Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 91864 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 459(@200wpm)___ 367(@250wpm)___ 306(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91864 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 459(@200wpm)___ 367(@250wpm)___ 306(@300wpm)
I’d realized recently I hadn’t known who I was. I was good at playing the game, and being the confident guy who only cared about himself. I knew who I was with Sean, and I’d be damned if we lost that.
36
Ethan
“Excuse me, sir. You can’t be in bed with him.”
My eyes fluttered as the nurse spoke to me. She was a new one. They must have had a schedule change since I fell asleep. The other nurse had left me be when she checked his vitals. I’d heard Barbara tell her it was the first time I’d slept.
“Sir?” she said again, more softly that time, as if she was sorry for having to say it.
“He’s fine,” A voice came from the door that had me whipping my head toward it. My grandmother stood there. “It’s his boyfriend. He’s hurt. No harm will come if he lies in bed with him.”
The nurse sighed, and I knew there wasn’t a chance in hell she’d argue. No one argued with Martha. “Fine, but I didn’t see anything.” She wrote something on the chart and walked out.
I turned then sat up. There was no way I could lie here with her in the room. What the fuck did she even think she was doing there? “Do you expect a thank you?” I asked her. “I could have handled that.” I brushed the hair from Sean’s forehead and kissed him.
She paused, frowning. “You really love him, don’t you?” she asked.
Part of me wanted to make a smart-ass comment, but I couldn’t do that. Not right now with Sean the way he was. “Yes. He’s…he’s everything to me.”
She took a step in the room, then another. “You don’t know how much like her you are. You always were. She said those exact words to me about your father.”
My insides froze over. My jaw clenched. “I thought I was like my father. Isn’t that why you hated me?” I wanted her gone. Wanted to rage against her, but I couldn’t do it in front of Sean. Not with the way he was right now.
Without another word, I walked out of the room. Martha followed. “What are you doing here?”
“I saw the woman you’re friends with at the restaurant. She told me.”
“That doesn’t answer my question. We’re nothing to each other, so why are you here?”
“I…” she started and then let her words trail off.
There was a small waiting room down the hall. I walked to it, slipping inside. Thankfully, like the other times I’d come here, it was empty.
“I don’t hate you,” she told me. “I hated myself.”
Her words made my breath catch in my throat.
“I was never the best mother to Lilianna. I was closed off, wasn’t emotional. She walked around with her head in the clouds. We didn’t understand each other that way. I was practical while she was the dreamer. But I loved her…I loved her more than anything…and I failed her.”
I stood there frozen, unsure of what to say or do. I’d never heard my grandmother talk like this in my life.
When I didn’t reply, she continued. “I wanted what was best for her. I was convinced your father would leave her, walk away from her the same way her father had done. I was so angry at her for ruining her life, for dropping out of school and not being able to take care of herself. I hadn’t been able to take care of myself when her father left. Everything I have, I built on my own. I was stubborn and angry for so long, that even when I wanted to apologize, even when I wanted to fix what was broken, when I saw how much your dad loved you both, I didn’t know how to change anything. So I stayed quiet and then…”
And then she’d really lost her. My mom had died.
“I took my anger for myself out on you. I felt like I’d lost her twice and I shut down even more. You’re the one who suffered from it.”
For the first time in my life, I saw my grandmother wipe away one stray tear. I wasn’t sure she had it in her to cry.
I didn’t know what to say, what to think.
“It was hard to look at you and not see my failures. To not see her and all the ways I hurt her. I think you believe I see your father when I look at you, but I don’t. I see your mother and every way I failed her. That’s not an excuse but—”
“Why now?” I asked, clutching my hair. One more fucking thing on my plate right now. “I don’t care about this. I can’t do this right now. Not when I don’t know what’s happening to Sean.”
I started walking. I made it to the doorway when she said, “I met him for coffee.”