Page 158 of Under Your Scars

Gavin hesitantly lifts his weight off me. I scramble to Christian’s side and hold his cold cheeks in my hands. Gavin shrugs off his jacket and uses it to press down on the gaping bullet hole in Christian’s torso.

I sniffle and breathe in a shuddering breath. “I’m here. I’m here,” I coo. His eyes close and I become frantic. I slap him across the face. “Don’t you dare,” I growl. “Please don’t leave me. We haven’t been through so much together just for you to get taken out by a bullet.”

My heart aches painfully when I feel him trace a shaky hand up my arm. He growls through the pain, breathing like each intake of air might be his last. His calloused hand meets my cheek, and he rubs the back of his fingers along the delicate skin there. This feels like a goodbye and my heart can’t take it.

“Please,” I whimper quietly, sobbing and trembling as he feels over my cheek and rubs a thumb over my lip.

“Angel,” Christian says, his voice a mere whisper. The resignation and the feebleness of his tone sends a jolt of white-hot fear through me.

I shake my head. “Don’t give up on me.”

“I would never,” he chokes out. “My soul belongs to you.”

I wince. “Which is why it’s going to stay right here where it belongs.”

He shakes his head, then moves his hand from my cheeks to rest over my heart. I understand what he means, but I shake my head right back.

“Please don’t. I need you. Caroline needs you. Please don’t…don’t…don’t!”

When his eyes close again, I throw my head up to the sky, and I scream.

I never pray.

My family and I never put much into our religious lives. My father stopped believing in God after his first family was killed. My mother believes but doesn’t attend church. Travis steers clear of religion because of his sexual orientation.

Me? Well, I suppose I’m the worst of all of us, because the first time I’ve ever prayed in my life is because I need God to show me mercy.

This is my fault.

This is my punishment for not believing Christian when he swore to me that he didn’t kill those people in the papers.

I’m sitting in the front-row pew of the chapel. My head dipped down in shame, a box of tissues to my left and one clenched in my fist, soaked through with tears.

I haven’t stopped crying in days. Six, to be exact.

I hear the door open behind me. Maybe it’s an assassin, coming here to finish the job. Maybe it’s an apparition. A spirit here to torment me with my grief. Maybe it’s simply another person needing to pray.

I hear them take a seat behind me, and it goes quiet. I sniffle and blow my nose into the tissue, discarding it in the trashcan filled to the brim with used tissues and grabbing a clean one from my side.

“Mrs. Reeves,” a woman’s voice says from the pew behind me. I take a deep breath and wait for her to say whatever it is she has to say. I don’t have the strength to reply. “It’s time.”

Those two words fill me with such dread that I think I might die from a broken heart. As a violent sob wrecks through me, I stare up at the cross hanging on the wall. I shake my head. “No.”

“We need to—”

“I said no!” I shout, my sorrowful voice echoing off the walls of the small room.

I hear her sigh. “I’ll give you some more time.”

I hold my hand over my mouth to muffle my weeping as I hear her stand and begin to walk away. I take a deep breath. “Wait.” The footsteps stop. Being strong has never been so hard. “What if he doesn’t forgive me for giving up on him?”

It goes quiet for a long moment again. “Letting go can sometimes be more merciful than holding on.”

I nod, looking down at my feet. “Thank you, Dr. Portman. Please leave me alone.”

She leaves, and as soon as the chapel doors close behind her, I begin to sob loudly.

“Why are you so cruel to him?” I ask the cross hanging on the wall. “If you’re real, you have so much more to apologize for than he ever will. When people talk about forgiveness,you’rethe one that should be asking for it.”