I nod, getting up. “Of course.”

I follow her into her bedroom. Even in the dark it’s a disaster zone, the product of someone who has been living through hell and can’t be bothered with much. I can imagine her sleeping here at night, so alone and in so much pain.

She removes her towel and gets under the covers and I stare blindly at her naked silhouette, both terribly turned on and hopelessly in love.

But I don’t want to make any presumptions. I take off my boots and socks, my pants, but keep my underwear and shirt on. I know there’s the stirrings of an erection – it can’t be helped when she’s naked around me, especially when I haven’t seen her for a month – but I ignore it. I don’t want to be inappropriate with her, not now, when she’s so close to breaking.

I get under the covers, staring at her warily, unsure how to act, how to be. She turns to me and settles into my arms, her face on my chest, hand on my heart.

I want to live in this moment, the quiet comfort of her skin against mine.

“Thank you for coming,” she says after a few beats.

I rub my hand down her back, wincing when I can feel her ribs. She’s gotten so thin.

“Anytime,” I tell her. “Thank you for telling me you love me.”

She pauses and I worry I’ve said the wrong thing. “On the phone,” I add. “Whether it’s true or not, thank you for that. You can’t know what it meant to me.”

A few heavy moments tick on by, seeming so long in the darkness.

“I still love you,” she says, pressing her hand down on my chest. “Here. I love you here, your big, beautiful heart.”

Those words, those words.

Hope flies within me.

“But, it’s not enough,” she says and as quickly as it had risen, the hope is dashed, fallen from the sky, wings cut to the bone.

“I understand,” I tell her, voice ragged with pain, even though I don’t understand. I can’t. Because my love for her can conquer anything.

Then again, not many things can conquer death.

“It’s just…it was so hard, you know. At times. And I know we could have worked through it, but you needed help that I couldn’t give you.”

“I know,” I tell her. “But it’s different now. I’m seeing a psychologist. I’ve been sober. I spent a few weekends at rehab. I’m making the changes, I really am. I want to be a better man, not just for you, but for my family, for myself. For life.”

I can feel her smile against me. “Good. That…that brings me relief like you wouldn’t know.” She sighs heavily. “But it’s done. You know? I don’t think we can come back from it. Or, I can’t come back from it. Not now. Not with my mom…it’s too hard. I don’t know how I’m going to get through tonight, let alone tomorrow. And the next day. And the next. How am I even going to put one foot in front of the other. I’ll fall. And I’ll stay down on the floor. I can’t ever pick myself up from this.”

“Kayla,” I whisper to her. “Take your time. There’s nothing to rush through. I’m always going to be here for you, always going to feel the same. I will wait.”

“But I don’t want you to wait for me,” she says, almost sharply.

I close my eyes, absorbing the pain.

She’s breaking.

I’m breaking.

“Okay,” I say hoarsely.

“It’s not fair to you. I have my own shit to deal with here and I can’t deal with any more guilt than I already have. I can’t deal with knowing you’re across an ocean, waiting for me, loving me, when I know I’ll give you nothing. I can’t give anything anymore. Don’t you understand?”

I nod, knowing completely what she means and hating it. Hating it. “Aye. I understand. You know, there’s something about me I never told you.”

She stills against me, waiting for my confession. I bite the bullet. “When I decided to get clean, when I decided to come back to Jessica and Donald and beg for their mercy, to take me back in, it wasn’t a gradual choice. It was an immediate one. I had a friend, Charlie. A junkie just like me. All his bad faults were due to the addiction. If you took that away, he was a kind, charming young man. Funny as fuck. And he was loyal, though his loyalty was always to the drugs, to that high, first.” I lick my lips and realize that the story isn’t ripping me apart like I thought it would. The pain and shame and guilt of what was done has been pushed aside. “Charlie really wanted to get into heroin. I never did it, though Brigs and a few other people think otherwise, but I never did. Not that that makes me anything special – meth is just as disgusting, maybe more so. But I didn’t do it and when Charlie wanted to get high that way, I refused to help him. I didn’t want any part.”

I pause and look down. She’s listening, wide-eyed. I go on. “But then I saw him shoot it up and saw how happy he was and then when he came down, it didn’t seem like meth. It seemed harmless. I told myself that. I told myself a lot of lies. So when he wanted some more a few days later, I told him I’d get it for him. We helped each other like that and now, well, now I believed I was really helping Charlie. So I went to some people I knew, the wrong people, but they had it and I got it for Charlie…used money I made begging on the street. It felt better than using it for food. We rarely fucking ate, you know. We could but it just wasn’t important. There was only one thing that was. The bloody high. So I went back to Charlie, gave him the smack. He shot it up in front of me. But…I don’t know what went wrong. Maybe he used too much, maybe it was bad stuff, maybe his body couldn’t take anymore. The problem was, I was so fucking high on meth myself that I had no idea what was going on. He died in front of me.”

“No,” she whispers breathlessly. “Lachlan…”

“Aye,” I tell her, reveling in how much stronger I feel for admitting it. “He died and I watched him die before my eyes. Me and my stray dog. We watched him die and I couldn’t do a single thing to help him. I couldn’t even help myself. I just sat there beside him, rocking back and forth, until my high wore off. Then I got up and ran. I just ran away. I don’t remember the next few days, though I’m working through them with my psychologist now, but I knew I made my choice to save my own life. I remember knocking on Jessica and Donald’s door and everything after that. It was the day I realized I only had one life and that’s when I was born all over again.”

She breathes heavily against me and the darkness creeps closer. But I feel no fear over what I’ve told her. The truth has set me free.

“Why are you telling me this?” she finally says, her voice barely audible.

“Because I know what guilt is. And I know what death is. And I’ve finally learned that you should never attach one to the other. Or it will fucking destroy you.” I kiss the top of her head. “I know you’re going to hurt for a long time and you’re going to hate yourself but please. None of this was your fault. Don’t let the guilt tell you otherwise. Grieve for your mother with all your heart but never poison that very heart with shame. There’s no room for it there. Let it go.”

She trails her fingers down my chest but doesn’t say anything.

There’s nothing more for either of us to say.

We just breathe. Our hearts beat.

We cling to this sliver of time until she falls asleep against me.

I hold her in my arms, truth setting me free.

I just hope that same truth can save her heart.

Just as her heart saved me.

***

I decide to stay around for the funeral.

Alan is not happy.

Thierry is not happy.

Edinburgh is not happy.

No one is happy with this decision. It means I’m missing a game. It means I’m in big fucking shit and that I’ve potentially screwed the team over, especially since we’re up against Leeds.

But I’m not about to leave Kayla yet. Not when she still needs me. And she needs me more than anything. I’m there by her side as she navigates funeral arrangements and her brothers and lawyers and wills. I’m there to hold her when she breaks down and she breaks down time and time again. The strain is sometimes too much for me to bear but I handle it all because she can’t.