Those Who Remain

Chapter 29

Ridge made no move to seek comfort from me, but that didn't stop me from immediately pulling him into my arms. He covered his face with his hand, seemingly to keep me from seeing how vulnerable he was at the moment.

Not wanting him to hide from me, I moved his hands so that they were wrapped around my shoulders, "You never have to hide from me, especially with something like this." My words alone made him cry even harder if that was even possible. I felt my heart breaking listening to the sobs.

I brought one of my hands up to gently run through his hair, trying to give him as much physical and emotional comfort as I could. The reaction I received was almost instant when his sobs started to diminish slightly and a shiver went down his spine. Since that action seemed to work, I continued to do it sitting with him in silence until he fully calmed down.

It took several minutes, but eventually, he slowly pulled his head away from my chest and looked me in the eyes. I gave him a gentle smile, not trying to prompt him to tell me what was wrong, but to let him know I was there and wasn't leaving.

He made no attempt to talk and I didn't either, but we maintained eye contact for what seemed like a while. Eventually, he brought one hand up to the side of my face and moved his thumb back and forth in a comforting manner.

The tenseness in his shoulder had yet to go away and that bothered me, so I started to do my best to work out the tension in his shoulders. The angle I was at made it difficult, so I swung my leg over his lap and started to rub gentle, yet firm circles on his shoulders. I felt him tense slightly from surprise, but it was gone as soon as it appeared.

The longer I sat here, face to face with him, the more he seemed to relax, but he had yet to break the silence that I refused to. If I had to sit here all night for him to calm down enough to talk, I was willing to do it.

Ridge reached a hand over his shoulder to grab mine. He interlocked our fingers in a slightly awkward hold where the back of my hand was pressed into the palm of his, and he placed them against his chest where I found that his heart beat was still too elevated to be completely relaxed.

Our faces were already close together, but Ridge leaned forward and pressed our foreheads together where I felt him blow a sigh across my face. "Please don't leave me."

The words cause me to become confused since I had no intention of going anywhere. "I don't want to leave. Where would I even go?"

"Please, don't leave me like my family did." He took in another shaky breath before leaning away from me, and the moon light coming in through the window reflected off the new tears collecting in his eyes.

I pressed myself into him even more than I was before, "I promise to do my best to stay with you. I have no intention of leaving you."

The words, even though they weren't exactly what he wanted to hear, seemed to calm him down. I couldn't promise him nothing would happen to me, just like he couldn't promise me the same thing.

"Where did you go?" He was referring to my absence when he woke up.

"I was in the living room since I couldn't sleep. I didn't want to just lay in bed awake, and it isn't like I can go for a midnight stroll."

"Do you want to talk about it?" he asked, starting to move his thumb across my cheek again.

"Do you want to talk about why you had a breakdown?" There was a faint look of surprise in his teary eyes in response to my snarky, but joking reply.

"If I talk about it, will you?"

My reply was immediate, "Of course, but only if you're ready to talk about it."