand and fall.

In the same moment, Max rushes to my side, holds me, and eases me down until my knees hit the floor. She tucks my head into the crook of her neck, running her fingers along the base of my nape and into my hair, lightly rocking my body.

“Shh, it’ll be okay. I’m here.”

Dark, clouded with so many emotions, her words crack through my mind like a beacon in a storm.

She’s here. She’s with me. And until this very moment, I never grasped how lost I was without her, or how much I truly needed her by my side.

Max

Oh, God. I’m dressed like Princess Peach, standing in the middle of Bill and Robyn’s living room, like a statue.

By my side, Mitch is in his wrinkled dress shirt and pants, and we’re staring through the space, but my eyes struggle to focus on anything in particular, avoiding specific things, reminders of what the house used to hold. Of a soul that was here only a few hours ago. A soul that is now gone…

“If we’d been here… if we hadn’t been…?” Mitchell looks so untethered, with wet eyes and a permanently clenched jaw.

“Don’t think like that,” I plead, weaving my fingers through his, bringing his hand up to my heart. “There’s nothing you could have done. The doctors said it was a matter of time.” I look up, forcing a reassuring smile, but his lips don’t budge.

“Will she be okay?” he asks.

“She will.”

Straight after getting the call, I drove us to the hospital in Hallstead, where we met Robyn. The doctor gave us the news, and we sat together in the family room, consoling Robyn as best we could, but I could tell Mitch was struggling to hold himself together.

Once I had helped fill out the paperwork and they were ready to leave Bill’s side, I drove Robyn to her sister Maggie’s house. Maggie said she’d come over to get Robyn’s things another day and that she could stay with her as long as needed.

For now, this house is the last place Robyn should be. Even I don’t feel right being here, as if I’m intruding.

“I need to leave,” Mitch states, reading my mind. “Let’s go to your place. Or back to the inn?” He cringes and shakes his head as if second-guessing himself. “No, not the inn. I just… I can’t—”

“It’s all right, Mitch. We’ll go to my place. Do you want to get some of your things?”