She could have died tonight.
Tears start falling once again, and this time I don’t bother hiding them. Not when I’m sitting all alone with a sleeping Jade by my side.
I’m not sure how long I stay like that, just crying silently. Mourning the loss of the best woman that ever walked this earth. Mourning the loss of everything that could have been but will never happen because she was taken way too soon. Crying because my sister is hurting so bad she would contemplate taking her own life, and I don’t know what the hell to do about it.
Only once the tears dry up, and I’m sure Jade won’t awaken, do I get up. Placing one last kiss on top of her head, I pull the covers tighter around her before turning around.
I don’t bother turning off the lights, but this time when I leave, I don’t close the door either.
Chapter Thirty-Six
YASMIN
“I think this is the last of it,” Maddox says as he puts a stack of dirty plates on the counter.
“Thank you,” I say, offering him a small smile. He blushes, nods, and goes back out of the kitchen.
There was a reception at the house after the funeral was over, and both Callie and I did our best to help out as much as possible. Picking up dirty dishes, restocking the trays with food, cleaning up, that sort of thing. Anything to help carry the burden for Nixon and Jade.
“I think the crowd is finally leaving,” Callie whispers, bringing a tray filled with glasses.
“It’s about damn time.”
“I know,” Callie says, shaking her head as she leans against the kitchen counter. “This was the hardest part for me. All I wanted to do was be left alone so I could grieve, but there were all these people there that I had to entertain instead.”
If anybody can understand how Nixon is feeling, it’s Callie. Both of them have lost their parents too early, her to an accident, him to cancer. It isn’t fair, but I know all too well that life rarely is.
Picking up the towel, Callie takes one of the pans I washed by hand and starts drying it. Together we work in silence.
“How is he doing?” Callie asks a while later, breaking the quiet.
“Not really sure.” I shrug, feeling helpless.
I want to help him, I want to take away his pain, but I’m not sure I’m the right person to do so.
Maybe Callie should be the one to try to talk to Nixon, to Jade. After all, they have experienced the same grief, something I can’t even imagine. Don’t want to imagine. Losing my mom, my only living family, would crush me. But not just that, it would leave me utterly alone.
Not completely, a little voice reminds me, but I push it back.
“Maybe if you talk to him, it would help.”
“Maybe.” Callie nods, her sharp blue eyes meeting mine. “But I’m not the person he needs. The person he wants.”
The light shines through the kitchen window, saving me from having to say anything. When I turn around, I find Nixon standing on the porch, his hands gripping the railing.
“Go to him, I’ve got this.”
Not needing to be told twice, I dry my hands and go out to join him.
“Hey,” I say as I step onto the back porch. My appearance triggers the sensors, turning on the light, and I see Nixon standing against the fence.
He turns around to face me. “Hi.”
He’s still wearing the black shirt and suit pants that he had on earlier today, but somewhere along the way he lost his jacket and tie, leaving the top two buttons undone. Not for the first time in the last few weeks, I notice how tired he looks. His eyes are reddish and bloodshot, and the bags underneath them have grown bigger with each day that passes, the lines of his face turning harder and deeper.
“What are you doing out here?” I ask, a shiver running through my body.
The snow has melted, and the first signs of spring coming are here, but the night air is still cool. I wrap my arms around myself, rubbing them to warm up, even if just a little. I didn’t think to bring a jacket, but now that I’m out here, I don’t want to go back inside.
“Thinking…” Nixon lifts his hands, rubbing his face. He finally shaved this morning, changing back to the guy I met a few months ago. Physically, at least. Because I don’t think he’ll ever be the same again. I might not have known the loss that Nixon and Callie have experienced, but I’m familiar with the hole that is left inside you when you lose an essential part of yourself. I’ve had it all my life. “I just needed some alone time.”
“Today has been a lot.”
“That’s one way of putting it,” Nixon chuckles, the sound hard and completely unlike him.
He just buried his mother.
I move closer, needing to hug him, offer him the comfort he needs the only way I know how. But when I come closer, I notice that his clothes are darker, like… “Nixon, why are you all wet?”
“Funny you should ask.”
A chill runs through me, cutting me to the bone.
“What happened?”
“I went to check in on Jade.”
“Jade?”
Jade was holding it all in for most of the day, but when the ceremony started, she just broke. She managed to survive the ceremony, holding onto both Nixon and me, but just barely. Then when we got home, the poor girl finally crashed.
“And it turns out that it’s good I did because I found her floating in her bathtub.”
Díos mío. My hand flies to my mouth, my heart skipping a beat as my stomach sinks with worry.
“Is she okay? Do we need to call an ambulance?”
“She’s fine. She’s sleeping now. But she’s not okay. She tried to commit suicide, Yasmin!”
He turns around and, before I can see it coming, slams his fist into the railing, the force of the punch splintering the wood.
I wince as I see a flash of blood on his knuckles, my hand flying to cover my mouth.
“She tried to…”
“Nix, I’m so…” I try to wrap my arms around him, but he moves away from my touch.
“Don’t. Just, don’t.”
I gulp, feeling like he slapped me. I know this isn’t about me, about us, but his rejection hurts more than I can explain.
He runs his fingers through his hair, pulling at the messy strands. “I can’t do this.”
My heart aches for him. For his pain. First his mom, and now Jade. If he’d been just a few seconds later, would Jade have succeeded?
I don’t want to believe Jade would have gone through with it, but I can’t be sure. Jade is hurting now, and there is nothing anybody can do to take that pain away. She’ll have to learn how to live with it, hoping time will help seal some wounds if not heal them completely. But was she aware of what she was doing? How it would affect people around her? How it would affect Nixon? Because I don’t think he can take one more heartbreak.
“Why don’t you let me help you?”
He shakes his head. “I can’t do this, Yasmin.”
“Can’t do what?” I ask carefully, my heart sinking. He can’t mean…
“This thing.” He points to the space between us. “I can’t. It’s all too much. Mom, Dad, Jade… I can’t add you to the mix.”