Over the Edge

Ch.36-The Truth About Love

~Rhys~

My lips still burned from touching hers as I shoved the plastic cup beneath the coffee machine and jabbed the button. She needed to know. Had the Goddamn right to know. But I didn’t have to be in the room when they told her.

I was still reeling.

They had made me wait ten minutes when I arrived before I could see her. Said I was a hazard in my state of shock and disbelief. But what did they expect? She lost her fucking memory. She couldn’t remember a single thing.

That hadn’t exactly sat exceptionally well with me.

But she was in there. I felt it. A part of her, coming alive the moment I kissed her, responding to the emotions roaring beneath the surface.

Emma was in there. She just needed to be pulled out.

“Room for one more?”

I glanced to the side as my father entered the small snack room. I shrugged, leaving him to do what he pleased. I was too damn tired to care anymore.

“It’s great that she woke up,” he stated, leaning against the counter as he eyed a pack of cookies suspiciously. I didn’t trust any of the crap this hospital put out, but I was in dying need of something to wake me up.

“Yep, save for the fact she can’t remember a single fucking thing.”

He sighed. “You knew as well as I some repercussion was to be expected when she woke up. After taking in so much of the drug . . . It’s a miracle they haven’t found any brain damage.”

I knew that. Deep down I knew I should be thankful for the hands we’d been played, for the way things turned out. But I wasn’t. I wanted more. I didn’t want the shell of Emma; I wanted everything back. Her temper, her stubbornness, her glittering grey eyes, the heat of her body against mine . . .

All memories so recent they ripped maliciously through me, relentless.

“How did she take the news?” I asked, rubbing the rim of the plastic cup with my thumb, watching droplets of the cheap coffee swirl and mix together. It tasted like complete shit but it was something.

“Not well, she—” he trailed off, casting me an uncertain glance, as if not wanting me to hear what happened.

“She what?” I probed, eyes narrowing.

“She started seizing up. It was too much information all at once.”

“What?” I demanded, jerking away from the counter. I headed for the door but his arm yanked me back in. I burned my furious gaze on him. “I have to go see her.”

“No you don’t, Rhys. She’s fine now. They’ve managed to calm her down. Everything’s okay.”

I fell back against a meager table, feeling it wobble beneath my weight. “Except it isn’t. Everything’s not okay.”

He scrubbed a hand over the stubble covering his face, over the dark bags under his eyes, more resembling bruises. I was almost certain I looked the same. “I know.”

“I just—I just feel like I’m supposed to do something, you know?” some of the coffee spilt out and splashed onto my hand at the angry tremor that raced through, but I didn’t pay it any attention. The way it scalded my skin was a welcoming feeling, a reprieve from the emotional travesty rampaging my body.

“And that’s normal. We Richardson men like to have control over everything, know that we have power over any situation. But not this one. This has to be handled differently.”