Page 57 of Every Sunset

“Just rest now, okay? You’re body needs time and sleep to recover.

Max and I are good, and Logan will be too, now that you’re awake.

Just close your eyes and sleep,” Anna told me.

I wanted to argue. I needed to stay awake long enough to make sure she and Max were really alright.

I wanted to tell her she had to go home and get some real rest herself.

I wanted to look to Logan and make him promise me that he would take care of our family, but it was a losing battle as my eyes became heavy.

I used the last of my consciousness to turn to Logan.

I tried to speak but the words didn’t come, so all I could do was hope that he saw enough in my eyes to see sense and remember what Anna truly meant to him.

ANNA

I just sat for a while, watching Maddox as he settled back into sleep. His face relaxed and all of the worry that had been there before left him.

“He’ll be alright, Logan,” I said when I glanced up and saw Logan watching his brother with the same devastation that had been on his face before Madd woke up. He looked so lost and I wished there was something I could do to make it better for him.

“He better be,” Logan returned and when he looked to me, there was nothing but blankness in his face. All of the love that he had looked at me with before, was gone, as was his light and his strength. He just looked cold, and it make me feel ill to have him look at me that way.

“Come on, mom,” Max intervened before I fell apart all over again.

“Maddox will sleep for a few hours now. Let’s get out of here so you can rest for a while then we can come back later,” he suggested.

I took a deep breath and blinked the tears from my eyes.

My heart was shattered on the inside, but I couldn’t afford to let it break me on the outside.

My son still needed me, and maybe Madd would too, but losing Logan was killing me.

“Is that okay?” I asked shakily as I looked to Logan again. “If we c-cone back, I mean? Is it okay if I visit him?”

“Anna, you don’t have to be like that,” Logan sighed deeply.

“I’m not being like anything. I just…I didn’t want to upset you anymore. I’m sorry if…”

“That’s enough, mom,” Max cut in abruptly. “You have nothing to apologize for, so don’t. Maddox wants you here. That’s all of the permission you need to come back. Let’s go.”

I wanted Logan to argue. I wanted him to tell me that we would sort this all out when things calmed down and that we’d be alright. I wanted him to tell us not to leave without him. I just wanted some signal from him that we’d get over this, but he wouldn’t even look at me again.

Max just growled angrily, then he helped me up from the chair and led me from the room.

I’d like to say that I held it together well, but I didn’t.

I crumbled. I was exhausted, in pain, terrified for Madd, and traumatized from Logan’s treatment.

I felt like my life had fallen down around me, and Max was the only thing holding me up – both figuratively and literally in those moments.

I didn’t really remember leaving the hospital.

Max got me into a cab at some point, then I remember being laid on a bed, curled tightly into myself and crying as my son held me and told me we’d be okay with out Logan and Maddox if it came to that.

He was there with me until I eventually cried myself to sleep once again, the pain of the last twenty four hours pouring from me now that I finally felt able to allow it to happen.

***

“Mom?” I groaned and cracked my eyes open. The room around me was light and modern, but definitely not home – or the guys place as I should probably think of it again now.

“Max? Where are we?” I asked, my voice coming out as a quiet rasp.

“A hotel. I didn’t want to go back to their place. I paid for the night with the money I saved over the summer,” he told me, and I didn’t miss the way he hissed ‘their’ with utter hatred.

“Don’t be like that. It’s not their fault.

Logan was right to blame me. I was the one who got Maddox shot,” I told him as I rolled over and sat up.

Pain ricocheted down my back and side, and my head felt like I’d spent the entire night before downing shots.

My chest was still burning when I breathed and my throat was clearly raw if my voice was any indication.

“This is why I’m pissed, mom!” Max snapped. “You already blame yourself for every single thing that has ever gone wrong in your life and mine. I don’t want you blaming yourself for what happens to the two of them too, and fuck them for making you feel that way.”

“Madd said he didn’t blame me, and Logan was upset, as he had every right to be. I don’t want you being rude to them when we go to the hospital later,” I told him as firmly as I could.

“You’re going back there?” he questioned as he turned to face me with shock.

“I have to check on Maddox. He wasn’t out of danger last night when we left him.

I need to know he’s going to recover from this.

I’m worried about Logan too. I get that things between us have changed, but I still love him, Max.

I love both of them and I can’t leave until I know they’ll be okay,” I argued.

I left out the fact that walking away from them was going to break me in a way nothing else ever had, and so I wanted to put it off for as long as I could.

“You need to take your pills. That’s why I woke you.

I ordered some breakfast for you too,” Max told me with a huff as he nodded to a covered plate on the small dining table across the room.

It was a fancy looking hotel, the décor bright and modern.

There was a sofa and two armchairs near the entrance, and I guessed Max had slept on the sofa, since I could see blankets and a pillow on it.

“Thanks Max,” I sighed as I once again marveled at how much he had grown up in such a short space of time recently. He really was growing into quite the man.

“I brought the stuff Cat packed for us too, It’s all in the bag near the bathroom,” he added as he nodded to a closed door of to my left, beside which sat the hold-all that Cat had delivered to the hospital.

“Did you eat something?” I asked as I swung my legs from under the comforter and slid from the bed. Once I stood I felt much steadier than the day before. The sleep I had gotten had obviously been much needed.

“Yeah. I had breakfast earlier.”

“Where’s my cell? Have we heard anything from the cops?” I asked. I walked over to the small table and sat, grabbing the carafe of coffee that sat there and pouring myself a mug full.

“They haven’t called, if that’s what you really wanted to know,” he sniped. I looked up at him in shock. I didn’t remember my son ever speaking to me that way before and it hurt. I hated him being angry with me.

“Max, I know you’re pissed off right now, but I don’t know what you want me to do,” I sighed tiredly.

How could I already feel so exhausted once again already?

“I can’t just pack up and walk away from Logan and Madd without a word.

I love them. Do you understand that? Even if this is it, and it can’t work after what happened, I have to at least say goodbye to them.

Maddox told me he loves me last night. He loves you too.

Didn’t you see the way he looked at you when he woke up? How worried he was?”

“But Logan was an asshole to you. I don’t want you putting up with that shit. You did nothing wrong!”

“Logan and I need to talk. Emotions were high yesterday. We were all exhausted and terrified for Madd. He thought his brother was going to die. He wasn’t exactly in the greatest place.”

“You can’t just forgive him, mom. You can’t forget how easily he turned on you when it came down to it.”

“He didn’t turn on me,” I scoffed. “But I understand your worries. I’m a big girl, son. I can look out for myself.”

“I just can’t sit back and see you get hurt again. You have been fighting all your life. I just want you to be able to stop and find some happiness for once. I’m not sure Logan can give you that any more. Not after yesterday.”

“I won’t let anyone hurt me again, Max. Not again. And I don’t need anyone else to feel happiness in my life. I have you. You’re the happiness in my life and you always will be. I will get through it if we have to leave here, and them behind. I’ll be okay. I’ll always be okay.”

And I would be, for Max’s sake. But I didn’t tell him that if I left that place and the men I loved behind, I would also be leaving two huge parts of myself behind too – parts I would never get back without Logan and Maddox.

LOGAN

ANNA: Is it ok if I come to visit Madd?

I sat beside Maddox’s bed, in the private room that he had been moved to, after leaving the ICU, that morning just staring at the message on my cell.

I hated that there were no heart emojis, or kisses on the end of the text like I always usually got from Anna, but I also knew I only had myself to blame for that.

I was the one who had been a complete dick and pushed her away.

I replied with a thumbs up emoji, then felt like an ass all over again for doing it. I could have just replied with words, Kind, gentle words, And maybe a kiss.

“That Anna?” Madd asked. He was sitting up and he had some color back in his face.

He looked so much more like himself that morning and the doctors were pleased with how his incision site looked when they did rounds.

They told him he’d probably be good to go home in the next couple of days if all continued going as well as it was.

“Yeah. She’s on her way,” I replied as I locked the screen of my cell and pushed it into the pocket of my sweats. I needed to go home to shower and change. I was still wearing the clothes Cat had brought for us the day before, and I knew I smelled pretty rough too.

“Are you going to apologize to her?” Madd asked.

“Don’t start again,” I groaned. It was all I had heard from him for hours since he woke that morning.

I’d almost begged the doc to give him some drugs just to knock him out and shut him up, but the doc had instead lowered the pain meds so Madd was well and truly awake. And pissed. So pissed with me.

“She might not even forgive you if you do apologize. You realize that, right? You were a complete and utter bastard with her and Max. I still can’t believe you told her it was her fault!”

“I didn’t say that. I just…I suggested it might be better if we never met them, is all,” I argued, and I knew it was pathetic.

Madd just stared me down. “I know, okay? But I thought you were going to die! Again! I was wracked with guilt for failing you again and I just…I needed to vent. Anna was there.”

“That is not an excuse, Logan! She fucking died and you weren’t even there to take care of her.

You left her and her kid to manage alone.

Max was still terrified when I woke up last night.

That’s why he was so pissed with you. He needed you and you fucking failed him, just like you failed Anna.

Did you see the state she was in last night, and you didn’t even try to help her?

Max had to take care of her!” Madd roared.

“Get over this stupid fucking guilt, Logan, before it costs you everything you have in your life. You couldn’t have saved me yesterday, just like you couldn’t have saved me that night in the city.

None of it was on you, and none of it was on Anna either.

You fucked up, bro. You really, really fucked up and if it costs us Anna and Max, I will never forgive you! ”

“Neither will I,” I uttered, more to myself, but Madd heard me.

“Just fix it. Do whatever she needs you to do to show her that you didn’t mean a word of the shit you spouted yesterday, and that you love her as much as you told her you do.”

“I do love her, Madd,” I sighed. I hated myself for the way I had acted the day before, and I couldn’t stop worrying about where Anna and Max had even stayed the night before.

They hadn’t been home. I knew that much because the cameras at the gates never once notified me on my cell that anyone arrived there after the FBI finished up earlier in the evening.

Was Anna alright? I didn’t know because I hadn’t even been with her the night before when the doctor had checked her over.

I worried about whether she had her meds with her.

She couldn’t skip a dose of them. They were too important.

“Then show her that, because I’m pretty sure she was doubting it last night,” Madd pointed out and I knew he was right. I also knew I had some work to do if Anna was ever going to forgive me for how epically I had failed her the day before, and let her and her son down.