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“Thank you, Warden,” I said quietly. “For calling me personally.”
“Would you like to claim the body?”
“Excuse me?”
“You’re listed as the only next of kin,” the Warden explained. “I wasn’t certain if you’d like to claim the body, but legally, I have to ask.”
I thought of Emmanuel being laid to rest with nobody there to mourn him. Nobody to make the hard decisions that usually came with death. If he wasn’t claimed, the county would be left to work out a deal with a local funeral home. In the end, he’d most likely be burned in a cardboard box, the state sparing no expense for the cases that were a sad reality in this world.
He’d died alone. And after the media laid him bare, I doubted I’d see many people showing up for a funeral. But that didn’t mean he shouldn’t have one.
I closed my eyes, and my entire body seemed to deflate. “I’ll claim the body, Warden. Thank you.”
AFTER A LONG-DRAWN-OUT ARGUMENT, BIRDIE finally agreed to leave on the condition that I check in with her every day and let her know what was happening or if I needed her. I promised her that I would, but even that felt like a lie.
In truth, I didn’t want to think about it, but I also couldn’t stop. I’d spent the entire day on Google doing my own research before I finally decided to call a cancer hotline for information. So far, what I’d learned about Lucian’s condition hadn’t been as hopeless as I’d automatically assumed. It was cancer, but it was a highly curable cancer with treatment success even in late stages.
But in my heart, I knew that wasn’t the real issue. Birdie told me that Lucian refused treatment, and if the notes I saw in the file were accurate, then it was true. It wasn’t something I wanted to wrap my head around. I didn’t want to believe that he’d just given up on living, but on reflection, his actions and words told me everything I needed to know.
He’d been preparing me for goodbye since the beginning. Even after he’d told me that he cared for me, he wanted me to know what we had was temporary. I’d been such an idiot.
All this time, I believed that maybe he would change his mind. I saw the affection in his eyes when he looked at me. I felt it in his every touch. And foolishly, I wanted to believe that I was more to him than something he could just throw away in the end.
I couldn’t figure out when it all turned upside down, but it had. I was in love with Lucian West. I was having his baby. And he was ready to give up and leave this world… and me… behind.
I spent the day alternating between hatred and sorrow, trying to determine the best course of action from this point forward. There were really only two options in this scenario.
The old Gypsy would have run. She would have run far, far away and pretended this chapter of her life had never happened, closing her heart and protecting herself from the inevitable pain to follow. But I wanted to believe there was more to me than that now.
I wanted to believe I was braver, smarter, stronger… and most of that was because of what Lucian had done for me. He’d saved me, and I accepted it, never knowing that he was the one who needed saving too.
I stared into the cavernous space of the closet we shared, my eyes moving to the items I’d already folded and packed, then unpacked several times over. I was exhausted and emotional, but this wasn’t a time in my life when I could take the easy way out. There was no easy way. If I ran, I’d be deluded to believe that Lucian would ever leave my mind or my heart.
He was my forever, and I couldn’t give him up without a fight.
It wasn’t just up to him. He didn’t get to decide for both of us. I was determined to change his mind. We would get through this ugliness, just like we’d made it through all the ugliness of our past lives. Except this time, we would do it together.
Emmanuel’s trial was starting tomorrow, so I made a conscious decision to wait until at least the first day in court had finished before I broached the subject. Even that felt like it would be an awful time, given Lucian’s projected exhaustion, but there wouldn’t be a good time to discuss it.
We just had to talk about it.
That was the only thing that mattered. At least, I thought it was.
I’d expected Lucian home around eleven. He said he wanted to get at least six hours of sleep before he got up in the morning, and even though he’d been working late every night, he was always home by eleven.
