Look After You (37 page)

My heart sinks.

Oh fuck.

His eyes turn black in a millisecond, and he is on me in an instant. I try to make a run for it, but I only make it to the door before my face is being smashed forward into the wood. I scream out in agonizing pain at the impact.

“Bitch!” he screams as he rams my face into the door for a second time, the sound of my nose cracking is evident over my screams and blood gushes down my face. He hauls me up by the thick of my hair and throws me to the other side of the room. I scream for a second time, this time from the intense pain that tears through my neck from the earlier whiplash. He plows his fist into the side of my face, causing the blow to my neck to increase. “You’re fucking dead.”

Through the trembling strength of my muscles, I manage to use my bare feet to kick him in the face, making him lose balance. I scramble onto all fours when
suddenly a swift kick to my abdomen causes me to fall flat on my face, and I scream out in more pain. I can barely breathe through the agony, but I continue to fight, desperately trying to remember what I learnt in my self-defense class. He has me on my back, straddling me at the waist, and it’s hard to remember anything when pain ricochets across my head from the speed of his fists.

“I’m going to kill you and then I’m going to kill that motherfucking boyfriend of yours!” Blood, sweat and tears cover my face, and for a moment I think he’s going to win as unconsciousness begins to seep in. I can vaguely feel my panties being ripped apart as I claw my fingernails at his face, hitting
and punching him but with each movement I make, the faster the feeling in my arms disappear until all I can feel is numbness. Through my distant screams and cries, my consciousness awakens to the sound of a gunshot and a sudden heavy weight falling on top of me. My eyes blink open, and that’s when I notice Darnell, Ashton’s friend in an ATF bulletproof vest, the gun aimed at my brother. Armed police come barreling in. They haul him off me, and that’s when I realize he isn’t moving, he isn’t breathing. Holy shit, he’s dead.

I glance down, and my entire body begins to shake when I see blood,
his
blood all over my body. Through my racking sobs, I can feel a blanket covering my half naked, blood covered body, but it does nothing for the chill that runs up and down my body.

“Ava!” I hear my name being called, and through my daze, I slowly look up to see Ashton running over to me. He drops down to
 his knees and gently pulls me into his arms. “Baby, baby, baby, thank God!” I gasp out in pain, and he pulls back in alarm.

My eyes fall onto Avery as I see a paramedic working on him, resuscitating him.
 “Is he dead?”

“I don’t know, baby.” He brushes the matted hair out from my face,
 which is held together with blood and sweat.

“I thought you weren’t coming,” I murmur through my tears.

“You had the fucking cavalry coming for you. I’m here, Caleb’s here… Se-” I cut off his words by slamming my lips onto his. The kiss is raw, full of desperation, and I put everything I physically have into this one kiss. Breathlessly I pull away, noticing blood has transferred against his mouth and lips, but he doesn’t seem the least bit bothered by it.

“I didn’t think I
’d ever see you again, you and Lily were all I was thinking about,” I speak through my hysterical cries.

“I’m here, baby, I’m here.” Yes, yes he is.

“I can breathe again,” I say with a trembling cry, clutching him desperately to me.

“Yeah, baby, me too, me too.”

“I love you,” I say breathlessly, pressing my lips gently on to his.

Suddenly, I feel Ashton freeze within my grip.
 “I’m sorry,” he mumbles against my lips. I pull away, scrunching my eyes in confusion. “Sorry, sorry for what?” I follow his eye line, and the moment my eyes fall on the person stood in front of me, my world plunges back into the darkness.

Oh fuck, oh shit.

“Ava?” My lips tremble as I see Sebastian stood in front of me, the look of pain, confusion and devastation etched along his handsome face, and the physical pain is too much. Today is too much, everything is too much, and suddenly I feel extremely drowsy that I can’t stop myself from closing my eyes, and allowing my body to shut down, blackness enveloping me...

Chapter 26

I blink through my hazy sleep; my eyelids feel heavy as a striking pain shoots across my forehead. As I try to move my neck, I groan in pain. It feels restricted, and my hands fly up to my neck in sheer panic.

“Shh, it’s okay, it’s just a neck brace,” I hear Caleb whisper, and I try to maneuver my head to look at him when suddenly he appears in front of me. “Hey, beautiful.” I ge
ntly smile, as he takes my hand within his.

“Hi,”
I rasp, my throat feeling like raw sandpaper. A plastic cup and a straw appear in front of me, and Caleb gently places the end of the straw to my mouth, and I take a small sip. “Thank you,” I say after a second sip.

I trace my surroundings with my ey
es, and I immediately recognize that I’m surrounded within the confines of a hospital room. I see Sebastian asleep in an upright position in a chair to the left of the room, and Ashton is asleep on the sofa to my right. My mind goes on red alert when I can’t see Lily in sight anywhere. Fuck. Where’s Lily?

“Lily?” I whisper in panic.

“She’s fine…she’s with my mom, Ava,” Caleb says.

“She’s okay?” I question, mak
ing sure I had heard him right.

“She’s perfect,” he says with a smile, immediately easing my panic. I breathe a sigh of relief, than
kful that my baby girl is okay.

After a short moment, I trace my eyes over Sebastian again, and as I look at his handsome face, the memories sud
denly come flooding back to me.

“
Ava?”

My lips tremble as I see Sebastian stood in front of me, the look of pain, confusion and devastation etched along his handsome face.

“How?” I say, shuddering at the memory

“How
can they both sit in the same room as each other? Because they both love you, something fierce and both just as stubborn, and neither would leave you.”

I look bet
ween them, and the feeling that pierces my heart is crippling. I close my eyes as the guilt and shame swims through me. “I’ve made such a mess of everything.”

“I know, but it’s a mess you can fix. You just have to pick one.”

“I have,” I pause and concentrate my gaze on Ashton, and I know irrevocably that he is the one I want to be with, no question. I knew from the very moment my eyes fell on him that Sebastian didn’t stand a chance. My gaze traces over to Sebastian and my heart drops, “But it doesn’t hurt any less knowing that I’m going break his heart. That I have already broken it.” I try to move into a comfortable position, but every muscle in my body screams out in blood-curdling agony and I can’t keep the pained groan from escaping my lips.

“Let me grab a nurse, you’re in a really bad way.”

I watch as he presses a small button on my buzzer. “How bad is bad?” He sits against the bed, gently holding onto my hand being careful of the cannula.

“Well you have two cracked ribs, a cervical fracture, deep wounds around your wrists.” I wince when I glance down at my wrist noticing both h
ave been wrapped up securely in bandages. “A broken nose and a broken cheek bone.”

“And what about…you know?” I drop my eyes towards my groin area, once again becoming a victim of rape.

“There is no permanent damage, just a few tears that should heal up in time. They had to do a few tests, a hospital procedure following…rape.” He can hardly bring himself to say the word; I can see the pain etched around his eyes and in the snarl of his voice. “Everything came back clean, but I wouldn’t allow them to take a pregnancy test without your consent.” I clench my eyes shut, just imagining being riddled with
his
spawn but then I remember the condom wrapper and relax, slightly.
“I’m not, he used…a condom.”

“Still, it wouldn’t hurt to do one as a precaution.” I try to nod in agreement, but the mere movement in my neck has me groaning out in pain, so I have to mumble a quiet,
“okay,” instead.

After a short moment, I say, “Is he dead?”

“As much as I wish he was, no.” My entire body freezes at the prospect of
him
still being able to hurt me, but Caleb’s words pierce straight through me. “The bastard is half way there though, he’s on life support, but the doctors are unable to determine whether he will make it through or not.” I allow this information to sink in, and I can’t figure out if this is something I feel good about, but that thought comes to a sudden halt when a nurse walks through the door, subsequently waking both Sebastian and Ashton, forcing me to deal with reality. Their eyes widen and they both stand at the same time, saying my name. I am bombarded with questions and as I’m about to tell them I’m okay, the nurse hushes them. “Boys, give the poor girl a chance to wake up.”

Sebastian and Ashton both sit back down, and unable to take their worried stares, I purposely avoid them as the nurse checks my vitals and adds more morphine.

When the nurse leaves the room, an awkward silence falls and I want to shout for her to come back. The tension in the room is so thick it could be cut with a knife. Finally finding the courage to look up at them both, I see Ashton’s eyes are solely on me while Sebastian’s eyes are currently staring daggers at Ashton, his hands balled up in fists, hatred in his eyes. My heart sinks when I realize I did that, I’m the reason for the anger in his eyes.

“Can you give Sebastian and I
a moment alone, please?” I ask, mostly to Ashton, trying to convey that everything is okay and that I love him with one look alone. He smiles and before I can return his smile, the sound of a chair screeching across the floor breaks my gaze and I can see Sebastian looking between both Ashton and me, almost assessing our relationship. Caleb walks over to Sebastian, and he whispers something inaudible in his ear and with a brief glance in my direction, Sebastian nods. Caleb claps him on the back then walks out of the door with Ashton following behind him.

Hesitantly, Sebastian takes a seat beside me, and an awkward silence covers us, and it suddenly occurs to me that this is the moment that I have to break his heart. How do you begin with something like that? I purposely stay clear of the ‘I’m in love with another man’ line and change the subject all together. I have to shift my body into his direction so I can get a good look at him without having to move my neck.

“You changed?”

He blinks, his shoulder
s suddenly tensing at my words. “I’m not the one who changed, Ava.” I ignore the pain that rips through my heart and point towards his attire. “I mean your clothes; you were in your uniform.”

“Oh,” he says, looking down at his casual jeans and sweatshirt. “Um, yeah you’ve been out of it for a couple of days. I’ve been home, showered, changed, spent some time with Lily-Mai.”

I smile when I hear my daughter’s name. “Good, she’s missed you.”

“Well, I’m glad somebody has.” My heart lurches, and I feel physically sick with guilt.

“Sebastian…” I sigh.

“Because from where I was standing it didn’t look that way when you were declaring your love to somebody else.” I close my eyes and take a deep, steadying breath.
 
“I don’t even know who you are anymore. Do you know how humiliating it is to find out that your own brother abused you, from somebody else, more specifically the man that has been sleeping with
my
fiancé? Were you ever going to tell me?”

I look down to my hands, unable to look him in the eye. “No.” I answer gently and honestly.

“Didn’t you trust me?” The pain in his voice is unmistakable, and it kills me, knowing that I’m the reason for his pain.

“Of course I trusted you, I tried to tell you, so many times, but I just couldn’t part with it, I’m so sorry.” He is quiet for a moment, and I can see the cogs turning in his mind.

“Did you ever love me?” My heart sinks at his question, and it leads me to reach out for his hand, and thankfully he lets me.

“Of course I did, I do love you. You gave me my daughter, our daughter. You gave my life purpose, you brought me out of myself, gave me the confidence to love myself. You were my first love, my first everything.” The tears are running freely over my swollen face.

“But I wasn’t enough,” he whispers, a statement rather than a question, and I despise at how accurate he is.

“I thought you were, I truly did, but the day I met Ashton, my world shifted. I didn’t mean for it to happen, it just did.”

He wipes his eyes in frustration, disappointment clearly visible on his face. “I’ve been dreaming about coming home for months, every night I would lie awake and instead of replaying the daily horrors that I was surrounded by, I would picture you and your beautiful smile. I’d visualize the moment I’d finally walk through our front door, and you would throw your arms around me, saying how much you loved me, how much you missed me, and I’d finally be able to be with my family and begin with the rest of our lives together.
It was the only thing that got me through all the shit, the deaths, the brutality of everything, and that’s why I lied about the date I was coming home, I wanted to surprise you, but hell, it seemed that I was the one in for a surprise instead. It certainly wasn’t the welcome home committee I had pictured in my mind, that’s for sure.” He comes up for air for a moment, pressing the heel of his hands deep into his eye sockets as if he is desperately trying to push his emotions away.

“You wouldn’t believe the amount of heartbreak I had to witness, watching grown ass men cry because their wives or girlfriends were cheating on them back at home, and it was disturbing to watch. I thought I was one of the lucky ones. I would sit back and be so thankful that all this bullshit drama wasn’t my drama and that my girl wasn’t like that. Hell, infidelity hadn’t even crossed my mind; it didn’t even register on my radar that you would deceive me like that. I trusted you, and that’s all that mattered but boy, how fucking wrong was I?”

“It wasn’t like that, I…” I say, desperately trying to keep the tears at bay as the crack in my heart continues to deepen.

“What was it like? Tell me? Make me understand.” I have to clench my eyes shut as the sudden reminders of my injuries begin to vibrate through me, and I hiss out in
agonizing pain. “What’s wrong?” he panics and suddenly jackknifes forward in his seat, clasping hold of my hand.

“I just need a moment.” I take deep breaths through the pain until it slowly begins to subside, allowing me to reopen my eyes.

“I’m sorry, you’ve been through hell, and I’m forcing shit on you when you should be resting,” he says with remorse, rubbing his hand up and down his face.

“I have plenty of time to rest, but right now I need to explain.” He doesn’t argue, so I take that as my cue to continue.

“I didn’t plan for it; to fall in love with somebody else…it just happened. I was lonely, vulnerable, and Ashton was the first person to make me smile again. I was in a really bad place, I was missing you like crazy, our daughter could have died at any moment, and he was there, and I liked his company. Suddenly, I began to look forward to his presence just as much as I was looking forward to a call or a text message from you. It quickly escalated into something more than attraction, but I tried to ignore it, but the more I ignored it, the more I wanted him. I didn’t want to want him, and I hated that I did want him.”

“Were you seeing him behind my back when I came home on leave?”

“No, nothing happened. It wasn’t until my sister passed away that things began to escalate.” I take a jittery breath before continuing. “I lied to you when I said I went to Miami alone. I wasn’t alone. Ashton, he was by my side the whole time.” I don’t mistake the sharp inhale of breath, and it takes everything inside me not to break down at his pain, the pain that I’ve caused. I try to tread carefully with the next words that follow, but no matter how I word it, it’s not going to shield him away from the pain. “It was in Florida when we first slept together.” I tighten my grip against his hand, desperately wanting to comfort him but he recoils away from me, snatching his hand away from mine. “I can stop if you want,” I say in a pained voice, hating the sad and destroyed look on his face.

“No, I need to know.” I can see his jaw clenching, and I hate how he feels the need to torture himself with information that will only hurt him in the long run.

“I didn’t mean for it to happen, just with the stress of the funeral, seeing my brother again…” I see Sebastian visibly tense at the mention of my brother and I want to reach out to him, to wrap my hand around his clenched fists, but he doesn’t want my touch, so I don’t. “It all became too much, and I cracked under the strain. It happened so quickly. One minute I was blurting out my past and the next...well, it just kind of happened. I despised myself afterwards, I locked myself inside the bathroom, sobbing, scrubbing myself down in the shower, just thinking about you and how I’d just deceived you. I hate myself, and I hated what I had just done to my family.”

“
You said when you first slept together? How many times were there?” His shoulders rise and fall quickly as he takes it all in.

“
Sebastian…” I breathe out, not feeling comfortable with his question, for his sake, not mine.

“
Tell me,” he demands, with his fist curling up so tightly that his knuckles begin to turn white.