AllFreeNovel
Share Us
We’ll heal.
We’ll be stronger than ever.
One step at a time.
Chapter Eleven
Fredrick
I'm still trying to come to a decision about what to do with what I know about Emma and how I feel about Lila when my phone vibrates.
Pulling the device from my pocket, I see that it's Lila calling. “Hello?” I say.
“Fredrick.” She sounds frantic, terrified, and my whole body tenses. “Mom had a heart attack; we’re at the hospital.”
Fire and ice prickle across my skin as my brain struggles to make sense of her terror-filled words.
“Which hospital?” As I say the words, I begin to get ready to leave my rented suite.
“Saint Mary’s.”
“I'm on my way.” I want to hurry her off the phone so I can get ready to leave.
But she hesitates before softly saying, “Thank you.”
The line goes dead in my ear, and I prepare myself to face what I’d left behind. I’d been dodging my mother's calls since I came home, but I want to show up for Lila and her mother.
Not long after, I'm walking under the buzz of fluorescent lights and navigating the maze of white corridors as nurses in colored scrubs and white-coated doctors pass by me in a hurry to get where they’re going.
I step outside the door marked with the number Lila had texted me, room 222. A lucky number, perhaps. At least, I want to think so.
With a quick knock at the door, I step inside. Both Lyla and Alex look up at me, with Grace lying still between them, swallowed up by the hospital bed. She looks more frail and slighter than I remember, and lines crease her face in a way that doesn't fit with my memories of her.
I pull up a chair and sit close to Lila, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and pulling her close. “Hey,” I whisper.
She flashes a wobbly smile at me as Alex studies us both. The vulnerability in her eyes pulls me in, even as her words push me away. “You didn’t have to come.”
How do I tell her I want to be here?
I don't say a word as she leans into my warmth, a soft sigh escaping her lips. “Thank you for coming,” she whispers.
“Of course.” My gaze lingers on Grace, watching her chest rise and fall to the rhythm of beeping machines. Memories flood back - dinners, laughter, the way Grace’s eyes crinkled at the corners when she smiled at me... I swallow a lump forming in my throat.
Grace was everything I wished my own mother would be, and then some.
“Are you okay?” Lila asks, ever worried about me. She’s too good a woman, better than I deserve. Better than I could ever hope for. And here I am, keeping secrets from her again, holding onto information that could change her life and bring her - and her family - peace.
Not only that, I'm making plans for her future that include her, but that she isn't privy to.
“I've been better, but I'm worried about her and all of you.” As I say the words, my gaze jumps from face to face, and I see Alex's eyes narrow. I don't blame him for not trusting me; I'm not trustworthy.
“Mom never stopped asking about you, you know. She always thought you'd come back.” Lila’s expression fills with pain.
“And some of us hoped you never would.” Alex continues to glare at me, and Lila glances at her brother in surprise.
“He didn't have to come. He doesn't have to be here.” She’s standing up for me, which only makes me feel worse about what I'm going to do to her.
My conversation with Emma echoes in my mind. I would have given anything to have a family that loved me-
