Total pages in book: 134
Estimated words: 124135 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 621(@200wpm)___ 497(@250wpm)___ 414(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 124135 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 621(@200wpm)___ 497(@250wpm)___ 414(@300wpm)
“Please, son,” she said. “We just want to make this as stress-free for Bonnie as possible.” Her facade faltered. “We have to do whatever we can to help her keep up the fight.”
I stared at Bonnie’s door. Then I backed away from the door, toward outside. My head was pounding, my mind trying to take it all in. This couldn’t be happening.
Not now that I had her.
Not after I’d let her in.
I burst through the door and into the cool air. My feet stopped dead and my eyes closed. I couldn’t get my head around what had just happened.
I opened my eyes, and my gaze fell on the quad. On the students laughing and joking, not a damn care in the world.
I wanted to scream.
I stared at the dorm and thought of Bonnie inside. I had to do something. My hands pushed through my hair. And like it did every time I thought of her, music played in my head. Notes danced, all to Bonnie’s pretty face.
I took off at a sprint.
I didn’t know what to do.
She wanted me to go…
…but I wasn’t sure that was something I could do.
Chapter Sixteen
Bonnie
“Bonnie?” My mama pushed open the door to my room. The second I saw her, I crumpled where I sat. Tears streaked down my face. My shoulders shook as I remembered the look on Cromwell’s face as I told him about me. It was devastation, pure and simple.
And when he wouldn’t go…when he wanted to stay by my side…
Arms wrapped around me. I sank into my mama and cried like I’d never let myself cry before. She ran her hand down my back, letting me have this moment. Letting me exorcise this pain. I cried and cried until my tears ran dry. My throat and chest ached with the purge. Mama lifted my chin, and I looked into her eyes.
She had been crying with me.
“Baby,” she whispered. She ran her hand along my cheek. “I never knew you liked him.” I nodded and looked out of my window. At the students going about their everyday life, not a care in the world. Not living in the pain of hurting someone they’d grown to care deeply for. Feeling the void in my room since Cromwell left.
“It’s not fair.” I sighed and felt the palpitation flutter in my chest. The feeling no longer surprised me. It was part of my life. “Why did God put him in my path now? When it’s too late? When I might not make it?” I looked at my mama. “Why would He be so cruel?”
Mama sat on the end of my bed. “Maybe he was brought into your life to help make it better. Have you ever thought of that? Maybe he was brought in at exactly the right time. When you will need people you love around you most.”
If my heart could have raced, it would have right then. But I shook my head. “Mama…” A cave formed in my stomach. “What if they don’t find me a heart?” I saw her flinch just at the thought. Seeing those I loved ripped into pieces by my illness was the worst thing of all. The sight of them falling apart was the cruelest kind of torture. And I’d let Cromwell slip through. “What if I let him in completely, and then I don’t make it? How could I do that to him? How could I hurt him that way?”
Mama held my hand. “Don’t you think that should be his choice, sweetheart? You’ve already got so much weighing on your soul. Don’t add making decisions for him to the list.”
I imagined letting him in. I thought of the weeks and months ahead, not fought alone but with him by my side.
The suffocating darkness of fear was drowned out by the light.
“Your papa will be here now, sweetheart. Let’s get your things and go home.”
I rested on the bed as my mama and papa took care of my things. Mama waited in her car as I shut my dorm room and walked outside. My papa was driving my car home.
“I’ve called Easton,” Mama said. I took a deep breath. She squeezed my hand. “We have to tell him, Bonnie. There’s no more holding it off.”
I ran my hand over my sternum. “I don’t think I can…it will break his heart.”
Mama said nothing. Because she knew it too. But it had to be done. She pulled away from the campus and drove toward home.
As we turned into our driveway, I looked up at the white house with its wraparound porch. Mama’s hand squeezed mine. “You okay, Bonnie?”
“Yeah.” I got out of the car and walked slowly to the front door. I went to go up to my room, but my mama put her hand on my arm. “We’ve made up the office as your room now, sweetheart.” I shook my head. I remembered now. Stairs were causing me too much of a problem. And as things got worse, equipment would have to be brought to the home. My room needed to be accessible.