Page 92 of Split Decision

My energy is completely spent, and I have no reserves left. If Luke told me to leave now, there's no way I'd physically be able to do it. Even as strong as I am, I can't deny that I'm in over my head.

I need help.

I need Luke.

As I look up at him, my heart overflows with love and longing. When he held me, I wanted to grab on to him and never let go. His scent, his touch, his warmth, and the security I feel when he holds me cocooned me. When he released me, it broke my heart all over again.

"You're right," I concede.

"I'm sorry. What? What did you just say?" he asks incredulously.

"You're right. I need someone to help me and take care of me." I look down as my chin quivers again. I want that someone to be Luke, but there are things between us that are still unresolved. There is no resolution in obligation. There is no reconciliation in pity. I came here for a reason. I need to make sure I do this right, even broken and exhausted and held together with hospital tape and stubbornness. "I just need to arrange transportation to get back home."

I think of Travis briefly—he dropped me at the elevator and said he'd be downstairs if I needed him.

"Travis was with me in the accident," I say. "He wasn't hurt badly. He stayed until he knew I was stable."

Luke's jaw tightens slightly at the name. Not the old jealousy—something different. Complicated. Then he nods slowly.

"He's a good friend," I say clearly. I need Luke to hear that. "That's what he's been this entire tour. A good friend. Nothing more, nothing less."

The room is quiet.

"I know," Luke says. And I hear in his voice that he wholeheartedly believes that.

"Luke." I look at him directly, even from the bed, evenbroken. "I came here because I had things to say. Things I carried from Phoenix and further back than that."

He doesn't move. He's listening.

"I'm not here because of the accident. I was coming anyway. Travis and I were on the way back when the driver hit us." I pause. "I was coming to tell you I understand why you made the arrangement without talking to me first. I understand the logic and the love in it. And I need you to understand—fully, not just intellectually—that the logic and the love don't make it right. You can't protect me by deciding for me. That's what they do. That's the machine's method, and when you used it, even for me, you handed them something."

His throat moves.

"I'm not saying this to reopen the wound," I say. "I'm saying it because I need us to be clear about it before we can actually put it behind us. And I need us to put it behind us, Luke. Because I am so tired of this year."

He crosses the room in three steps and drops to his knees in front of the bed.

The sight of him—this big, controlled, hard man on his knees in front of me—absolutely undoes me.

"I know," he breathes. "I know what I did. I knew it when I was doing it, and I told myself the results would justify it,and I was wrong." He looks up at me. "I have been wrong about the best things in my life before. I'm getting better at recognizing it faster."

"Yes," I say. "You are."

"I'm sorry, Andi."

"I know you are."

A tear rolls down my temple, and I don't stop it. He reaches up and wipes it away without being asked, and I let him, which is its own kind of admission from me.

"I still think it kept you safer," he says. It's not a defense. It's just honest.

"I know you do." I look at him. "That's what we have to work on."

He leans his forehead against my hand, where it rests on the bed.

"Tell me we're not done," he says. His voice is low and stripped of everything except what it means.

"We're not done," I say. “I wouldn’t be here if we were done.”