First Came You (Fate #0.5) (8 page)

The opening of the front door startles me awake and I jump upright, wiping the dampness from my face.

“Gina?” I cry, running to the door. “Gina? Is that you?” I round the corner, and run straight into my sister’s arms before she has the chance to answer me.

“Oh, Gina. Why? Why? Why?” Maybe I should be strong for
her,
but I just don’t have it in me. I’m broken and devastated. She’s the only one who knows how I feel right now.

“I don’t know why,” she says, so matter of fact. Her composure surprises me so I pull out of our embrace.

“We’re going to be okay, Gabby. I promise. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

This should comfort me, but it doesn’t. It spooks me. Why isn’t she crying? Why isn’t
she
losing it the way I’ve been since answering that phone?

Narrowing my eyes, I inspect her. “What’s wrong with you?” I yell.

Tommy comes up behind me, wrapping his arms around my trembling body.

“Calm down. Let’s sit,” he says, trying to tame my anger.

But it can’t be tamed. I guess it didn’t take long for my sorrow to turn to rage. I can’t take it out on my parents for leaving us, or the driver who dropped dead behind the wheel, so I have no choice but to take it out on Gina. “Why aren’t you crying? Why do you seem so normal? This is
not
fucking normal, Gina. Our parents are dead! They’re
dead!
” My throat feels raw as the words explode from it.

Walking past me and collapsing on the couch, Gina lays her head back and closes her eyes before releasing it all. “You think I don’t know that, Gabby? You think I don’t want to roll up in a ball and forget the world? I was just at the morgue!
I
was the one who had to identify their bodies. I had to look at them that way—see the blood and fear on their lifeless faces. So don’t ask me why I’m not crying. I’ve already shed so many tears I’m afraid I have none left.

“You cry for me. For the both of us. I’m okay with that right now. Once it sets in, once I get those images out of my head, then I’ll join you. Then I’ll grieve. But for now, let me do this my way. Can you please give me that?”

Rising from the couch, exhaustion wearing heavy and thick on her beautiful face, she drags her feet to her room, and quietly closes the door behind her.

I’m left in the middle of our eerily empty living room with my mouth agape. I can only imagine what she had to go through—the horror of seeing my parents void of life on a cold slab—and the tears roll down my cheeks again. “What do we do now, Tommy? How will we ever be okay again?”

Hugging me close and kissing my eyes, my nose, my hands, my hair, Tommy reassures me in my darkest of moments. “I will make you whole again, Gabriella. I promise.”

Sitting still and grieving isn’t even an option. It’s always only been the four of us—our own little bubble—so the planning for what comes next lies solely on me and Gina. And I’m no help. I can’t think past the pit in my stomach long enough to make logical decisions.

Tommy’s parents stop in to bring us dinner—not that I have the urge to eat a morsel—and then leave shortly after. It’s nice of them to check on us, even if only for a half hour. My thoughts wander to my future—my parentless future—and I wonder if Mr. and Mrs. Edwards will become stand-ins as my in-laws when I do finally marry Tommy.

But those hopeful thoughts don’t last long. Any kind of future without my mother and father in it seems vacant and inconceivable. I used to daydream about what’s to come, eager to grow up, but now I wish I could freeze time. Or go back to the past. To a time when my parents were tangible.

From here on out they are only a memory.

“Gabby,” Gina sits beside me in the darkened living room, settling a stack of papers. “I need to talk to you.”

I nod, unwilling to agree or disagree. What’s the point anyway? Life calls the shots—we don’t. I have to just follow along with whatever gets tossed my way.

“Mom and Dad didn’t have a will.” Her tone is calm and unwavering. Very lawyer-ish.
Good job, Gina!
Way to show me how grown up you can be at a time when all I want is to be a carefree child again. I wish this was just some sick and twisted game of hide and go seek.

Staring blankly into her watery eyes, I wonder why she’s telling me this. I couldn’t care less about any money they did or didn’t have. Especially not now—mere hours since their bodies went cold. “And?” I drawl. One word is doable. Full sentences and explanations, not so much. I don’t have the energy, and I’m still miffed that she holed herself up in her room after she kind of told me to grieve alone.

“There’s no one else. I’m next of kin. That means I’m your legal guardian, sissy.”

The news stuns me. I don’t know how to process it. In a matter of hours, I’ve lost my parents
and
my sister. She’ll no longer be the fun loving, pain in the ass older sibling I looked up to. Now she’s forced to be my mom. She has no choice. Neither of us do. It’s incredible how life can change in one split instant. So incredibly unfair.

Defying reality because it’s too cruel to accept, I smart back, “And what the hell does that mean?” My heart is thumping so wildly against my ribcage it feels about ready to bust through.

“Gabby, I know this is a lot to process and I’m sorry it’s all happening so rapidly, but I can’t let anything happen to you. To us. We have to act quickly on this; I won’t let us be separated.” She stares down at the papers in her lap before looking back up at me. Tears well up in her eyes before gushing out like a waterfall of emotions. Her face contorts as she tries to control herself, but her lips tremble and her jaw tightens. It’s a heartrending image—to see your older always in control sister, falling apart before your eyes. It was better when she was emotionless. This is just unbearable.

I break down beside her, pulling her close and molding to her form. We need to do this together. We need to feel this together. And Tommy allows us this moment as he stays back, appraising us from the doorway with his hands covering his mouth.

I hold on to her for dear life, wishing I could stay buried in her arms forever. Or at least a few more days until the pain weakens and fades. Unfortunately, her warning rings loud in my subconscious—we need to act fast. We can’t be separated.

Readjusting myself, I think long and hard about what this guardianship would mean for my career driven sister. She’s always said she didn’t want kids. She wants a practice of her own in the city, she wants her job to be her baby. So why would she want to have to take care of me? I would only be a burden. “Why would you want that obligation, Gina? I’m sure there’s a long lost aunt or a friend who can take me in for a year until I go to college. You’re so busy with school, then you have law school. You won’t be able to manage it all. It’s not fair to you. We can find another way.”

“No!” Gina vows. “Don’t say anything like that ever again. It’s not an option, and not because there is no other choice, but because that’s the way
I
want it. This sucks, Gabby. I can’t see past right this second, but I do know that I won’t be able to do any of this without you. I love you so much. I loved them so much. We need to stick together to keep that love alive. It’s the only way.”

My heart breaks into even tinier fragments listening to her. As much as it pains me to force this kind of growing-up on my sister—on me too—I can’t bear to think of doing this without her. “You’re right. I don’t know how I could’ve thought otherwise. I need you now more than I ever. We need each other.”

We continue to cry as we hold each other. The tears never stop, only continue to fight through, emptying what little is left to feel.

The sight of us must be pathetic. I don’t know how Tommy’s watching on, staying quiet, remaining unscathed by this horror show of emotions. But he does, because that’s the kind of person he is. The kind who knows when I need him to be present in every way possible and when I need him to back off and let me be.

I want to let him comfort me. I want
his
touch and his love to be enough to heal my hurt, but right now it’s just not. He doesn’t understand this. He still has his parents. I don’t want to envy him for that, but I do. I pray my thoughts are only harsh because I’m irrational. I can’t put a wedge between me and Tommy because I don’t know how to let him be there for me.

He’ll have to be patient. I know he will be. It’s me I’m worried about because right now I don’t know which way is up or down and the uncertainty of it all makes me dizzy with fear.

We buried my parents on a Tuesday. It rained—poured, actually—adding another layer of morose ugliness to an already horribly depressing day.

My heart ached with immeasurable pain as we sat in church—the same second pew we’d shared together as a family on many Sundays—and I listened to the priest speak of my parents. He spoke in past tense and it made my stomach coil with panic.

My parents no longer
are.
Now they
were.

The reality brought on a wave of nausea that I could only swallow down and force myself to ignore.

I had to learn to do that a lot in the last few weeks since the funeral; to disregard the looks of pity, the pain of moving forward because life goes on, and the fact when my parents died, they took a piece of me with them.

“Hey? You okay?” Tommy nudges me, barely penetrating my new permanent fog.

I shrug, never knowing how to answer him.
No,
I’m not okay.
Yes,
I’m slightly better than yesterday.
Maybe,
I’ll never be okay again.

What am I supposed to say? I
can’t
say anything.

So, I don’t.

I remain silent, lodging the wedge I’ve created between me and Tommy even deeper. I’m still not sure why he puts himself through this. I know he loves me, but I’m giving nothing in return. I wouldn’t blame him for giving up because I don’t know when I’ll be back to me—the
me
he fell in love with.

“Why don’t we take a ride to the beach? Dig our feet in the sand? Watch the waves roll in? A change of scenery might be good, Gabby. You haven’t been out of the house in days.” Tommy curls up behind me on my parents’ bed. I’ve slept here every night since—well, since they haven’t.

I cringe at his warm touch and more agony courses through me. Even his touch is no longer a comfort. I’m broken—in every way. Totally unfixable.

“Come on, baby. Let me get you dressed. You need this.
We
need this.”

I close my eyes and fight back tears. He’s so worried for me, for us, and all I can do is lay motionless on the sheets that still smell like my dead mother and father.

“I’m not ready. You go. You don’t need to stay here and watch me like this.” I’ve begged him to go many times. But he won’t. He’s practically moved in, sleeping on the couch, cooking for me and Gina. Invisible, yet a constant presence.

I should be thankful, but the sick part is, I’m not. Part of me wishes he would leave me alone to wallow in my misery for a little while. I know it won’t help, but nothing else seems to be, either.

Tommy’s bare feet thud against the hardwood floor as he stands from the bed. Without uncurling from my fetal position, I hear him walk around to my side. Kneeling in front of me, his face an inch from mine, his eyes plead with me. “Please, Gabriella. Please let me help you.”

The noose around my heart grows tighter as I watch the anguish wash over his handsome, masculine face. He starts to cry, reaching out to touch my face, and my own tears seep out of the corners of my eyes.

This is torture. My pain. His pain. This is hell on Earth. And I can’t bear another second of it.

“I need you to leave,” I whisper, my voice trembling.

“I’m not leaving you, baby. We’ve already been through this.” Tommy’s nature from day one has been to protect me. I can only imagine how hard it is for him to have that taken away. But my own broken feelings are at stake right now and I can’t worry about his. I don’t have it in me. I have nothing left.

“Go,” I finally say, shifting in the bed and turning my back on him.

“Why are you pushing me away, Gabriella? Why won’t you let me help you get through this?”

“Because I don’t want to get through this. I want to
feel
it. And you and Gina and your parents, you won’t let me. I need to be alone. I need you to go.” I sob into the pillow swathed in the aroma of my father’s aftershave. Taking a much needed inhalation of air to calm the cries, my sadness morphs to anger. “Leave, Tommy! I’m telling you to leave! I don’t want you here. Go!” I bury my face back into the pillow, praying he won’t be in the room when I decide to uncover my face.