His stony eyes, tense body, and clenched jaw all screamed to be left alone.
So I did.
With one last look, I gave him the saddest smile and left Cherry River forever.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
Jacob
* * * * * *
I SAT ON my deck, looking at my vegetable garden that had died and been invaded by weeds, watching the paddocks and meadows that needed better care than a casual contractor could do, and waited to succumb to the pain of losing everything.
I waited to break into a thousand brilliant pieces.
Hope had left me.
She’d cut me off, severed our connection, done what I’d pushed her to do.
Goodbye.
Forever.
I wanted to feel agony.
I deserved to feel it.
To cripple and crumple as my heart split down the middle, and all the light in my life drained free.
But the miserable silence clutched me deeper, protecting me from sorrow, muting death and breakups and the terrible knowledge that Hope was right.
I was alone.
I’d successfully shoved everyone who cared about me away.
I’d gotten my wish multiple times over.
And I felt nothing.
Fucking nothing.
I didn’t know when Hope had left me.
Five minutes or five hours ago?
Time was just a sequence of numbers that no longer had any relevance.
What should I do? Where should I go? Return to Bali and continue to be Sunyi? Stay at Cherry River and tend the land I was born for? Or run into the forest like my father and forget about humanity for good?
To regress to baser instincts. To be the animal I’d embraced.
At least those questions kept me company; they hid the emptiness inside while pretending I had thoughts and feelings when both had been stripped from me.
But then my phone rang.
Snapping me back into the present, filling me with ice once again.
Graham Murphy.
Why would he call me? To commiserate on my grandfather’s death? To discuss yet another family member who had passed?
My thumb hovered over the decline button. I was in no mood to talk—especially after his daughter had done her best to destroy me—but a breeze kicked through the meadow.
A harsh, cutting wind that hissed angry and judgmental.
I hadn’t felt my father’s presence while I wandered the globe, but in that moment he breathed down my neck, crushing me with his disappointment.
And even that didn’t make me break.
But it did make me accept the call.
To speak to another human before I turned my back on them completely.
Pressing the screen, I held the phone to my ear. Slow and methodical. No rush or panic. Vacant of normal nervousness. “Hello, Graham.”
“Jacob, fuck, thank God.” Graham rushed. Graham panicked. His voice wobbled with tears and terror. “I can’t get there in time. Shit, you need to go. Right now. I beg you. Please, go.”
I sat taller, his emotions pouring down the line, doing their best to infect me. “Slow down. What’s going on?”
His voice caught like any worried father. A father who’d felt death threaten his world. “It’s Hope. She’s been in a car accident.”
I was running before the phone hit the ground.
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
Jacob
* * * * * *
“HOPE MURPHY, WHERE is she?” I yelled, barging into the hospital where Hope had defended my honour against town gossip, where Hope had cared enough to get me treatment, where Hope had driven me, sulking and arguing, when she barely knew me.
Fuck, Hope.
A nurse manning the reception desk for the emergency department jumped as I slammed my hands on the counter. “Where is she?”
My temper was real.
My fear was real.
Hot emotion thawed massive chasms in the ice around my heart.
“I’m sorry, who?” She blinked, shying away from me as I towered over her.
“Hope Jacinta Murphy. She was brought here.”
I welcomed the panic.
I embraced the anxiety.
It meant I was still alive when all I’d wanted was to be dead.
I couldn’t die.
Not when she needed me.
“When?” She scooted forward on her chair, tapping the keyboard.
“I don’t fucking know when. She was in a car accident.”
“No need for profanity, sir. I’m only trying to help.” Her fingers shook a little on the keys. “Um, there doesn’t seem to be anyone by that name.”
“What do you mean? There has to be. Her father told me you guys called him.” My temper unfolded into fury, dragging me back into humanness. “Check again. Now!”
My voice had power. My hands had strength. My chest crawled with concern and cowardice, dismay and dread.
Emotions. So, so many emotions.
All of them.
All at once.
Bombarded and alive.
“Oh…” She squinted at the screen. “Ah, okay, wait a minute, please.” She scrolled with the mouse, stealing every shred of my patience.
“Well?”
She bit her lip, her eyes locking on medical text. “Ah, yes, here we go. Hope.” She slouched. “Oh, dear. I’m so sorry.” Her gaze met mine, no longer full of fear but sympathy.
Sympathy?
Why motherfucking sympathy?
“What? What is it?” I wanted to snatch the goddamn computer and look for myself. “Tell me!” My roar echoed around patients awaiting help, dragging their attention, pinning me in place.
My dread turned to depression. My cowardice to grief.
I’d been here before.
I’d stood at this counter and demanded they give my father back to me.
I’d been a kid then.
Now, I was a man, and the same childish terror that they’d keep Hope from me snaked around my heart.
“I’m so sorry to tell you this, s—”
“Tell me what? Spit it out. Goddammit, just take me to her.”
“I’m sorry, that’s not possible. She passed away.”
“What?”
“She, um, she died due to surgery complications. I’m so very sor—”
The world vanished.
Light and sound and people and furniture all sucked up in a hurricane.
White noise muffled everything else.
Horror replaced heartbeats.
The ice that suffocated my chest exploded in a mushroom cloud of black, dripping disaster.
Dead?
Dead?
She’s dead?
No…
That can’t be.
My lungs constricted, and my heart decided it no longer wanted to pump blood but acid instead.
I clutched my chest, clawing at the suffocation, gasping at the horror.
She’s…dead?
I killed her.
I let her leave Cherry River.
I should’ve stopped her.
I should’ve told her the goddamn truth.
I should’ve been better.
Kinder.
Softer.
I should’ve—
I couldn’t breathe.
I can’t breathe.
Dead.
All of them.
Dead.
I gasped for air even though I didn’t want it. My body overrode my attempts to just die and be done with it. Instinct made me grunt and groan, tripping sideways as fog crept over my brain.
“Are you okay? Sir?”
I fell forward, clutching at the counter as my knees gave out.
Grandpa John died hours before.
Hope died only minutes ago.
And I’d been too late to save either of them.
The nurse leapt upright as I stumbled, my vision shooting grey, my ears ringing louder and louder and louder.
De
ath.
All I saw was death.
Coffins.
Cremations.
Ash and dust and death.
No.
I-I can’t—
My strength vanished, slamming me to the floor. I grabbed something, anything to stay upright, but my hands didn’t work anymore, my arms had no power, and I plummeted to the hospital linoleum with a rain of sign-in forms and pens scattering morbidly like mourners to Hope’s funeral.
She’s dead!
And I fucking killed her.
Then the trembling began.
The awful nausea and vertigo and stress and panic.
Panic.
Bone-deep, skeleton-crushing panic.
It gushed through me, suffocated me until I had a heart attack and begged for death to take me instead.
To no longer be the one left behind.
To be the one with the ticket for a change.
A ticket to a new destination where hopefully pain didn’t exist.
Loud shouts sounded.
Hands grabbed me.
My panic turned to sheer rage, and I shoved them back.
“Don’t touch me! For fuck’s sake, don’t touch me!”
My eyes flickered with grey and light—grey for the grave and light for life. Orderlies and doctors came running. Someone tried to speak to me, only to be sucker-punched in the jaw.
My throat closed up, squeezing and strangling.
My fingernails scratched for oxygen as I fell on all fours, becoming the beast I truly was.
Hands grabbed again.
Panic swirled faster.
Nightmares sucked me deep.
Hope was dead.
Dead.
How could life be so cruel? Why take her? Why take my father, my mother, my grandfather…now her?
Goddamn you!
Goddamn you all.
Fuck life and love and every-fucking-thing.
My chest grew hotter. My brain inched closer to stroking. My lungs turned to shreds.
Another minute and I wouldn’t exist either.
I welcomed such a fate.
Hope was dead.
Her eyes were glass. Her body vacant. Her soul somewhere else.
I’ll never see her again.
Tears were poison as they blinded me.
Air was toxic as I gulped for the end.
Hope was a corpse.
Naked and alone on some mortuary table.
Ah, fuck.
Something tight with spikes and knives twined around my stomach, making me retch. Panic befriended sickness, drowning me in both.
The one girl who I needed more than anything.
The one person who stood any chance at saving me, and what had I done?
I’d never shown her an ounce of gratefulness.
I’d pushed away again and again.
I’d pushed her into the ground.
God.
What…what have I done?
Her last words howled in my head.
“You’ve gotten your wish. I’m dead to you. Just another person you used to know. A memory that will slowly fade.”
I’d done nothing to stop her.
Nothing to show her how much I needed her.
How much I loved her.
How much she meant to me from the very moment we met.
I did nothing to stop her from walking out of my life and into the arms of my enemy.
Darkness descended, fissuring through my veins and breaking apart arteries, feeding me destitution and despair.
I couldn’t handle the pressure, the pain, the pounding realisation that she’d gone.
Gone.
Fuck, she’s…gone.
No.
No
“Nooooo!”
A broken howl of something animalistic and pure monster ricocheted around the E.R. More hands clawed at me, and I fought them back. I roared, noticing the howls weren’t from a monster but from me.
My panic spilled outward. I wanted to inflict violence on anyone who came too close.
I wanted to make them suffer.
These devils of death had taken everyone I had ever loved.
They deserved to die.
I’d kill them.
I’ll—
A sharp prick pierced my arm.
And the blackness faded.
And the howling silenced.
And the loss of the girl I loved more than anything was no more.
* * * * *
“Mr. Wild?” A gentle pressure around my wrist dragged me back.
Sour thorns laced my throat as I swallowed and winced against a splitting headache.
“Don’t rush it. Let yourself wake up naturally.” The hand squeezed my wrist again. A feminine voice, sweet and concerned.
I didn’t want sweet or concerned.
I didn’t deserve it.
Wrenching my eyes open, I flinched against the brightness, grunting against a thick wash of sickness.
“That’s it. You’re okay. You’ll feel a bit woozy because of the sedation. It will pass.” She stopped touching my wrist, moving to the bedside table. Picking up a glass of water, she urged me to take it. “Here, drink this. You’re dehydrated, which is making the effects worse.”
I wanted to slap the glass from her grip, but I steeled myself against such tendencies and accepted it with a curt nod.
Throwing it back, I found it did ease the tightness around my temples and the thorns in my throat. Giving her the empty glass, I rasped, “Where am I?”
“You’re in the hospital. Do you remember why you came?”
My thoughts skipped backward only to slam into a wall of horror.
She’s gone.
The trembling returned, followed by the heart palpitations, and lack of air, and adrenaline, and holy fuck, she’s dead.
They’re all dead.
Everyone I’ve ever loved dies.
I fell deeper and deeper into the abyss.
“Hey, Mr. Wild.” The doctor came closer, placing her hand on my shoulder. “It’s okay. Breathe. You’re okay. Just relax.”
Relax?
How the hell could I relax?
Hope is dead!
The attack grew worse. I retched, but nothing came up. I cried, but no tears came. I opened my lips to howl, but my throat was too raw to operate.
The doctor grabbed my cheeks, forcing me to look into her green eyes.
Green.
Like Hope’s.
Eyes that had closed and would never reopen.
Eyes that were milky and—
“She’s alive, Mr. Wild.” She shook me. “Are you listening to me? Hope Jacinta Murphy is alive.”
I froze, gasping for breath and heart pounding with arrhythmia. “Wh-what?”
“The nurse got it wrong. I’m so, so sorry. She’s new and doesn’t have a grasp on our filing system yet. That’s not an excuse, of course. She’s been heavily reprimanded and I assure you, it won’t happen again.”
I shook, trying to understand this upside-down reality. “So she’s…she’s not dead?”
“Not the Hope you enquired after. No.” She sighed. “A Hope Mckinnock died this morning from complications in surgery. Your Hope is still very much alive. A huge oversight and I’m once again so sorry for the distress this has caused you.”
The adrenaline in my system didn’t fade. It only shook me harder.
How was this possible?
The same hospital that’d stolen my father, mother, and grandfather had somehow granted a miracle and given Hope back to me.
I didn’t know if I should kill the doctor or faint in relief.
My head pounded, desperate to shed the fog and get away from these morbid riddles.
I rubbed my eyes. “Wh-where is she?”
“She’s here. She’s been patched up and settled in a room above this one. I can take you to her if you’d like.”
For a second, I was weightless, grateful, comforted.
She was okay.
>
I wasn’t alone.
But then, a wracking heave worked its way from the depth of my belly, wriggling through my ribcage, gathering pressure and power.
Black power. Ruthless pressure. Cremation coal and shadowy caskets, just waiting for me to step into the pyre and burn.
Flames engulfed me as the hellish force imploded in my chest.
An explosion of everything I’d been running from my entire life.
The terror of losing loved ones.
The pain of giving them my heart.
The aching, quaking knowledge that I would rather die than endure another funeral.
And the horror that I’d condemned myself to all of it because I loved Hope.
I loved her.
And I didn’t know how to process that.
I didn’t have the skills to put away my panic and breathe.
I’d lost enough.
I was done with the roulette of burying loved ones and being unable to move on.
And now, I faced a worse reality.
A thousand times worse because I’d willingly chosen to suffer by handing over my hole-patched, torn-stitched heart that still carried agony from decades ago.
A heart that never healed. A heart that would rather hide than be whole. A heart that now belonged to a girl who had all the power to kill me.
I love her.
It’s not possible.
But…I love her.
Barbwire slithered around my chest, dragging me deeper into unmarked graves and weeping forests.
Hope was alive…but for how long?
I loved her.
I had no choice but to accept that tragedy.
All my fears had come true.
But how long would I love her?
When would she leave me?
Who would die first?
Me or her?
Who would be left behind—a shell, a figment…alone?
Oh, God.
My panic crept higher, overriding the sludge of whatever drug they’d given me, making me shaky and breathless and clutching starched sheets as if they could protect me from the impending attack.
Yet another attack.
Because I was weak and broken and so fucking scared of losing her.
I can’t lose her.
My heave turned into a growl, which tangled with a sob, escaping my lips with the sound of something mortally wounded. Something that was only seconds away from ceasing to exist.
I crumpled over my knees.
My mind filled with pictures of my dead family.
My ears rang with coughs and laughs and ‘I love yous.’
The Son & His Hope Page 48