My Hired Boyfriend (Completed)

38. Burnt Waffles

                                                                                        Chapter 38

CODA POV:

            Seconds.

            The seconds tick by and the night is absolutely silent.

            The seconds feel like minutes. The minutes feel like hours.

            How long has it been since she’s stopped crying?

            I heave a heavy sigh, the weight of it all crushing upon my shoulders.

            I think back to summer nights and crashing waves and the way the light caught strands of her hair, making her whole body glow.

            When I close my eyes, I can hear her laughing—light and free, not yet tainted with the burden of my past, my regrets and my sorrows.

            Somewhere between the seconds I spend closing my eyes, the image of her laughing morphs into the sound of her screaming.

            She is gasping for air, writhing, and begging for them to stop—

            And I can’t seem to do anything to stop the nightmares. I can only hold her tighter in my arms and tell her over and over again about how much I love her, a pathetic and worthless statement, that does nothing to stop her tears.

            I can’t sleep.

            I find myself watching over her as she sleeps, her soft body tucked against mine as she shakes.

            I can’t do anything right.

            She mutters my name and I kiss her face, stroking her hair and say ‘I’m right here, baby” but deep down in my heart, I feel empty—

            I feel empty—

            Watching her cry and morph into a scared girl who tries to appear strong for my sake, makes me feel empty. It kills a piece of my heart I didn’t know I had left.

            I yearn for her laughter again.

            I want to go back to our carefree bickering, to the days we had spent without the burden of Cordero in our minds.

            Everything had changed so quickly and I found myself grasping for the loose ends, unwilling to let those happy memories go because right now—

            Right now all I felt was sadness and guilt.

            Sometime in the early mornings, when all is still dark outside, I wake up gasping for air, biting my lip until I draw blood to stop the scream about to unfold from my throat. I wake up with the image of her body lying in Ridge’s spot, blood pooling from her chest, her guttural gasps of air saying ‘Don't let me die’ again and again—

            I ground the palm of my hands into my eyes to erase the image and scoot impossibly closer to Hazel, tangling myself around her, her steady heartbeat and soft breaths slowing my own heart beat.

            I do my best to keep quiet, to not let her know that my demons are haunting me just as much as hers are because I have to be strong.

            I was the cause of all of this and I needed to fix this.

            So I don’t go back to sleep. I don’t go back to sleep so I don’t slip into the memory of Ridge’s blood on my hands or the image of my mom lying so pale and still on that hospital bed—instead, I think about the girl in my arms and stroke her cheek, drying her trail of tears.