Page 4 of Fight For Me

I’m standing at the back of the funeral home, next to the parking lot. There’s a small patch of grass with a wrought iron bench. A couple trees provide some cover from the typically grey, misty weather of Washington state. The area was probably set up for situations just like this—a quiet, private spot for mourners who need a moment to themselves.

But I’m not sure a moment is going to be long enough.

She sent her friends clippings. For years. Long after I stopped living with her and moved in with Cash and my mom. She didn’t just follow my career, she shared it with people I didn’t even know.

You were the light in her life.

I feel like I’m going to throw up. Everything I’ve been trying to keep in for the past five days is building up, the pressure pushing at my ribs, threatening to burst out. I’m afraid of what will happen when it does. I’m afraid to let myself get close to the avalanche of pain I know is bearing down on me.

Wait until you’re home,I tell myself, over and over, the words turning into a mantra in my head as I try to control my breathing. I can’t lose it here. I have to go back inside, have to accept the condolences of all the people who came to mourn her—to mourn both of them, really. It’s the last thing I can do to pay my respects to the grandparents who gave me so much—who loved me enough to not only raise me all those years but to also eventually let me go so I could live with my parents and have siblings and a huge, crazy family full of aunts and uncles and cousins and music and love.

The last thing I can do for them.The last thing.

I hear the click of the door behind me, but I’m pretty sure I feel her presence before the noise even registers. It’s been like this for the last two years. Two years and three months, to be exact. The way my body seems to be constantly aware of her every move when she’s close by, like something deep inside me is orienting itself to wherever she is when she moves through a space.

It’s been like this since the day I came home for my brother’s birthday and realized, with the force of a fucking lightning bolt, that while I’d been off living my life, this girl I’d barely paid attention to in years had suddenly, somehow, turned into the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. This feeling is the reason I don’t come home anymore, even though I can’t admit that to anyone.

She’s the one person that I can never have, but also the only person I can’t seem to shake. So it’s easier to stay away, even if that makes me the worst kind of coward.

But there’s no staying away right now. I don’t have the strength—physical or emotional—to get up and walk away from her. Not today. Not with this weight pressing down on my chest.

Alexandria Fraser sits down on the bench beside me and reaches over to take my hand.

Wyatt

My senses are inundated with her presence without even having to face her. The soft coconut fragrance that always seems to cling to her hair permeates the air. Alex smells like the beach and sunshine and everything bright. Our hands are the only thing touching, one pinpoint of connection between her skin and mine. She left several inches between us on the bench, but I still feel warmer with her body so near. It’s the closest I’ve allowed us to be in a long, long time.

“I saw you leave,” Alex says, her husky voice making my eyes close involuntarily. How fucked up is it that I hear that voice in my dreams?

“You were watching me.” It’s not a question. We’ve never had to talk about it for me to know that she’s always aware of me, too. Maybe even in the same way I’m aware of her. I haven’t asked her how it feels for her. I’m too afraid to know the answer.

“I had a feeling you were going to need some space,” she murmurs. She laughs softly, the sound sending a chill down my neck. “And yes, I do realize that’s a contradiction—that I knew you wanted space and followed you anyhow.”

I’ve never wanted space from Alex. I’ve forced myself to take it, over and over again. Forced myself to stay away. But even after all that effort, I know there’s no one else I would want sitting here next to me right now. I allow my fingers to tighten in hers and she returns the favor, squeezing my hand until I’m pretty sure she’s the only thing holding me up at all.

“I should probably warn you,” she murmurs after a few minutes. “I overheard your dad talking to my dad and Reed about how to convince you to come home for your surgery.”

“No need to warn me, they’ve already started the offensive.”

She laughs softly, the sound drifting over my senses like the brush of silk. Alex has a great laugh. It’s usually loud and uproarious, the kind of laugh she puts her whole body into. There’s something about watching her like that, so confident and free, that always gets to me. But this gentle whisper of a laugh is nice too, maybe even nicer, since it’s for my ears only.

“I gotta tell you,” she continues. “If I had to take a few months off to recover from a surgery, I’d much rather do it in the sunshine instead of…this.” She scrunches up her nose on the word this, like it tastes sour on her tongue, and gestures at the drizzle surrounding us.

“Come on, the rain isn’t that bad.”

“It’s not just the rain,” she argues. “It’s the grey. I don’t know how you stand it.”

Our preferences in weather are actually pretty representative of our personalities. Alex was made for California blue skies, whereas the persistent rain suits me just fine.

“I guess I’m a grey kind of guy.”

I can feel her gaze on the side of my face and it takes all my effort to keep from looking over at her. “I don’t think that’s true.”

She sounds so serious, so sincere, that it’s even more of a struggle not to look at her. “I think you’ve got lots of sunshine in you, Wyatt Warner,” she whispers, and suddenly it feels hard to breathe.

“You think?” I manage though my throat has gone tight.

She nods. “I really do.”