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have her helping me dress any longer because every time I felt her fingertips on my skin it set me on fire. I couldn’t eat dinners with her any longer and gaze into her night-strewn eyes because I enjoyed a little too much how the stars twinkled in her beautiful stare.
She needed to get out. To go find a guy who was worth her time.
And if I could repair things between us once I was healed, then I would.
I somehow managed to prop myself up between the counter and the fridge so I could maneuver myself back into the living room. I’d made it all the way into the damn kitchen from the windows before my leg collapsed from underneath me. No warning. No numbness. No tingling. It just refused to work as I was opening up the refrigerator. I stumbled back into my wheelchair and leaned back, sighing as my eyes closed. I was in so much pain. My vision was tunneling and I felt my head beginning to throb. I used my arms to wheel myself back to my room, then I made my way into the bathroom to find my stuff.
But I stopped when I heard it.
The sounds were faint, but they were there. The light sobs of a distraught woman. I closed my eyes and focused on the sound. I allowed myself to memorize it. Grace was sitting on her bed in her room, crying as she packed up her things. Her sniffles came wafting through the walls and her stifled sobs were muffled and full of pain. She drew in shaking breaths and tried not to cough, and with each new sound I clenched my fists harder.
I forced myself to commit the moment to memory. The moment where I had made the woman I cared for cry. No man did that. No man worthy of any woman’s time made her cry. I opened my orange pill bottle and threw one back, choking it down without any water to chase it with. I didn’t deserve the water. Just the bitter taste of the pill as it slowly inched its way into my stomach.
Then I wheeled over to the far wall and placed my hand on it, splaying my fingers along the only thing that separated Grace and I.
I willed her to stop crying as I imagined comforting her. Murmuring how sorry I was and kissing the ache away in her hand. I closed my eyes and slumped back into my chair, then drew in a deep breath.
There was a good chance I’d be in that damn thing forever.
And the only woman who was okay with that was crying because of me.
Fuck.
I really knew how to screw shit up.
Chapter Seventeen
Grace
I sat on the edge of my bed with my phone as I stared at all the boxes around me. It had taken me three days to pack my things up, and in that time Hayden hadn’t once talked to me. I had received my last paycheck underneath the crack of the guest bedroom door and that had been it. I couldn’t believe it. My heart was breaking. Every time I heard Hayden struggling or grunting or trying to get dressed, I wanted to go help him. Rush to him and try to get him steady on his own feet. I’d hear him slam against the wall or trip getting into his wheelchair or falling against the kitchen counter and there was nothing I could do.
It wasn’t my job anymore to help him.
“Emmy’s Flowers, this is Emilia speaking. How can I help you today?”
“Hey. It’s me.”
“Grace?”
“Yep.”
“Hey! What are you doing calling me at work?”
“I wanted to ask you a question,” I said.
“Then ask it, sweet cheeks.”
“Is that job you offered me still on the table?”
The silence that hung between us was deadly. And for a little while, I thought maybe it wasn’t. That she’d taken my advice and hired for the position already. That would be my luck, for me to turn down one job in favor of another only to have both of them taken from me. I put my head in my hands and placed my elbows on my knees and tried to block out the grunting and slamming around I heard in the room next to me.
“It is for you,” Emilia said.
“What do I need to do to get it back?” I asked.
“Come in tomorrow at nine sharp and help me with these damn azaleas. But I’m confused.”
“About the azaleas?”
