Beyond the Broken Angel

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

— i give up —

April 11th, 1939

GISELLE'S MOTHER WAS in a car crash when she was seventeen.

She and her boyfriend at the time were coming back from a football game when a truck in front of them slammed on their brakes. Her boyfriend couldn't react fast enough and crashed into it.

Giselle's mother had told her that she was incredibly sore the day after, and had felt like she had been hit by a car and not the other way around.

That was the first thing to pop into Giselle's mind when she woke up the following day, because every cell in her body felt sore.

She didn't even have to try and recall why she felt this way. She remembered everything like it had played on repeat in her head the entire time she was asleep.

She tried to sit up, her head pounding and bones protesting as she did so. She didn't realize she was in a room until she rubbed her eyes and opened them, her gaze landing on a large mirror hanging on the wall opposite her, showing her in a large bed with a bandage wrapped around her neck, a beam of sunlight from the split in the curtains to her left illuminating the nasty bruise on her cheek.

Part of her recognized that she was in Will's bedroom, but she was so intrigued by her haggard appearance that she gave that fact little attention. She slowly slipped out of bed and painfully padded along the floorboards to the mirror, taking in her state.

She looked terrifying, with the left side of her face swollen and discolored and her hair in complete disarray. She looked over the rest of her body, noticing another bandage secured around her thigh. She was in the process of trying to remember whether the robber had cut her there or if she had injured herself in the woods when a soft, relieved voice floated across the room to her.

"Giselle." She looked in the reflection of the mirror, catching sight of Will standing in the doorway behind her in his white, sleeveless undershirt and pinstripe pajama pants.

She whirled around, so happy to see him that tears began to distort her view of him. He rushed to her before she could take a step forward, scooping her up in his arms and carrying her back to bed.

"I should've known you'd choose to wake up the minute I leave the room," he said lightheartedly, gently depositing her onto the bed.

She laughed, her tears rolling down her face. She reached up and slung her arms around him, pulling him down to her.

Will awkwardly fell over her, wrapping one arm around her waist as he kept his weight off of her with the other by her head.

"I didn't think I would see you again," she told him honestly. She felt him tense and pull back to look at her.

He looked stricken, his eyes intensely fixed upon hers as he brushed a tear from her cheek. "What happened to you, love? Who hurt you?" His words were soft, but she could hear the worried twinge to them.

"Can you hold me?" Giselle asked him. "I know it isn't proper, but—"

Will didn't wait for her to finish, kicking off his shoes and slipping into bed next to her. He pulled her to him like he'd done it a thousand times before, cradling her head against his chest as his arms wound completely around her torso.

Her sore body melted against him, any leftover fear and adrenaline vanishing from her completely. She felt safe, and she reveled in it.