Page 58 of Breaking Point (IceHawks #1)

Grayson

KIERAN ASHFORD

dude

text your girl back before she goes into cardiac arrest

I get why you’re not talking to anyone on this day

don’t push her away

I love you cap

here whenever you want to talk

judgement free as always

M y body is punishing me. My tongue is stuck to the roof of my mouth. My head is splitting in half. My body is shaking and my stomach is rolling.

And I deserve every ounce of it.

Two months down the drain. All that hard work. Gone.

Usually when I wake up hungover like this, I would start drinking to combat the guilty feelings, but now I have to just lie in bed and allow it to consume me. This weekend proved that I can never drink again.

The next time I feel pain, I need to not turn to alcohol.

Fuck.

The guilt that consumes me is so heady my chest starts to ache with so much pain I squeeze my eyes closed. Two fucking months. All that hard work. Gone .

I’m going to have to face everyone at AA.

Running a hand through my hair, I’m disgusted to feel how sweaty it is. I roll over, only to come face-to-face with a note lying on my bedside table.

Scrambling upwards, I finally realize I’m still in the same clothes from two days ago.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” I mutter to myself.

I recognize Bella’s neat handwriting on the note instantly and that never-ending pit of guilt gapes open, swallowing me whole like a landslide.

I changed the code on her.

There was not a single part of me that wanted Bella to see me like that.

Even intoxicated, I knew I needed to keep her away.

So I changed it and ignored her. Ignored everyone .

Kieran and my parents were blowing up my phone too; Bella wasn’t the only one to try and come to the house.

The last thing I remember of the weekend is switching off my phone, sitting on the deck with Bambi, and sobbing into a bottle of Jack Daniels.

I expect it to be a resignation letter, or her scolding me, but it’s neither. In fact, it has my brows shooting into my hair line.

We have lunch plans at 2 p.m. Come downstairs when you’re ready.

I flip the card over, searching for another message. Surely there’s something else. I have no doubt it’s Bella’s doing that I’m safely in bed, so why didn’t she say anything about me falling off the wagon?

Maybe the lecture is waiting for me downstairs.

The thought has a taste of sourness coating my tongue. Or maybe that’s just bile. Not wanting to take my chances, I slide off the bed, strip the clothes I’ve been in for two days, and head for my shower.

After I feel slightly more human, I make my way downstairs gingerly, my head still throbbing. It’s quiet, borderline too quiet. I think I’ve daydreamed the note until déjà vu hits me.

Standing in the middle of the living room is Bella, blinking up at me with wide brown eyes, as Bambi comes rushing to me from her side.

Judging by the tracks in the rug, she was pacing.

Rubbing the back of my neck, I give her a sheepish smile. “I want to say hi but that feels like the wrong thing to do,” I admit.

She nods, her lips slightly pursed. “I’m not going to lie and say I’m not disappointed but I understand why you slipped.”

That was the last thing I expected her to say. “You do?”

She looks at me then—really looks at me. “How much do you remember from last night?”

I blow out a breath, moving to take a seat on the couch. “Not much, truth be told. The last memory I have is turning my phone off.”

She takes a seat next to me, nodding to herself. I swallow thickly as her scent surrounds me, the citrus smell soothing the buzzing in my chest.

She places her hand on my leg. As she lifts those brown eyes, my heart stops.

“I’m going to start talking and I need you to let me finish.”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

She licks her lips. “Because I’m going to say some harsh truths and I want to make sure you truly hearthem.”

The way she’s speaking has my back straightening. I sit sideways, facing her head-on, steeling myself for the worst.

What if this is the last time I see Bella?

“It’s okay, you can say it.”

Bella takes a deep breath before seemingly staring into my soul.

“You didn’t kill your brother.”

My body moves as if I were physically struck, flinching away from her. Those were the last words I ever expected to come from Bella’s lips. Before I realize I’m doing it, I’m shaking my head.

She holds up a hand. “Grayson, you did not kill your brother. A drunk truck driver did.” The hand on my lap and the touch that’s usually so comforting burns my skin at her next words.

“I want you to really hear me when I say this. You did not kill your brother. Scott Inling, a truck driver from Indiana, was drunk driving and ran a red light.”

My eyes fill with tears, my hands fisting at my sides as anger and indignation rise.

“You were sober and had your seatbelt on. Even if Drew had his seatbelt on, he still would have passed away. Lewis smashed his truck into the side of your car going over ninety miles per hour.”

“No, I was driving. I didn’t check before taking off. I didn’t wait for Drew to put his seatbelt on and I?—”

“You were in the wrong place at the wrong time,” she says so softly that the tears pooling in my eyes fall. One after the other, and they don’t stop.

She scoots forward, her gentle caress on my cheek hurting all that much more because she knows what I did and she’s still so gentle with me as she wipes my tears away.

I didn’t realize I wasn’t breathing until my lungs demand air, and suddenly, I’m gasping.

“But I should have waited. If I just waited two seconds, Bella, he would be here. Two seconds. It’s a blink.

Just two seconds and he would be here with me.

” My chest constricts, my body shaking. The grief is physical, like I was the one in the passenger seat that got thrown from the car.

“He was my baby brother, Bella. I was the oldest one. I was meant to protect him. I was meant to be the one who didn’t do dumb shit?—”

“You didn’t do anything wrong, Grayson.”

“I should have waited!” I jump to stand because I can’t sit right now. Not as my heart thumps wildly in my chest. Not as every single ounce of pain since the moment my brother’s heart stopped beating floods my system.

She comes to me, tears filling her own eyes. She tries to soothe me with her touch but I can’t handle it. “No, please, I don’t deserve it. Really, I don’t deserve it. I could have stopped it. I don’t deserve your kindness. I don’t deserve any of it.”

My lip wobbles as I try to get my next breath, but I can’t .

“Two seconds,” I say on a broken whisper before I drop to the couch, weeping for the brother I lost.

Bella kneels in front of me, Bambi close on her heels. She lays her head in my lap and whines but it’s Bella who draws my attention. She pushes my hands away from my face and moves between my legs, cradling my head in her hands as if I’m something worth caring for.

“Grayson, those two seconds are not on you. I cannot begin to fathom how much this hurts. I wish I could rewind the time for you, but the person who carries the full blame of that night is behind bars, and his name is not Grayson Crawford.”

“But—”

“No, darling,” she cuts in, the sadness in her eyes gutting me.

“What happened that night is the worst thing imaginable. But you didn’t drive that truck drunk and you didn’t smash it into your car.

You pulled away from the curb as Drew was buckling in and you drove through a green light.

You didn’t do anything wrong, Grayson. You are not to blame for this. ”

I stare at her. I stare at this beautiful woman, cradling my broken heart in her hands and ever so softly trying to repair it, and it’s in this moment that I realize how much I love her.

They tell you that you need to be the one to heal yourself, but sometimes that’s too hard.

Sometimes our minds are too cruel on ourselves.

I can tell that if I let her, she could help me.

She could help combat the angry, cruel voice that screams at me that I should have been the one to die that night.

Taking a choppy breath, I advert my eyes, her soft-spoken, kind words sinking into my mind, but I’m not ready to admit that yet. She must read that on my face because she says, “I have another thing to talk to you about.”

“Fuck, Blaze, I can only handle so much.”

“I know, but the same could be said for your mom.”

That has my head snapping up.

“Now, before you get angry, yes, I called your mom, and no, I don’t regret it. You can bitch and moan in the car to me all you want, but you need to stop hiding from them, Grayson. They don’t blame you. In fact, the only one who blames you for Drew’s death is you .”

My mouth is opening and closing like a fish out of water because I’m genuinely stunned. “Y-you called my mom?”

She dips her head with a stubborn gleam in her eyes. “Yes, and it’s been long enough. This afternoon I’m driving you to your parents—” She places her finger over my lips, glowering. “No. Stop torturing yourself. You’re not the only one you are hurting by doing so. We’re going and that’s final.”

I lean back, taking her in. “When did you get so mouthy?”

She rolls her eyes. “I take it that’s a begrudging yes?”

“Doesn’t sound like I have a choice.”

“Not with this.”

My eyes search hers for a beat. “Why are you doing this?”

“Because contrary to what you have been telling yourself, Grayson, you do deserve to live. It’s time to stop running.” She leans forward, her eyes searing me to the spot. “You intervened for the better with my mom. It’s time I returned the favor.”