Page 68 of The Impact (Parachutes #3)
The Christmas Eve he had handed her this home, and a life with it.
Vin’s distinct and rich voice was back in her ear.
Tahli saw every freckle sprinkling his face.
Smelled the cologne he used to carry in his wake, like it was December 24 th , and Dali was a bean growing in her belly.
Fear paralyzing her that he was already a memory.
“Dalvin!” Don’t you do this to me, Dalvin Isaiah Hayes. Don’t you dare leave me for real.
Tahli reached the walkway and sprinted across it without hesitation, her father’s desperation calling behind her.
“That’s my fucking daughter. Let me go!”
The smog—black and thick, stifling.
Heat, sweltering.
Air, unbreathable.
It stopped Tahli in choking, like a smack from God. Doubled her over, crippling her lungs, but Tahli hobbled against her head going dizzy. Until a second set of linebackers tackled her to the ground.
“Noooooooooooooooooooo!” She shrilled in defeat, feet from the door. “Dalvin!” She called his name until a thunderous blast stole her voice. Something else burst inside of the already burning home, and fire danced in Tahli’s pupils. Like it was alive. Like it had triumphed.
The tears that swamped her eyes tumbled when she shut both of them. Not only was there an unbreakable amount of weight from men pinning her down, but the final combustion proved that if anyone or anything was alive in her former home, it wasn’t anymore.
Tahli surrendered to her sobs, gripping blades of grass between her fingers. Guiltily, forgetting all around her…even her children. Just let the flames have her, too.
“Oh, God, no… please,” she begged through incoherent blubbers.
Her body screamed with pain ringing through every bone, every nerve, every vessel. Throbbing with unmanageable agony. Felt like a car had parked on her chest from the pressure. But inside, she was hollow, everything in her turning to dust.
She sobbed, concrete scraping her cheek.
She had failed him. She was all he had, and she had abandoned him.
Yes, within good reason, for people practicing within reason and conditional love.
But forget forgiveness, how would she live?
How would she live in a world without Dalvin Isaiah Hayes existing in it?
The potential curled Tahli’s body, jerking it in hopeless, brutal cries. A wounded groan came with tears dripping down her chin. Catatonic, she laid lifelessly. Oh, God, help me. Until a hand laid on her cheek, and her tensed muscles relaxed.
“What the fuck are you doing, baby love?”
Trapped between fantasy and reality, Tahli wondered…was she dead? Was it like the car accident? Tahli was afraid to crack her lids to find out.
“I got her.”
She knew that voice. Knew that strength when she was lifted from the grass. Knew that smell over the charring of wood and memories.
“I always knew you were crazier than me,” he mumbled, wiry beard scratching her forehead, as Tahli rested her face against his, parting her weary lids enough to see the stars in the sky passing by through her haze, smoke-filled lungs battling for air.
“Tahli!” What she thought was Vanessa called out. But her brain matter tingled on the cusp of consciousness.
“We need an oxygen mask over here!” A woman’s voice shouted, and Tahli was placed on her feet, no longer in the comfort of his arms.
“Can you stand, baby love?”
She did. Weakly. Then tried to focus on his face. It was Vin. He was there. Back across the street at a safe distance from their burning past. Their children safe and accounted for, ambulance lights dancing on their innocent faces as they happily threw their arms around Vin.
Tahli gasped compressed breaths for too little air. Until Vin placed two big hands on her cheeks, leaning down into her face.
“Inhale.” His lips formed to funnel breath, and he did it right into her mouth. A slow, strong stream of needed air traveled from Vin into Tahli’s waiting lungs. She drew his sweet breath in deep, exhaling it shakily.
“That’s it, baby love. Just like that,” he coached in a whisper, doing it once more. Eyes shut, Tahli allowed the breath from his body to revive her, head clearing, feeling returning to her fingers and toes. When she no longer felt she would faint, her eyes parted slowly. Vin’s stare was waiting.
“Hi.”
She sighed deeply before her face pruned in a cry. “H-Hi,” she managed shakily.
The forces slowed. They were in the clouds but no longer plummeting to death. The house was burning but they’d survived. The parachute had deployed.
“I had to go back in and get Lola,” he revealed of his mother’s ashes. And Tahli fought the urge to curse him for it. Peeling eyes from his, Tahli slowly scanned the scene, knocked back into reality by the bystanders’ expressions.
The wide-eyed EMT worker stared on as another ran up to her.
“Still need a mask?”
“Um…. I…don’t think so. He like…made his own?”
As Vanessa pressed fingers to her lips, Tahli’s father only massaged his forehead. Milo gawked and Dali’s eyes smiled as an EMT worker checked Terran and DJ’s vitals.
“Drew!”
But he was already in a pivot, ducking under yellow tape, and shoving through the crowd.
“Drew, wait!” Tahli called on his back. He wouldn’t understand. The past hour had been no conscious decision making, only compulsion. And she felt awful about it. And still…would do nothing differently.
“Drew, please!”
“Tahli, what the fuck?” Drew bellowed, now at his car door, hand aiming back toward the ambulance. “He breathed…into your fucking mouth!”
The bass in Drew’s words and what those words meant, paralyzed Tahli.
“You ran into a burning house after that mothafucka!”
“I didn’t run into the house!”
“Bitch, you tried!”
Tahli squeezed her forehead with her fingers.
“Drew…you…you don’t understand…” Tahli shook her wet face.
“You’re right,” he guffawed. “I fucking don’t.”
Tahli gulped.
“Tahli…I love you. I know things moved fast, but I really believe in my heart that I love you. That I’ve always loved you. But there’s love. And then there’s…whatever the fuck that is,” Drew waved his hand at everything behind her.
Tahli sighed.
“Drew…you have to believe me. Despite what has happened these past months, me and Dalvin are done . I don’t want to- No. I can’t be with Dalvin. I will never be with him again.”
Drew’s stare said things before his lips did. The third person to case her face with his hands that night, and he did it the gentlest.
“Tahli, baby…I really believe you feel that. And maybe you’re right…maybe you won’t be with Dalvin again.” Drew shrugged, glassy-eyed. “But I can’t be with you.”
She digested.
“I’m sorry. I can’t even blame you. Because the signs were there, and I ignored them. I wanted you so bad, Tahli.”
Tahli’s heart went as heavy as her eyelids. She was in her pajamas. Her old home burned behind her. Her fiancé was breaking up with her because she tried to run into the fire for her ex-husband.
Like, fucking literally .
“I’d say I have to let you go, but I don’t think you were ever mine.”
Drew could’ve knocked her over with a pinky. His endearing kiss fell on her forehead. Then he slowly made his way to the driver’s seat of his car.
Tahli scrubbed fingers down her face to the sounds of his tires peeling off. An hour ago, they were in bed together. Now, Tahli’s old house wasn’t the only thing up in smoke.