AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I’m not fighting with you,” I tell him. “And I’m not planning to start.”
“I’m not fighting with you either,” he says. Although, to be clear, he is still responsible for making me mad. I could have happily lived out my days never knowing what it was like to be in Jamie’s arms—to be the sole focus of his kisses. Not having that is going to be pure torture.
I don’t remember exactly when, but I fall sound asleep, still resting my head on Jamie’s shoulder. I don’t remember getting up and moving into my bedroom; all I know is that’s where I wake up in the morning.
I take some time to stretch all the kinks out of my body before looking at the clock. It’s only six, so I don’t imagine Jamie and Sammy are up. Yet when I go out to the kitchen, I find a pot of coffee has already been made. Jamie is still sitting on the couch.
“Did you ever go to bed?” I ask.
“For a few hours,” he says. “How did you sleep?”
I fix myself a cup of coffee while answering, “Like the dead. How did I get into my room? I don’t even remember falling asleep.”
“I carried you.” His tone is so gruffly masculine, I feel my insides flip over.
“Thank you.” I walk into the living room, but instead of sitting next to him on the sofa, I settle into a lounge chair. “What kind of schedule are you thinking about for today?” I ask him.
“Visiting hours don’t start until eight, so I figured we’d have breakfast here and then walk over to the hospital. You don’t have to go with us if you don’t want to.”
“Do you want me to go?” Sitting around a hospital waiting room all day doesn’t sound like my idea of a good time, but if Jamie and Sammy need me, then there’s no place I’d rather be.
“I’d really like that,” he says. “I have no idea how today is going to go, and it would be comforting to know you were nearby.”
“Then that’s where I’ll be.” I take a sip of my coffee and take a moment to appreciate the sensation of caffeine hitting my blood stream.
We sit quietly for quite a while before Sammy comes out and joins us. She yawns loudly before saying, “I slept really well.”
“You want to go back for another hour?” Jamie asks her.
“There’s no way I could fall asleep again. Too much on my mind.” She curls up on the couch next to Jamie.
He puts his arm around her and pulls her close. “I guess that means we ought to get this party started, huh?”
Sammy and I share a look that is full of questions. How is this day going to pan out? What will Beth really be like? Is there any way to fix the mess she left in her wake?
CHAPTERFORTY-TWO
JAMIE
I have envisioned a million scenarios of what it would look like to have Beth back in our lives, and none of them bear any resemblance to reality. Instead of feeling angry at her, which has been the go-to emotion I’ve always possessed, I feel sorry for her.
Watching her try to carry on a conversation with Sammy makes it abundantly clear that she knows nothing about her daughter. “What’s your favorite color?” Beth asks after we’ve spent a good hour covering more serious topics.
“Green,” Sammy tells her. “But not kelly green or pine green. More of a citron green, like the color of a lime. How about you?” Sammy asks.
“Electric blue,” Beth says. “I can’t wear the color, but I love looking at it.”
Once some of the more mundane topics are covered, we experience an awkward silence. Sammy starts to fidget so I finally tell her, “Why don’t you go out and see how Melissa is doing?” She jumps at the opportunity.
When she’s gone, I tell Beth, “This is going better than I thought it would.”
“Really? I’m not sure it’s going well at all.”
“What did you expect?” She can’t have really thought Sammy would jump into her arms and act like she had even the slightest clue how to relate to her.
Beth shifts around trying to get the pillows situated behind her. “I haven’t let myself try to imagine how it would be.” After a beat, she adds, “I know I’m the bad guy here, Jamie.”
“You are.” There’s no sense in lying to her. “Having said that, you’re here. So that means something.”
