Page 81 of Reckless With You

But I would be fine.

I just hoped that I wouldn’t break again. And if Tucker truly needed to reach out, he knew that I’d be there for him.

But I didn’t know if he would take that step.

Chapter 17

Tucker

The Christmas musicplaying in the halls of the hospital made my teeth hurt and reminded me I hadn’t really slept in the days since Melinda had first come by.

I knew they did it because it was Christmas Eve and the holidays were here, and some people needed joy, but all I could do was wonder why the hell they thought this was okay.

Children were crying in some of the rooms, parents trying to be stoic when they didn’t have answers.

Overworked doctors and nurses and lab techs and radiologists milled about. There was just so much pain and sadness in this hospital, the same one I worked in, that playing Christmas music seemed almost obtuse.

But then I remembered the smiling little girl as one of my coworkers, dressed as Santa, visited each child to give them a gift.

Hanukkah had been over for a couple of days, but there had been an electric menorah for the children, as well. There were many holidays celebrated within these halls because sometimes you had to cling to what was good, what was right, and what made children smile when it felt like there was no hope in the darkness.

It was just odd to think that, sometimes, therewasno hope in that darkness. Perhaps I would need to figure out my own hope.

“Are you okay?” Robbie asked as he took a seat next to me in the hall.

I looked at the man who had raised Evan, who had married Melinda, and who seemed like a good guy. I tried to figure out what he must be thinking right then.

The little boy that he had raised, who he’d held the day he was born, was sick—and he couldn’t help him.

I didn’t know what I would do in that situation, I felt like I was merely going through the motions now, like a robot with nothing inside as I made decisions and figured out what to do.

“I should ask how you’re doing,” I said, looking over at the man. He had a full beard, one that he hadn’t taken care of in a while it seemed, but there wasn’t much time for that. Not when Evan was in and out of hospitals, and today, he’d actually been admitted and wouldn’t be released again this year.

Instead, Evan and his family would be spending Christmas and into the New Year in the hospital. But, hopefully, the little boy would be able to walk out on his own power one day soon.

Not that I had met him yet.

No, we were waiting on that.

I hadn’t talked to Amelia these last four days. Hadn’t called Devin. Hadn’t talked to anyone.

I was such a fucking idiot.

But I didn’t know what to say to them. And maybe that’s why Amelia had wanted to make up that big lie because she hadn’t known what to do.

She’d made the wrong choice, and I’d helped her do it, yet I wasn’t doing any better now.

Why was it so easy to help others, but when it came to yourself, you couldn’t do a damn thing and just wanted to hide?

But that was me. It’s what I had done my entire life. After all, if I didn’t lean on anyone, if I didn’t rely on them, they couldn’t let me down.

My parents had died, and even though it wasn’t their fault, some part of me had blamed them when I was a kid.

Because they were gone, and I’d needed them.

There hadn’t been a damn thing I could do about it.

And then nobody wanted a kid with asthma. Nobody wanted a kid with night terrors and all that shit.