AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I can still feel Kam’s arms around my waist. Hear his voice in my ear begging me to slow down. But I ignored him. I was determined to show him how fun riding a four-wheeler can be when you’re not driving like an eighty year old. I took one hill going pretty fast. We had to have gone a good ten feet in the air. Kam was holding me so tightly I was having trouble breathing so I slowed down enough to tell him one more jump and I promised I was done. He asked me to let him off.” I open my eyes to see Kane’s dark gaze locked on my face.
“He asked me to let him off and I told him to stop being a baby,” I say, choking slightly on my words. “I didn’t let him off. I took off toward another hill, hitting it going even faster. Only this time I was too far to one side and the four-wheeler turned. All I know is one minute we were in the air and Kam’s arms were locked around me. The next he was gone. I hit the ground so hard it knocked me unconscious even with the helmet on. When I came to several minutes later, I was confused, my arm was killing me, and I couldn’t find Kamden anywhere.
“Then I heard it. His voice. It was broken and ragged but I heard him calling for me. I found him almost instantly. He was pinned under the four-wheeler, blood pooling out of his mouth as he tried to speak. I remember trying to lift it off of him. I remember screaming for help. And then I remember Kam saying my name so gentle that I had to look at him.Come here, bean, he said.It’s okay, he said.Everything is going to be okay. He was lying there trapped under that four wheeler, bones broken, bleeding internally, and he was reassuringmethat everything was going to be okay. How messed up is that?”
I swipe angrily at my tears, barely able to hold myself together.
“I don’t remember calling 911 but I know I did. I don’t remember how long it took them to arrive. All I know is that by the time they made it there he was gone. He had started gasping. I held his hand so tight, begging him to hold on but he couldn’t. He couldn’t hang on.” I’m hysterical, gasping for breath, crying so hard I can’t see Kane through my tears.
“He told me he loved me. He said,I love you to the moon, bean. And then he closed his eyes.”
Through my emotions, I can’t speak anymore after that. Can’t push out another word. All I see is Kam, lying there, blood everywhere, telling me everything would be okay, telling me he loved me.
“I love you to the moon, bean.”Those words will haunt me for the rest of my life.
I pull the blanket up to my chin and let myself cry, the sobs racking through me cause me so much physical pain it blurs my vision but I can’t pull it together. I can’t hold it in anymore. I’ve been living with this truth, with this guilt, for months, and now it’s out there. Now someone else knows the truth. They know what I’ve done.
The bed shifts and I feel Kane next to me, his lips against my hair.
“My brother loved you more than anything in this world. Even with his dying breath he told you so. Do not disrespect his memory by doing the one thing you know he would never want you to do. This isn’t your fault, Elara. I can see why you feel like it is, but it isn’t. It was an accident and accidents happen. Sometimes there’s not one damn thing we can do to stop them. We can’t change the past either. It’s time you made peace with that.”
And with that he straightens, turns, and quickly exits the room.
