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It gutted me to bring her to this point. I didn’t even know how I’d done it.
I’d busted my ass these past two weeks to become something good enough for her to be proud of, and yet it all seemed to have backfired. Unless something else was bothering her. Not that I would know; she was being so quiet and un-Bailey-like.
Worried and scared what had happened to bring her this low, I silently rose to my feet and tread carefully closer until I reached her. She didn’t acknowledge my approach, I don’t think she even remembered I was there; she’d fallen too far into her grief.
Needing to fix whatever was wrong more than I needed my next breath, I knelt down behind her and slowly wrapped my arms around her.
She trembled in my embrace, but she didn’t push me away. Encouraged by that, at least, I tugged her fractionally closer, then closer again until I could shift her sideways so her cheek pressed against my chest.
I lowered my face to bury my nose into her hair and kissed her head as she burrowed closer, clutching my arm. Shuddering out my relief, because she wasn’t resisting my comfort, I began to rock her back and forth.
I had no idea how long she cried, but each heart-wrenching sob she tried to muffle made each second feel like a year. Waiting it out until she flushed her system of some of her grief was hard. It tried my patience like nothing else. I felt helpless, unable to help the person who meant the most to me. It made my blood seethe with a pent-up frustration. But I knew I couldn’t let my emotions blow; the only person I’d attack would be her, shaking her and demanding she talk to me already. That was the last thing she needed, so my nerves coiled tighter and tighter with each achingly long second.
By the time her tears had settled to an occasional sniffle, I felt exhausted by how hard I’d been holding myself in check. But I merely stroked her hair as gently as possible, determined to give her what she needed most: a shoulder to cry on.
She sat up slowly, wiping her eyes. Tears still clung to her lashes, and the red skin around them had grown swollen and tender. She dropped her fingers lamely, probably realizing she couldn’t hide anything.
When she glanced at me, she looked leery. “I’m sorry,” she croaked, her voice hoarse and low, full of pain.
I shook my head and reached out to calm some of the wayward curls on the right side of her head. “Don’t,” I begged softly. “Don’t apologize to me. Just…please tell me what’s going on?”
“I…” She shook her head and swiped a hand over her eyes again, growing distance. “It’s nothing. I’m fine.”
I snorted. “Bullshit.”
“It’s stupid,” she mumbled, growing irritable.
All I could say was, “No, it’s not stupid. It’s obviously important to you. So it’s important to me. Now, dammit, tell me what’s wrong!”
Hissing out a breath, she merely sent me a stubbornly mutinous glare.
So I sighed as well. “Fine,” I growled, pushing to my feet to pace the floor and spike my hand through my hair. “Then I’ll just start guessing. Is it about the kiss?”
She pulled back, shocked, as if the kiss we’d shared was that last thing on her mind. “Huh?” That didn’t bode well for my ego, since her reaction told me whatever was wrong had nothing to do with our kiss. She’d totally and completely moved on from it.
But it still haunted me, so I pressed the issue. “Are you pissed at me for kissing you? Did I ruin whatever friendship we had? Do you want me out of your life? Can you not see me that way because you saw me with Melody? What? I’ve always, always known what you were thinking before because you always just told me, but now you’re not talking, and I can’t read a damn thing you’re thinking, and it’s scaring the shit out of me. So please, Bailey, just—”
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” she whispered, shaking her head and staring at me as if I was insane for suggesting any of the shit that had just poured from my mouth. She pushed to her feet as well, rising to my level. “None of that…everything you said about the kiss, it’s not…I’m not mad at you for that. Besides, I’m the one who kissed you, anyway.”
“But I’m the one who took it to the next level,” I insisted, watching her face closely and deciding this really didn’t have anything to do with that.
“Yeah, but…” She frowned and shook her head as if confused. “You were just…” She paused again as if she wasn’t sure what she was going to say was right or not.
Gently I urged, “I was just what?”
Again, her head swayed back and forth. “This isn’t about the kiss,” she stated more firmly.
“Then what the fuck is it about?” My patience was slipping. I was going to lose it in five seconds if she didn’t—
“It’s because you don’t need me anymore,” she blurted.
I opened my mouth, but no words came. So I pressed my lips together and blinked at her, trying to make sense of her words. Finally, I said, “What?”
/> “You don’t need me,” she repeated with more force, her eyes filling with tears. “You were still having panic attacks when I left. You looked like a beaten dog as I climbed into my car that afternoon. And now, two weeks later—only fourteen days after I left—you’re fine, as if nothing had ever bothered you. But how? How could you be completely healed, just like that, and...and. none of that had anything to do with me. In fact, it seemed as if I’d been holding you back from really getting better, that you couldn’t heal until you cut me free. So I repeat, you don’t need me.”
I gaped at her, growing disoriented by her words. They felt like accusations, like my getting better was a bad thing.
Barking out a harsh laugh, I took a step away to spread my arms wide so she’d look at me, really look at me.
