“I can’t ask him to go through this with me, Lex.” The tears start again as I think of how brutal this will be, going at it alone. It’s not what I really want, but I know it’s for the best in the end. “He’s thirty-two. He should be out at clubs and meeting hot women and living his life, not stuck with a woman with scars instead of tits. Having to hold me up so I can puke because I’m so weak and sick from the chemo. He deserves a woman who has the time to take care of him, not a bald, bloated, boobless woman who is so tired from being sick, she doesn’t want to go out.”
I push the tears off my face. Knowing my words are so true but so desperately wanting to be selfish and ask him to stick it out. Deal with all the crap because I’m so damn worth it. But I can’t. He may be in the ring, but I’m just not sure if I can force him to fight for something that’s going to devastate him.
“I know what I’m doing is right, Lex. If you could see what you leaving has done to Danny … it’s …” I squeeze my eyes, trying to shut out the images of him broken and crying so hard, he couldn’t speak. Of him looking like a zombie to the point my parents took Maddie for a bit so that he could get himself together enough not to scare her.
And then I realize I don’t want to push the thoughts away. I need to remember them, use them as a steadfast reminder of why I can’t drag Becks into this.
Why he can’t know that I’m in love with him too.
Hell yes, I’d step into the ring with him, would love him to fight beside me.
“I love him,” I whisper into the silence. “And I’m scared to death.” The sobs rack my body as I finally say the two things I’ve been holding in, have been ignoring over the past two weeks. And there’s something about saying a hard truth aloud that makes it both more real and more cathartic. Almost like even if it’s just me in a cemetery, I still can’t take the acknowledgment back.
“Give me a sign, Lex. Please give me something to tell me that you’re listening. That I don’t need to be scared because your wings up there are shielding me from the worst of it. I need to know you’re by my side.”
“She is by your side.” His voice startles me. Scares the hell out of me really, and I know a part of it’s because I thought I was alone, but the other part is I wonder how much he’s heard. “Every second of every day, she’s by your side.”
I’m wiping the tears off my face with my shirt as I turn around to face Danny. He’s standing behind me, his hands shoved deep in his jeans’ pockets and his head angled to meet my gaze. “Until she had Maddie, you were the one she took care of. The one she thought of before herself. We used to fight about it, actually. How she’d think of you before she’d think of me.”
I push myself up from my seat, my right foot numb from sitting for so long. I know I look like a mess, but I don’t care because Danny’s words captivate me. Something about Lex that I never knew. Something to hold tight to when I thought there’d never be anything new again.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper but all the while a little part of me smiles at how lucky I was to have that connection to my sister.
“Don’t be,” he says, taking a step toward me and then looking at her grave for a moment. “That’s one of the things I loved about her. Her commitment to her family, to you. I knew that when we had kids, she’d be fiercely protective and incredible with them because of the way she was with you.”
I bite my lip to prevent more tears from falling and know already that I’m going to fail miserably. I step beside Danny, my posture echoing his as we both stare at the dates on the stone marker, which reinforce that Lex is never coming back.
“You didn’t tell me.” The hurt woven into his voice squeezes my heart. I reach over and put his hand in mine and keep it there as I try to explain why I didn’t tell him about my diagnosis. “Your mom told me last night when she dropped Maddie off. She needed to talk to someone besides your dad about it and didn’t realize that I didn’t know yet…. I’m so sorry. Had…. I don’t even know what to—”
“There’s nothing to say,” I tell him. “It is what it is. They caught it early. Hopefully, that will help.” I say the words but don’t feel any truth behind them. I feel like a broken record on repeat because there is no conviction in my voice. He just nods his head and squeezes my hand, the silence that was comforting now filled with unease. “It’s all so raw still … Lex being gone. I thought maybe if I waited to tell you until after the surgery, I’d have better news. It would dredge up less of everything for you. I don’t know.” I shake my head and exhale loudly. “I don’t know anything right now, Danny. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, but I was just trying to do what I thought was best for you.”
“You don’t get to make those decisions, Haddie. For me. For anyone. That’s my choice. That’s their choice. You’re not God, so stop playing everyone’s cards for them. You’re robbing us and yourself of possibilities because of it.” He falls silent, which only serves to emphasize his words as he turns to face me. When I lift my eyes to meet his, I see a different man before me. Yes, I see the grief still weighing heavily, but I also see a quiet resolve that hasn’t been there before. He stares at me for a moment before just barely shaking his head and then pulling me into him and wrapping his arms around me.
At first I just stand there, the numbness I choose to feel dictating my immobility. His words are soaking into my psyche, a verbal backhand to my way of thinking. And I know he’s right. Every single word. So when the guilt and shame and acknowledgment over what I’ve done to Becks, done to him, hit me like that Mack Truck Rylee warned me about, everything I’ve held in comes bubbling up.
I start to move, start to feel again. I wrap my arms around him and cling there, tears escalating in strength and volume as the house of cards I’ve built to protect my heart comes tumbling down. Danny holds me as I get it all out, quiet murmurs of support being said but nothing else besides that until all that’s left in me is hitching, tearless sounds.
He keeps his arms around me for a moment longer before we separate, both of us wiping away tears. He steps forward and kisses his fingers before he runs them over her etched name.
“I miss her so much, Had. Every single moment of every goddamn day.” He falls silent as he reins in the tears before continuing. “Every day I think she’s going to walk through that front door, that I’ll hear her bitch that I left my shoes in the way, hear her laugh as I tell her about my day, watch the love in her eyes as she holds Maddie … every damn day….” His voice fades off.
His words tear into me and reawaken a sadness that somehow was untapped somewhere, and before I can think, the question is off my tongue. “Do you ever wish you’d never met her?” His head snaps up, the shock and anger in his eyes has me scrambling to explain myself. “I mean, was loving her worth the risk? If you hadn’t met her, then you’d never have had to go through all of this. You’d never have had to watch her die, be alone….”
Danny hangs his head for a moment before looking back toward her marker. “I don’t regret for a single day any moment I spent with her—good, bad, and ugly.” He looks up to meet my eyes. “She was my everything, Haddie. And, God … fuck, it broke me, watching her suffer, watching her die…. Look at me. I’m still broken,” he says, holding his hands out to his sides, “but I wouldn’t give up a single second I had with her because even though the end was brutal, do you have any idea how much of her light she left me to hold on to?” A ghost of a smile spreads across his face, and somehow it reaches his eyes for the first time since she died. “She gave me hope and laughter. She gave me love so strong, I’ll always feel it, feel her. She gave me a lifetime of memories in the few years we had together … and most important, she gave me Maddie.”