If We Fall: A What If Novel

by Nina Lane

  What new shape would our love take in this darkness? Would I ever be able to lie beside him again, touch his warm, living skin, and not burn with rage that Teddy’s life had been cut short? That my little brother would never know what it was like to be a man? Would I ever be able to sit across from Cole at the dinner table and not think of the meals he’d shared with my family? Would I ever be able to look at his hands, at him, and not feel the searing, breathtaking torture of immeasurable loss?

  I didn’t know. But now that he was here, holding my hand the way he’d done countless times before, the fire in my heart eased a little.

  He was my steady ground, my anchor. I had no idea how I would survive this horror, but the only way through it was with him.

  “I want you…” He stopped, his throat working with a swallow. Tears glistened in his eyes. “I want you to know how much I love you. I mean, I know you know, but if there’s…if I could change anything, if I could—”

  “Stop.” My insides were scraped raw. I would never stop bleeding.

  My neck ached from looking up at him. I moved over and nodded to the side of the bed. He sat, his shoulders slumping. His familiar scent beneath the antiseptic hospital air filled my senses—citrus, salt water, Cole.

  In that instant, my life, my being, split in two. Before and after. I couldn’t picture any kind of future. There was nothing beyond now except a black, empty space of despair.

  Cole tightened his hand on mine. I pushed away from the pillows and edged toward him. And because he knew me so well, even in that moment, he released my hand and opened his arms.

  We broke together. Harsh, painful sobs rose from us at the same time. He closed his arms tight around me, his body shaking uncontrollably. I pressed my face against the front of his shirt, gripping the cotton in my fists. We cried and cried, gasping for breath, our bodies heaving. His tears dampened my hair, ran down my cheek, my neck.

  I sobbed against his chest, pressing myself impossibly close, like I needed him imprinted on my skin. We held each other as hard as we could—fingers clutching, muscles straining, both of us fighting violently against what had happened, what was inevitable.

  “God, Josie, I’m so sorry.” His voice rasped with agony. “So fucking sorry. If I could do it all differently, if I could turn the world on its axis for you, I would. I’d do anything for you. Anything. That will never change. No matter what happens.”

  I had never known such pain, like the universe was imploding inside me. Like the plates of the earth were breaking apart in my soul.

  I eased away from him, wiping my wet face with the sleeve of my hospital gown. “I don’t…” My breath hitched sharply. “I don’t blame you, Cole. I never…I want you to know I’ll never think it was your fault. That you did something wrong. You didn’t.”

  His jaw clenched, and his eyes burned. “If I hadn’t done something wrong, none of this would have happened.”

  “It was…” I swallowed. Though it seared my throat, I forced the word out. “…an accident.”

  Holy fucking God.

  The endless black pit beneath me opened wider, threatening to swallow me whole.

  Spilled milk was an accident. A stubbed toe was an accident. Hell, a fender-bender was a goddamned accident.

  This? This had no words. No definition. The newspapers had called it a tragedy. Shakespeare wrote fucking tragedies.

  This was absolute darkness borne of chaos, untouched by even a particle of light, a subterranean cavern where you saw nothing, heard nothing. A place where you could go insane.

  “Josie.” Cole gripped the sides of my head, forcing me to look at him. Every emotion crashing and burning through me was reflected in the grooves of his face, the blistered pain in his eyes.

  “I love you,” he said hoarsely. “So fucking much. I always will.”

  I curled my hands around his wrists. His pulse beat fast against my fingertips, like the heartbeat of a man on the verge of panic.

  “I love you, Cole.” Fresh tears rose to my reddened eyes and spilled over. “I think I fell in love with you that Halloween night when I was nine years old. Even now, I…I can’t imagine loving anyone else. But how am I going to survive this?”

  The question speared my already shredded heart. My body could not possibly have been made to withstand such pain.

  Cole tensed, a muscle ticking violently in his jaw like he was waging an internal war. His pulse increased against my fingers. He slid his hands down to the sides of my neck, his thumb brushing the skin underneath my jaw. Suddenly, not even his gentle touch, which had always been so powerful before, could elicit even the tiniest pinpoint of light.

  “It was my fault.” The words were low, serrated, ripped from somewhere deep inside him. “And you don’t have to fight another battle. I won’t let you. That’s why I’m leaving.”

  Though part of me understood the meaning of his statement, my brain couldn’t process its implications.

  “L-leaving?”

  “Castille.” He tucked a lock of my hair behind my ear, like he didn’t want to stop touching me. “I’ll go down to Boston, New York. Somewhere.”

  “But…” The horror of my irrevocably altered life took on a new dimension. A future without Cole? I had never imagined such a thing. I couldn’t.

  “You can’t go.” I grabbed his T-shirt. “I won’t let you.”

  “I have to.”

  “You have to leave me?” Shock bolted through me, sparking a new fire of anger. “You have to leave me all alone after what just happened?”

  He forced his gaze from me. His throat worked with a gulp. “You’re not alone. Every single person in this town will do anything for you. But that’s not the case with me, and if I stay, it could make things even worse for you.”

  “Bullshit.” My anger intensified, burning in my blood. “It’s your father, isn’t it? Vanessa told me he’s on a rampage about the rumors, all worried it’s going to hurt his business. Is he making you do this?”

  “No. It’s my decision.”

  I didn’t know if that was better or worse than thinking Kevin Danforth was forcing his son out of town. I had no answers, no clarity, no understanding. All I had was pain and the knowledge that I couldn’t live if I lost Cole too.

  I grabbed a tissue from the bedside tray. “You’re a goddamned coward, if you think leaving me is the right thing to do.”

  “You’ll never get through this if I stay.”

  “I’ll never get through this if you leave.”

  “Josie.” He slipped his hand beneath my chin and lifted my face. His eyes were bloodshot and bleak, his dark eyelashes spiky with tears. But behind his despair, tenderness gleamed.

  “Promise me you’ll live your life.” A plea slashed his voice. “That you’ll never stop creating. Promise me you’ll be…” He paused and scrubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. “Promise me you’ll be okay. Maybe even happy again one day. I can’t live without knowing that. Please.”

  His tone had such a dark ring of finality that the edges of my vision splintered.

  “Happy?” I spat the word at him. “You think I can be happy again?”

  “I want you to be.” His hand shook against my cheek. “I need you to be.”

  “Get the fuck away from me.” I slapped his hand away from my face, trembling so much my teeth chattered. “You want to know what I need? I need my mother to walk in the door and hold me. I need my father to come in and tell me a bad joke. I need to hear Teddy’s laugh. And if I can’t have that, goddammit, then I need you. I can’t survive this without you. I can’t.”

  He didn’t respond. A hard tension laced his muscles, one I’d seen before. It meant he was reinforcing himself, intensifying his strength and determination. It meant he wouldn’t back down.

  “Cole…”

  I took hold of his T-shirt again, searching his gaze. For the first time ever, I looked into his eyes and couldn’t find him there.

  “You can’t have me around.” He u
nhooked my fingers from his shirt. Sudden remoteness infused him. “And I can’t be with you, Josie. I can’t be a constant reminder of what you lost. And every time I look at you…I’d…I’d know what I did. It would destroy us, everything we’ve ever had. I won’t let that happen.”

  I grabbed his arm, all the rage and fury I’d screamed at the universe hardening into an arrow pointed straight at him.

  “You are destroying everything we had!” My voice became shrill, cracked. “And how dare you make decisions about my life without me? I thought you were better than that. Instead the most horrific thing in the world happens, and you walk out on me? What the fuck kind of man are you anyway?”

  His shoulders slumped, raw pain etching lines on his face. He tugged his arm from my grip.

  “No!” Panic flared anew. Tears spilled down my cheeks. “Cole, please…”

  “I love you.” He stopped, putting his callused hand over mine. “But you can’t be okay or happy again if you’re with me. We both know that. It’s the only reason I’m leaving.”

  My chest burned. “So that’s it, then? You’re running away?”

  He didn’t respond, but the tortured look in his eyes splintered my already-shattered heart into a million more pieces.

  I wouldn’t be able to stop him. Just like I couldn’t stop the accident. Couldn’t stop or change any of it.

  In that instant, my love for him began to mutate, transforming into something misshapen and ugly.

  “If you leave me now, I’ll never forgive you.” I fisted the bedcovers so hard my knuckles hurt. “I will hate you, Cole Danforth. I will hate you for the rest of my godforsaken life.”

  He hesitated. For a split-second, I saw him waver. Then he stiffened again, pulling his strength together.

  “Good.” He rubbed his sleeve over his face and turned to the door. “Hate me. Be mad at me. Rage. Put it all on me so you don’t constantly wonder what if. Live your life. Please.”

  What fucking life?

  I could hardly see him through the red mist of fury coating my vision. He was destroying the last thing I had left. My fists clenched and unclenched. Blood boiled through my skin.

  He paused, his back to me. The air thickened. Then he turned and rushed toward me, closing the distance between us in less than a second. He grabbed my shoulders and hauled me against his chest.

  I stiffened, resisting the urge to throw my arms around him, though I buried my face in his neck, breathed him in for what I knew, with sick, black despair, was the last time.

  “I loved you before we were even born.” He pressed his face to my hair. “I’d never leave you, not if I didn’t have to. You will always be my best friend, and wherever you are in the world, whatever happens, please believe all I ever want is for you to be safe and happy. I’ll do anything for you except stay. Anytime, anywhere, for as long as we live. Anything. Remember that.” He detached himself from me slowly, bent to kiss my cheek, and whispered, “I love you, my Josie Bird.”

  The words slammed against the armor locking into place around my heart. I put my hands on his chest and shoved him away as hard as I could.

  He stumbled back, his face a mask of agony. He stared at me one last time. Then he turned and walked out the door.

  I collapsed against the pillow and cried until my bones ached. Pain sliced me in half. My sobs became screams of hysterical fury. Nurses ran in with sedatives. Right before the drugs pulled me under, I knew.

  My love for Cole was gone, demolished by his abandonment as if obliterated by a wrecking ball. And in its place, resentment took root and slithered black and slimy through all of our good. Eating it alive.

  He was gone. My best friend. The love of my life. The young man who’d been driving the car when it veered off the road and crashed, killing both my parents and my twelve-year-old brother.

  Chapter 4

  Cole

  * * *

  Present

  * * *

  Fuck fuck fuck.

  I slam my bedroom door and stalk to the window, my fists clenching. My shoulders are stiff enough to break. Josie Mays is back in Castille. It’s like I’ve been thrown into a maze of mirrors where everything is distorted and fucked up. She was never supposed to come back. I sure as hell was never supposed to see her again.

  And now…she’s not only here, she’s already at my house.

  Nyctophobia? Insomnia?

  It’s a knife in my gut to discover her psyche is still that tortured a decade after the crash. It shouldn’t have happened that way. She was supposed to heal or, at the very least, mend.

  What else has she been forced to endure? Knowing her deep scars will always bleed under the surface has been horror enough. But I’d hoped with everything in me that she’d have found something resembling peace by now.

  Why the hell did I follow her to the cottage?

  I drag a hand down my face, reliving the shadowed image of her on the cottage floor, curled into herself and shaking so hard her teeth rattled.

  Before she left the pier, she was scared. I saw it in her, felt it like a live wire. All my old instincts rushed to the surface in a torrent, as if I’d never fought to bury them deep. Would she be okay, going into the cottage for the first time in over ten years?

  I hadn’t been able to stop myself from going after her. Just to make sure she got there okay.

  And when I’d found the door open, all lights off, no sound, then her on the floor…fucking hell. The flashlight beam had caught her face, and she’d looked at me with a fear reserved for the devil himself.

  Everything I’d told myself disappeared. The only thing left was the primal need to make sure she was safe.

  That used to be my second nature. Never thought I couldn’t.

  But now the coin could flip any second. My need to protect her could end up destroying her.

  I stare out the window, imagining her in the reflection on the glass. She’s both the same and different. Her straight dark hair is shorter, reaching her shoulders in a thick curtain. Her features are finely etched—straight, narrow nose, high cheekbones, those thick-lashed green eyes that I couldn’t look into without losing part of myself.

  But she has a severity she hadn’t had before, not back when she was the sweet, talented girl who smelled like cherries and was constantly forgetting something. Keys, wallet, a hairband, a goodbye kiss.

  How many times did I call her from the apartment balcony as she was hurrying out the door? “Josie, you forgot…” whatever it was.

  She’d sigh and look irritated with herself, but then we’d meet on the stairs and I’d hand over her keys or her research paper, and she’d respond with a warm kiss and a squeeze around my waist, both of which made me look forward to the next time she forgot something.

  Then she’d fly out the door, her chocolate-colored ponytail streaming behind her, and I couldn’t wait until the end of the day when we were home again. When we could shut the door and be alone together. The place we both loved the most.

  I still taste her name in my mouth. It used to be my favorite word, even if I haven’t said it aloud in years. But it’s gone through my head a million times, always attached to a question. Where is she? How is she? Is she happy?

  I can’t tell if she is. Sure as hell couldn’t ask. The shock of seeing her sitting in the car was like an earthquake. My heart almost beat out of my chest. And when she approached me, it was all I could do not to touch her.

  Even though she was wearing jeans and an army jacket, I pictured her body. Round breasts that used to fit perfectly in my hands, curved waist that I’d grip when she was riding me, that bitable, heart-shaped ass…

  Fuck.

  I’m a bastard. Her first night in the town where she’d lived through hell, and I’m thinking about her naked. Just one of the many reasons I never wanted to see her again. She’ll destroy my guard.

  I can’t let her. Won’t.

  In the distance, the downstairs shower starts. A groan breaks my chest. Now she’s
fully naked in my head, water streaming over her hair as she lathers soap over her breasts and between her legs…

  If seeing her had been a shock, touching her had been unbearable. She’d fit against me as if ten years hadn’t passed. As if a No Man’s Land of barbed wire and land mines didn’t lie between us. A soft, warm bundle tucked right against my side.

  Stop. You need to get rid of her, not have sappy thoughts about her.

  Resisting the instinct not to leave her alone again, I grab the keys to my Porsche and head downstairs. I’d driven my Bentley to the wedding reception earlier tonight, and I’ll have to pick it up tomorrow.

  I pause at the second-floor landing. Light shines under the door of the guest bedroom where Josie is staying.

  Irritation rips through me. I can’t leave without telling her. What if she comes looking for me? I stop at the guest bedroom and rap my knuckles on the door.

  She pulls it open. A time portal throws me back eleven years. I’m looking at my Josie Bird with her wet, tousled hair, the oversized Art Attack T-shirt that hides all her soft curves, her faded Indian-print pajama pants.

  Five minutes from now, we’ll be tangled together on the bed, exchanging deep kisses while I edge my hand up her shirt. I can already taste her, everything sweet. Cherry lip balm. Bubble gum. Jolly Ranchers.

  The urge to sweep her into my arms, lift her up against me, seizes me with crushing force. I step back, curling my hands into fists.

  “I’m going out again.”

  A crease appears between her eyes. “Okay.”

  “I wanted…” I clear my throat, fighting not to stare at her breasts, her hard nipples poking against her shirt. “Wanted to let you know.”

  She nods. “Thank…well, have fun.”

  I pivot on my heel and stalk downstairs, the keys digging into my palm. My dick is hard, and I didn’t even touch her.