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—Simone—
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Banks and I fell into a routine that revolved solely around each other. The week passed in a series of physiotherapy sessions, meals, companionship, and sex sprinkled throughout each day.
Although Reagan’s date was rapidly sneaking up, I approached this anniversary with less anxiety.
Last year, I’d been a mess. This year, I was still up and down emotionally, but with Banks’s ever-present and unwavering support, I felt much more in control. Usually, I would have craved my blade by now, but I’d surprised myself by getting this far without those toxic urges resurfacing.
With physiotherapy done for the day, I sat on the deck chair overlooking the lake with my foot elevated after finally ditching the restrictive boot. I petted Pepin’s head while mindlessly scrolling through my phone with my other thumb.
“Uh, Simone?”
I looked up with concern. Banks’ tone immediately set me on edge.
“Yeah?” I asked.
A torn envelope and unfolded letter shook within his hands, and his eyes didn’t leave the page as he silently read. “What was your fiancé’s name?”
“Reagan. Why?”
“Surname?” Banks whispered, stopping in his tracks a few steps away.
Dread pooled in my lower belly and swirled into an uneasy sea of nausea. I sat forward in a hurry, ignoring when my foot hit the deck and caused a bolt of pain.
“Lamont. Why?”
The color drained from Banks’s face. “Fuck.”
I rose on unsteady legs. “What’s going on?”
He shook his head and swallowed so loud it sounded as painful as it looked. “Reagan Judice Lamont... of Denver, Colorado?”
The gathering nausea pitched and climbed up my throat. My tone turned shrill. “Yes! Why?”
Banks closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Jesus fucking Christ.”
“Banks, what the fuck is going on?” I yelled, nearing a full-blown freak out.
In slow motion, he lifted a single photograph and flipped it so I could see. “Is this him?”
My heart lurched and the bile burned. Poised between Banks’s trembling fingertips was a photo of Reagan—my Reagan—in his graduation gown, smiling his most exuberant grin. The one I fell in love with and the one I still missed every single day.
I bit back a sob and nodded. “That’s him. Banks... who’s the letter from?” I reached for the back of the deck chair to steady my shaky balance, preparing for the worst.
Banks shook his head. “No.”
Tears spilled down my burning cheeks. “No, what? Tell me!” I screamed.
The sorrow in his eyes grew and confirmed what I suspected, but I needed him to say it. I needed to hear it.
“Reagan was my donor,” Banks whispered in disbelief, so quietly I barely heard him over the blood roaring in my ears.
Those four words tore shreds off the fresh start I’d fought so hard to accept.
My chest clamped. Each breath punched in and out with a force that made me double over. My knees faltered as the pulsing in my ears grew louder. The sound consumed Banks calling my name from a distance and with each gasped inhale, my sight grew grayer around the edges.
Without warning, my vision shrank to a tiny dot at the center of my focus, then went blank. The static in my ears relentlessly hummed as my knees gave way, and the last thing I heard was Banks’s booming voice screaming my name before I hit the ground.
~
I woke laying on my side on the couch, ice on my head, and Banks’s wretched expression looking me over.
“We need to get you to the doctor. You’ve had another head knock and it could be another concussion,” he murmured, sweetly brushing the back of his knuckles over my cheek.
“Is it true?”
His chin tucked back in confusion. “Of course it’s true. You dropped to the deck like a lead weight. I’m so sorry I didn’t get to you in time; the thud was sickening.” A shiver ran through him.
I slowly shook my pounding head. “Not that. About Reagan. About him being your donor.”
The grave look in Banks’s eyes didn’t ease. “It’s true. I’m so sorry, Simone. I had no idea until now.”
Tears welled in my eyes. “They didn’t ask me if it was okay to take his organs, and I wasn’t told that they did. He wasn’t even listed as a donor.”
A hint of offense cut through Banks’s distress. “I didn’t get to choose, Simone. I literally took whatever was handed to me.”
“I’m not blaming you,” I sobbed, then tried to sit up. “I need to go home.”
Banks pressed the ice harder to the side of my head and stopped my movements with a firm palm to my torso. “Absolutely not! You’re not going anywhere except the doctor’s office.”
I gaped at him as if he’d grown two heads. “Have you forgotten that I fucking hate hospitals? No. There’s no way I’m setting foot in another one.”
“Well, I’ll arrange a home visit,” Banks countered.
I shoved him away and gingerly stumbled to my feet. The head spin wouldn’t stop no matter how hard I squeezed my eyes closed or how hard I gripped the back of the couch.
“Stop telling me what to do!” I snapped while fighting for my bearing.
He gripped my upper arms, oozing desperation and fear. “I’m trying to help! Please, Simone. Don’t leave. Let’s talk about this. We can work through it.”
“How the fuck are we meant to work through this, Banks?”
“I don’t fucking know!” he cried, tears swamping his own eyes. “I have no fucking clue what to do or say other than I don’t want you to leave. Please!”
“I can’t stay. I just can’t.”
“You can!” Urgent hands tugged me closer when I began to fight in his hold. “Please, Simone. Please!” he begged.
An ugly sob escaped as an uncontrollable torrent of tears rolled down my cheeks. Each droplet held heartbreak of an unfathomable degree, and whilst they were only salt-laden droplets, they burned tracks into my tormented expression.
“What do you want to talk about, huh? Honestly? The fact that my boyfriend died and gave you your life, or that you don’t want to be alone because you’re scared?”
Banks’s face reddened with rage. “Damn fucking straight I’m scared! I’m fucking terrified that this will ruin us!”
I looked him dead in the eye and felt nothing. All affection that had blossomed and flourished got shoved deep until the only thing I felt was numb. “Right now, there is no us. Not anymore.”
Tears overflowed down his face. He blinked hard and roughly dashed them away with a hasty swipe of his forearm.
“I don’t believe you,” he hissed, gritty and rough. “I don’t fucking believe that you would give yourself to me, not just your body but your time and energy, if this was nothing.” He motioned between us with snappy movements. “Regardless of what happened two years ago, we have something right now. You can’t deny that truth.”
I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter now. That letter changes things.”
“It changes our knowledge, yes, but not our fate. It’s pretty fucking obvious that we were destined for each other.”
My frustration rose. His logic angered me. “Our lives are not a fucking fairytale, Banks! You’re living in a delusional world where you think everything is just gonna end up peachy and perfect and we all skip off into the sunset at the end of it.”
“I’m not fucking delusional! I’m a realist, Simone. A re-al-ist! You know what that means? It means I don’t catastrophize or think the worst is gonna happen or immediately see the worst in people. I take life as it comes because I know it’s too fucking short to sweat the bullshit we can’t change. I’ve been there, not knowing how long I had left to live, and you know what terrified me most aside from dying?” His voice rose when I went to cut him off.
He added a savage finger stab to emphasize the crux of his point. “It was that I still hadn’t shot my shot. I still had so much to give and see and experience and love, and I swore—no, I fucking promised myself—that if I got to walk away from that hospital bed, there wouldn’t be a fucking day that passed without me being grateful, and positive, and living it with humility and grace.” He listed those off on his fingers, then his expression morphed into a sincere plea.
“I get it. You lost the love of your life, and I’m so sorry you did. I really am. But you can’t bring him back. And me standing in front of you, literally begging you to stay and telling you that you’re my entire fucking world, is all I can do. The rest is up to you, Simone.” He added another finger point at my chest. “Your future is for you to decide; it’s not at the discretion of a ghost.”
Banks stepped back a pace and lifted his palms. “There. I’ve said all I need to. I’m sorry if I’ve come across as an asshole, but I won’t be made to feel guilty over a decision that I had absolutely zero control over and one that I’d make again if I had to.”
I gaped at him, desperate for a tactful retort but coming up empty. My heart hammered so hard nausea and light-headedness threatened to pull me to the ground again. Panting did nothing to ease the devastation or the tingling in my chest that I knew would eventually erupt into an anxiety attack.
My chin quivered with the effort to hold myself together. Not for long, just until I left the confines of the four beautifully styled walls that had been a refuge.
My voice cracked and my eyes refilled. “I need to go. I’m sorry.”
The heartache on Banks’s face compressed my chest. On legs that refused to function properly, I half-hobbled, half-stumbled to the bedroom with Banks flanking me in a last-ditch effort to change my mind.
“Babe, please, just... Fuck, just give it a few minutes to process. I want to support you through this.”
I scooped and shoved my clothes and belongings into my bag. “You can’t, Banks. No one can.”
Hell, I didn’t even know if I could get myself through this. All I wanted was to be alone with my knife and a stiff drink.
“At least let me drive you home so I know you got there safely,” he implored.
“Fine.” I shouldered my bag and limped around him. “But I’m going now whether you’re ready or not.”
Banks cursed and left my side for a second, then had his truck keys in his hand by the time I hit the front door. He opened it for me, as well as the truck passenger door, and wordlessly helped me into the cab as if I was the most precious belonging in his entire world.
While he would argue that I was, I didn’t feel it. I was lost. Alone. Pushed into outer space where gravity could no longer anchor me to the joy I’d managed to find at Gatlin Falls.
Banks drove in tense silence after roughly turning off the radio and putting all the windows down. The wind whipped my long hair around my face and wayward strands got stuck to my tear-stained cheeks.
The drive to the cottage was one of the longest yet shortest in my life, and when Banks parked in the driveway, before I opened the door to exit, he snagged my wrist.
“I love you, Simone. I need you to know that I’ll fight for you as long and as hard as it takes.”
I stared, hearing but not fully comprehending. “I need space.”
His hazel eyes swam with powerlessness, and he kept his grip firm, as if terrified to let me go. It took me physically tugging away for his fingers to release me, and as I got out of his truck on shaky legs, I swear I heard his heart breaking.
Despite my limbs heavy and barely working, I limped inside, grabbed a towel as I passed the bathroom, then rushed for my bedroom. Opening the beside drawer and extracting my little knife brought a crushing sense of failure. That lasted precisely twenty seconds until my ass hit the carpet and the blade touched down on my inner arm.
Relief.
Sweet and bitter relief.
