All My Heart (Count On Me Book 4) (25 page)

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“You’re in shock! What just happened to Belle, it’s fucking with your head. So, beat the hell out of me if it makes you feel better!”

Will taking Dillon down make me feel better? Is he really the problem here?

No, he’s not. I am. I’m always the one at fault. Fuck, he’s right. I’m not thinking clearly. I’m screwed up. I was jealous.

The way she was hugging him, the way she feels about him, I spent the last year thinking that it was all for me. I was the only one she would ever be that close to even though I know she does the same damn thing with Eric. She always has. She’s being a friend to the people that are like her and all I can see is them touching.

I’m losing it.

She wasn’t cheating on me. She wasn’t going to leave me. She loves me.

“It’s happening isn’t it? You’re finally waking the fuck up.”

I can hear him spea
king, but I can’t respond. Not when my head is flooded with every single thing that’s happened since that day in the parking lot last fall.

The rage I felt seeing Dillon talking to her at the dance, seeing her dance with him, smile at him as if he wasn’t the monster I knew him to be. The way she clung to Eric, held his hand and talked to him so easily when I got back after being in the hospital. The way she held hands with Isaac the day I came down to see her and got there early. The way she looked hugging him.

I’ve never given two shits about people before. I didn’t love anyone and no one loved me. I floated by without ever having to acknowledge that it could be an issue of mine. I just assumed when I got with her that it was me and her against the world and nothing could get in the middle of it. Living through the bullying was supposed to be as bad as things got for us.

It should have been, but of course, I had to go and ruin it the same way I ruin everything I touch.

“I did this…”

“Yeah, you did, but you can still fix it. It was an accident.”

“No. I can’t. Dill, I hurt her. I fucking hurt the only person who ever really loved me.”

“Accidentally.” He repeats and I just shake my head. It might not have been intentional but it still happened and I deserved to burn for it. I swore to her that I would never hurt her again and I did it in the worst way possible.

I physically hurt her. I can never make up for that.

“I need to get out of here.” I choke out as I finally look up and catch Dillon’s
face. He’s concerned. He doesn’t understand what the fuck I’m saying. I’m not even sure I do. I just know this is the last place I should be.

I’m the reason all of this happened. I need to be as far away from here as possible right now. Her mom is gonna be here soon, Dillon is here and I know he cares about her. She’ll have the right people with her.

“You’re still not thinking clear. Leaving isn’t gonna make this right.”

“Don’t you get it?” I
yell. “Leaving is the only thing that’s gonna make this right. As long as she’s far away from me, she won’t get hurt.”

“K—”

“No. I need to go before her mom finds out what I did. I don’t want to be here when she realizes that I’m the reason Belle is—”

“Your place is by her side
.” He explains and I shake my head again. He’s wrong. I might have thought it was the right place before. That there was no other place in this world I fit more than with the special girl in the hospital room fighting for her life, but I was wrong. She deserves more than to be stuck with someone like me.

She always has.

“Dill, stay with her. Don’t leave. Be there when she wakes up.”

“You know I’d do that anyway, but man, it isn’t me she’s gonna want to see.”

I know that too. Belle will wake up and want me because she loves me. She might be happy to see Dillon because they’re friends, but her heart will call out to mine. I just can’t answer that call. Not knowing the damage I caused just by loving her in the first place.

“I know, but you’re the one she needs. You, Eric and her mom. I can’t be here, I don’t deserve to be here. I lost that right…”

He wants to say something I can tell, but I turn my back before he can. I start taking slow steps away, turned so inside out that even if I wanted to force my legs to move faster, I can’t. It’s only when I’m about ten feet away that I finally succumb to what’s building in me.

Falling to my knees in the middle of the parking lot, locked in tightly between two random cars, I do something I haven’t allowed myself to do since I caught my mom coming out of that motel room. 

I cry.

Grace

I’ve gotten a lot of calls over the years, especially since Belle told me that it was time for her to go to regular school. Some of them were more severe than others. Her having difficulties and needing to come home, ones about accidents, panic attacks and such, but there has never been one quite like this.

This is a call no parent wants to get.

Belle, my sweet girl. The one that sometimes I have a hard time believing is actually a young woman now, has been in an accident. She’s at the hospital and when I asked the lady on the phone who had brought her in, I’ve never been more shocked by her response.

Dillon Murphy.

It doesn’t take long when I finally run through the doors of the emergency room for me to see him. He’s sitting in the chair, his back to me with his head in his hands. At first sight, knowing that he was the one to bring her here, I want to yell at him. Rip him apart for somehow hurting her again. Hit him and make him pay for taking another piece of my daughter and destroying her.

I don
’t do any of those things because the look he gives me when I call his name tells me he had nothing to do with what happened and he’s just as petrified in this moment as I am.

“What happened?”

“Something went down at school earlier. I wasn’t fast enough to stop it. I’m sorry.”

Dillon has always been one thing when it comes to me. A monster, but seeing him now as he apologizes for not being able to get to Belle in time, it breaks my heart.

“Tell me everything.”

“Kayden wanted to come home and surprise her. We got word that our transfer went through and we’d be able to start back here a week early. He was so fucking—um, freaking exci
ted.” He says. “When we got there, she came out with Isaac.”

“Dillon, how did my daughter end up here?” I plead, knowing that I asked for everything, but more interested in what got her to this point than anything leading up to it.

“We saw them hugging. Kayden, I don’t know. Something snapped when he saw them. He ran from the car and I wasn’t fast enough to catch him. He started fighting with Belle, yelling at her then he started fighting with Isaac. Ms. R, she stepped in between them. She wanted them to stop and they wouldn’t listen to her so she stepped in and Kayden, he hit her. She stumbled, tripped over her bag and fell.”

“She fell and then what happened?”

“Her head hit the pavement. Kayden tried to grab her before she tripped, but when that happened it threw her farther away from him. I was closer so I jumped out but I—”

He doesn’t need to say anymore. I can put together the rest of what he’s telling me.

“Has anyone come out and explained where she is? How she is? Anything?”

“No.”

It occurs to me that with everything he told me, he hasn’t said a word about where Kayden is.

“Where’s Kayden?
”

“He’s gone.”

“What do you mean he’s gone?”

“What happened
twisted him up so bad that he thought he needed to leave. That you wouldn’t want him here when you learned why she got hurt.”

I might not agree with the way things happened, violence never being acceptable, but from everything Dillon has admitte
d to, he didn’t intentionally hurt Belle. She got in between them in the hopes that seeing her would stop anything more from happening and had been caught in the crossfire.

I’m not pleased with the way Kayden ha
ndled himself, but I definitely wouldn’t keep him away from her. If there is anyone in the world that loves Belle as much as Tristan and I do, it’s him. Not only that, but since they reconnected again he’s been good for her.

She’s changed, but in so many good ways. They’ve been good for each other.

“He really thinks I wouldn’t want him here?”

Dillon nods and I sigh. I should have seen this being the way he would react. He may have changed, but the one thing that hasn’t changed is that Kayden still believes himself to be unworthy. It’s something we’ve spoken about before, but I didn’t realize it had gotten to this extreme.

There is nowhere in this world that he needs to be right now more than here. He’s family.

“Do you know where he went?”

“No. We were both in the ambulance with Belle, so his car is back at the school. I don’t know where he went, but nothing I said was getting through. He was all twisted up, Ms. R. I’ve seen him pretty screwed up before, but this was different.”

“I’m going to go see what I can find out about my daughter. Please try and reach him. He needs to know that I want him here. It’s where he belongs. If you don’t mind, could you also do me a favor?”

“Anything.”

“Call Eric. She said something about having plans with him tonight when I talked to her earlier. I don’t want him worrying and he’s going to want to be here.”

He nods again and immediately heads for the door, pulling his cell phone out as he goes, preparing to do exactly as I’ve asked. It occurs to me as I head toward the nurse’s station that Kayden and Belle aren’t the only people that have changed and grown over the last year. He has too.

“Excuse me,” I ask, tapping my fingers on the large blue counter. “I received a call that my daughter was in an accident and that she was brought here for treatment. Her name is Isabelle Reagan. Please tell me that my daughter is okay.”

She has to be okay. I don’t know how I’m going to go on if she isn’t.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Kayden

Bang. Bang. Bang.

I can hear the relentless banging on the door, but I can’t be bothered answering it. I’ve got Jim, Jack and Jose by my side, there’s nothing else I need.

Except her. You need her, you stupid dumbass.

No. I won’t think about her.
She’s too good for my thoughts. If she enters my mind, I’ll taint her and she should never be tainted or twisted in any way.

She’s safe where she is. Belle won’t eve
r be tainted by my stupidity, insane jealousy or the fucking darkness that runs through my veins. Never again. It’s better this way. No matter how much it feels like someone carved a hole in my chest and left me to bleed out, cold and alone.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

“Go away!” I holler as loud as I can, my voice hoarse and ripped from the breakdown the night before and the after effects of my attempt at blocking it all out.

When did I become this person? What happened to the guy that was s
upposed to be different? The one that deserved to have that special girl by his side because he was determined to change the past?

How did it get this far? When did my jealousy override what I know to be the truth? When did jealo
usy even become a problem?

Oh, that’s right. The minute I opened my heart
wide enough to care about someone. Not just any someone either. The only someone.

Isabelle. My air. My reason.

The incessant banging comes again, only this time it’s louder and it repeats on a loop until no amount of blocking it out can help.

Dragging my body up even though it protest
s every step of the way, I feel my bones crack the minute I’m completely upright and I stare at the door. Who could possibly be on the other side?

If it was Dillon, he would
have already barged his way in; the only other person besides Belle with a key to the place, because the last thing he wanted was to go home and face his mother when we came back into town.

Damnit, I
said I wasn’t gonna think about her, yet here I am flooded with her scent, her smile, her voice even though she’s nowhere near me. I’m destroying her in my mind the same way I did outside two days ago.

I’ll never escape her.

I never want to escape her.

“Kayden, open the door right now!”

My body freezes. I know that voice. It’s not one I’ve heard in a while, but I couldn’t forget it even if I wanted to. It’s engrained in my head as easily as Belle is.

Two women. Similar yet oh-so-different. Both of them loving me at one point in their lives, both of them leaving me, deserving better than what a Walker can give them.

Belle didn’t leave you.

I can’t fucking
believe this is happening right now. Looking over at the side of the bed and seeing the half empty liquor bottles staring back at me, begging me to get lost in them, I shake my head, fighting a war inside myself to just give in even though it’s the last thing I need.

Belle didn’t leave me. I misread the entire thing and it cost me everything. Dillon was right from the start. I let my fear override my common sense and now she’s lying in a cold hosp
ital bed and I’m here throwing myself a pity party because I’m the world’s biggest jackass.

Isaac Crawford.

The reason for all of this.

No. Th
at’s not right. I’m the reason. They’re all innocent.

“Dillon told me you’re in there! I swear to god boy, if you don’t open this door right
now, I will break it down.”

Hearing her again, breaking through the darkness I’m drowning in, it occurs to me where I get my anger from. With her threat of k
icking the door in, the same one I did a year ago when I wanted to beat the bathroom door off its hinges to save the girl I love, it’s crystal clear.

I
’m not a Walker after all. I’m a Morrison. I’m my mother’s son.

“Go away!” I attempt again, but it doesn’t do shit because there she is again, pounding her fist into the d
oor. We’re a lot more alike then I realized. She’s just as stubborn as I am.

I need to answer the door and do the same thing I’ve been doing with everyone else for years. I need to remain disconnected and push her the fuck away. She doesn’
t want to get close to me, especially since this is exactly what her leaving created. I might have done it on my own, but I remember the good times with her, how much I adored that fucking woman. She caused all of this.

She’s the reason I’m
an asshole.

Swinging the door op
en once I stumble my way to it and coming face to face with the woman that thought it was a good idea to bail on me, I grin, but not in the way I’m used to. No, this one is different. Spiteful, sadistic.

“You having trouble understanding the words
go away
?”

“Nope.” She says before pushing her way past me and into the room before turning around
to face me again. “I heard it loud and clear, but I never was one for listening.”

Another thing we’ve got in common. Hard headed to a fault.

I don’t want to have anything in common with this woman. Even having her here now is messing me up in a bunch of ways and after all the drinking last night, I think I’ve been messed up enough. I don’t need a second hangover.

“What the hell do you want? If you can’t already tell, I’m busy.”

“Yeah, the brewery called. They want their liquor back.” She smirks and I resist the urge to smack her. It’s not my thing, hitting a woman, but she doesn’t get to smile. Not after what she did. “When’s the last time you had a shower?”

“None of your business. Now if you don’t mind—”

“Kayden, I’m not going anywhere.” She says, cutting me off and making herself comfortable on my bed, throwing her one leg up over the other and leaning her upper body into it. Settling herself in for the long haul.

Fuck. I’ve never hated stubborn people so much in my life.

“How did you get in? Why are you even here? Why now?”

I have no idea what I’m even saying. I don’t want to ask these questions, but my brain is so fried that I can’t contain it. I’m spewing up a bunch of crap better left dead and buried. She should have just stayed away.

“You left the front door unlocked and I’m here because I’m a screw up and I’m tired of running from it.”

“Aww, that’s touching, Mom. Really. I feel for you.”

“That’s not you talking.”

“No, you’re right. It’s what you left behind when you thought running off with a fucking piece of ass was better than staying and protecting your kid!”

God, I hate her. I feel like I’m nine again and I’m seeing her in the kitchen that final day. The one that started like every other and ended with her never coming home. My heart being smashed into a million little pieces. I can even see the torture in Dean’s eyes when he had to sit down and tell me she was gone.

Fuck her and her regrets. I don’t want to hear them.

“You’re right.”

“You think?”

“I know you hate me and you have every right. I’m not here looking for forgiveness.”

“Then why are you here?
You get wind of how good things were going for me and want to make sure it didn’t last? Take the only good thing I had going for me and twist it until it was as screwed up as you?”

Shit
. I’m crying. No. This can’t happen. I will not shed tears over this woman.

“Kay…”

“Don’t call me that!” I roar, the vibration of it reverberating in my head and shaking me to the core. I’m a different kind of angry now. It’s like after everything that’s happened, the torture is evolving, changing me. I really am turning into a whole new monster.

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, I bet you are.”

“I am. You might not believe that and it’s your right. I screwed up
with you and Dean. I told you. I’m not here to make excuses or get you to forgive me, but you need to hear what I’ve got to say. You’re owed so much more than that, but it’s all I’ve got.”

“Don’t you get it? I don’t want anything from you, other than f
or this conversation to end and you to get out.”

Where I expect w
hat I said to get through, make her stand and get the hell out of my room so I can be alone, she does the opposite.

“When I was fifteen, your uncle Greg came into my room late one night. He said he wanted to show me something.  I was such a naïve little girl back then. Hadn’t even kissed a boy, let alone been around one long enough to see what was hidden under his pants.  Despite what they taught me in school, when he said he had something to show me, I thought he meant a new guitar. He always loved gui
tars and music. He showed me a lot that night and it had nothing to do with music and the beauty that it can bring. He showed me what a real nightmare is.”

“Stop it! I don’t want to hear this!”

I need her to stop because this, I’ve heard it before and I know how it turns out. Amelia went through something like this and her revelation of the way things were when we dated is still raw. I don’t want to go through it again. Especially with my own mom.

“He took everything from me that night, Kayden, but he also gave me so
mething.” She pauses, her face which until that moment had been leveled to the carpet, now steadily locking on me again. Our eyes a mirrored reflection of each other. “He gave me your brother.”

I’m gonna be sick. Holy shit.

“Stop! I don’t believe you. This is all just a bullshit story you’re trying to sell me so I’ll feel sorry for you. Let you back in. Just stop it.”

“It’s all true and I can prove it. I had to do it with Dean when I went to see him, so I have no problem doing the same for you.”

My body is weaker than it’s ever been and what she’s telling me, it’s threatening to bring me to my knees. I’m about to hit the floor because the weight of what she’s saying is too much. I’ve been through too much, caused too much. I can’t take any more. I’ve reached my limit.

“When I met your father, I thought it best to tell him the truth about who Dean’s father was. I loved him you see, so I didn’t want there to be any secrets between us. As it turns out it didn’t do any good. It made the man I love hate him and things turned violent very fast. By the t
ime I was ready to finally run; leave that cold, unfeeling bastard behind for good, I found out I was pregnant with you.”

“Kayden, you were the love of my life. Right from the minute you opened your eyes in the hospital, I knew I wanted to do right by you. I wanted the same with Dean too, but there was so
mething about him at that point. A darkness that just wasn’t present in you. You were my light.”

That sound I keep hearing, the one I can’t place; it’s coming from me. The minute my knees fall to the floor and I
feel the pain shoot straight through them, I hear the tortured sobs coming from my throat.

Yep. Definitely reached my limit.

“He left and when he did, I thought things were finally going to be okay. I was happy for the first time in years, until the day I got the call that he was coming back for you. I don’t know how much you remember from that time, but I stashed you and Dean at Grace’s house and I took off running. I knew Kayden—I knew that when he got there and didn’t see you boys, he was going to kill me. He didn’t know about my friendship with the lady across the street so I used it to make sure you were safe. It was all I cared about.”

It’s exactly the way Dean said it was. She dragged us both across the street that day ten years ago and left us with Grace.  I didn’t want to believe it when I heard it from him, but seeing the way she is now, hearing the pain in her voice admitting it, I know it’s the truth.

“I know the way it looks and I know that me telling you all of this now doesn’t change a thing, but you need the truth. You needed it when you were little, and you definitely need it now.”

“Why now? Why not five years ago? He was gone, Mom. You were safe to come back. We needed you! I needed you!”

The horror I lived through with Dean floods my mind. Every single fight, every drunken rage, even the times when we weren’t beating on each other but drowning in our own loss and sadness together. It’s all front and center like a slide show I can’t turn off.

I needed her. I never stopped wanting her there, needing her there to stop Dean. To stop me. To change me back into the little boy she knew I could be and not the monster I turned into.

“I know you did, but I thought you were safer with your brother. I had no idea that the way he was when he was little was how he was going to turn out. It’s like seeing Greg all over again.”

She’s lying. She’s the one that told me Walkers were defective. She fucking knew Dean was bad. She’s admitted as much since she got here. Seeing something in him at a young age that made him the darkness and me the light. I might have bought into all of the other shit she told me about the way things w
ere, but not this. She’s full of shit.