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“Oh, Cait.” My heart broke to see her in such pain.
I kneeled on the bed, pulling her against me. I thought she would pull away, but she didn’t. She sobbed into my chest, clinging to me for dear life.
“Everything is going to be alright. I promise. I’m going to take care of you,” I whispered, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.
She shouldn’t be here alone.
Eventually the sobs calmed into hiccups, and I pulled back to look at her. There was no way she was staying here.
“You’re coming home with me, okay?” I told her. I expected her to argue, but she was so exhausted, she could barely hold herself up. “We will figure all this out.”
I laid her down against the pillows and stood, pulling my cellphone from my back pocket. There was no way she’d be able to hold herself up on the back of my bike, so I called the house to get a car sent over, then I headed to her room.
I looked around her bold pink room, noting the pile of stuffed animals on her pillow and smiled.
Cait from a few days ago would have had my skin if she’d known I was in here. If we’d been in any other situation, I might have felt weird going through her things, but she needed someone to look after her, and that person was going to be me.
I packed her a bag of clothes, then picked up a few other items that held obvious importance to her based on their positioning around the room. Then I moved to the bathroom to collect her toiletries. I tried to ignore her parents’ things, but it was hard not to think about the fact they were never coming back.
What was going to happen to Cait in the long run? I didn’t know if she had any other family, and even if she did, there was no guarantee they’d take her in. She was going to end up in foster care, and then who knew where she’d land?
My stomach twisted at the thought of never seeing her again… never hearing her telling me she hated me again. It was an intolerable thought.
I hadn’t realized it before, but I’d come to live for our little spats.
A chime in my back pocket signaled the car had arrived, so I grabbed the rest of the things and returned to Cait.
Her eyes opened as I entered. “One more sip of water please, then we’re going,” I told her, using the firm voice she’d seemed to respond to earlier.
She struggled into a sitting position, and then did as I said.
“Good girl. Now come on, let’s get you home.”
With one arm around her, I helped her down the stairs and out to the car. I planned to let the driver take her home, and I’d ride my bike, but from the way she was clinging to me, I decided that wasn’t a good idea to leave her, so I climbed in next to her.
I’d pick up the bike later.
Her head lay on my shoulder for the whole journey, and I hated that I liked it. She was grieving. She was vulnerable. She just needed comfort, that was all. It didn’t mean anything. If she’d been her normal self, she’d have pushed as far away from me as she could get.
Part of me expected Bree or my father to be waiting to greet Cait when we arrived, but they were nowhere to be seen as I carried her limp body through the door.
Never mind.
I didn’t mind taking care of her, I really didn’t. Which was surprising because if someone had asked me to play nursemaid a week ago, I’d have flipped them the bird and driven off.
I carried her upstairs to one of the guest rooms, and the driver dropped her bags just inside the door.
“You don’t have to do this, Aidan. I can take care of myself,” she protested as I set her on the white sheets.
The room was white walls, white carpets… white everything.This world is dark enough,my mother had said when she’d ordered the decorators to whitewash everything. She thought it was soothing. Clean. Well, shehad.
Don’t think.
“You just told me that you want to die. It’s my legal duty to watch you like a hawk from now on.”
“I didn’t really mean it,” she confessed, wringing her hands together. I’d never noticed before how small they were, and it made my fingers itch with the need to thread through hers. “I just… I don’t know what to do with myself. Every waking second hurts.”
“I know.” And I did. Every time I let my thoughts wander for even a second to my mother or my baby sister, my chest hurt so much I thought I would die. I was good at distracting myself though. Cait didn’t seem to have that skill. She felt everything so intensely. That was half the reason she was so mad at me all the time.
