Chapter 51

Lilly's POV

    You know that sigh that you do when you're just genuinely happy? That sigh that just means that you're safe, everything is okay, and you're content with your life? Well Sutter brought that sigh out of me, and when he left, he took that feeling with him. That totally blissed out and whole feeling left with him when he walked out of the door with that moving truck.

    But something about Cross brought that feeling back. I don't know what it was. Whether it was his charm, his humor, or the way he made me forget about all the bad shit that had overwhelmed my life; he made me feel like everything wasn't falling apart anymore, even though I definitely still was. 

    But it was nothing like that happy sigh that Sutter gave me every night when I went to bed knowing he'd be climbing into my window soon. But it was just enough to blur the lines. And blurred lines scared the fuck out of me.

      Nothing was concrete anymore, nothing was set in stone like I always thought they were. Except gravestones. And that was depressing just saying it, so I did my best to steer clear of that mental image, hating the feeling that washed over me every time I had to see my little girls name carved into that gray stone.

     Rolling my wheel chair up to Cross's house was enough to remind me that nothing in this life was guaranteed. Things could change in a second, no matter what you had your heart set on. I just got swimming back into my life, and now i'm not even sure if there's a chance that will continue on, the doctors said I would need a good but of physical therapy after being allowed to walk again.

     I was taking things one day at a time.

     I knocked tentatively on his back door, thankful he wasn't in a wheel chair like me at least.

     Finally, after what felt like forever, I saw his figure appear through the glass. His handsome face was marred with scrapes everywhere, including a line of stitches over his eyebrow. His arm was in a sling, with a cast that went all the way from his hand to his shoulder. He had a knee brace on his leg, and a distinct limp that I know he was trying to play off.

    "Hey." He muttered when he opened the door.

    "Hey." I said back lamely. "Can we talk?"

     Instead of answering me, he just nodded his head solemnly, moving outside to grab the handles of my wheelchair and steer me inside.

     He moved me in front of his couch in the sitting area, and without asking he lifted me by my armpits out of my chair and onto the couch.

     I cringed a little as I moved and got myself comfortable, still getting used to the confines on my body.

    "You okay?" He asked, noticing the discomfort on my face.

    "Yeah, just a little stiff."

    "How did you get here?" He asks, and his sense of protectiveness over me always did make me feel soft towards him.

     "Nadine drove me."

    He just nodded his head, and the awkward silence settled in around us. Something that was very scarce between us. We always had something to say, something to laugh about. And if not that, we were usually in between some sheets together, saying and doing other things that kept us occupied.

     "Cross.." I started, but the drop and shake of his head stopped me.

      "You don't have to say it Lil, I know already."

     "I was going to say thank you, for what you did for me. Protecting me the way you did, staying with me. I'm so thankful you were there with me. I'm just sorry you got hurt." I don't say it, but i'm also talking about his fight with Sutter before the tornado came. He wouldn't be in any of this mess if it wasn't for me.

     "Clearly I didn't protect you well enough," he said, gesturing to my bum leg, and the other bruises and lacerations that covered my skin.

     "It could be a lot worse. Without you I'd probably be dead."

He didn't respond, instead he just acknowledged what I said with a look on his face.

"C'mon blues, let's go ahead and get it over with." Him referring to my nickname made me even more sad and nostalgic than I already was. He called me blues for my eyes and my used to be always sad mood.

He changed all of that though, and he deserved to know it. He deserved to know how amazing he was. But he also deserved to be let go.

"Cross, if it wasn't for you I probably would have been dead a long time ago instead of just a few weeks ago. You've saved me so many times and you never even knew it. I was spiraling into something that had no intentions of slowing down, until you. You made me stop and rethink things." I stop to look at his face, but he's looking at his clasped hands in front of him instead of at my face.

"There was more going on then Sutter leaving or Annie's passing. I had to move back in with someone who loved to beat the shit out of me and watch the torture and pain he conflicted." I saw Cross's head snap up in my peripheral vision, but I continue on despite the uncomfortable subject. "My dad has hit me or abused me just about everyday since I was around twelve years old. I didn't tell anyone, I didn't think it would make a difference, except make things worse. So some of the..distance, or darkness that you saw in me, wasn't all because of Sutter or what we lost."

I let that sink in for a minute, hoping what I said marinated within him before he responds.

"Why..why wouldn't you tell me? I would have done something, Lil, I would have taken you away from that. Had him locked up. Had him away from you."

I look up at him with wet eyes. "I was embarrassed Cross. The only people in this world who are supposed to love me, despised me, and made sure they showed it everyday."

"But you were on swim team, and you saw Sutter everyday. How did you hide the bruises?"

"I always had an excuse, and honestly people make up reasons for what it could be, besides the truth. No one wants to believe they know someone who is abused or an abuser."

     He sits quietly for a while. "That's why you never wanted to go home, isn't it? Why you always wanted to stay at my house?"

     I nod my head. "That was part of it, yes. But I also just liked being here, liked being around you. You made me feel normal again. Not like I was some teenage girl who got pregnant and whose parents beat her. I could come over here and laugh, things went away for a little while."

      "So why did you make them stop? We could have kept them going. They were good between us."

      "Yes, they were. And you were amazing, I can't stress that enough. But..I'm never going to love anyone else on this earth as much as I love Sutter. My heart just can't do it. I tried to make it, and I honestly wish it did. I do love you, more than I could ever have thought it was possible for me to love someone who wasn't him. But.."

      "But I'm not him." He finished for me, a solemn look in his eyes.

     "I'm sorry." It was a lame thing to say, but there wasn't much else that could be said. "When you wanted to take things further, I realized how selfish I had been to drag you into my world. I had hoped you wouldn't feel that way about me, because I'm not a good person to love."

      "Why do you do that?" He responds angrily.

      "Do what?"

     "Why are you so fucking hard on yourself? You told me from the beginning what you wanted Lilly. I'm the one who didn't listen, I'm the one who wanted more. You never once let me believe things were going to be more for us. Stop taking the blame."

     "But.."

    "No. There is no but. You told me you wouldn't want anything serious, that you wanted fun and to be like every other teenager we went to school with. You didn't tell me to fall in love with you and practically beg you to give me your heart. I knew that wasn't for me but I wanted it anyway. I've known since we were kids that you would always only love Sutter. Anyone could see that. I remember thinking how lucky that little bastard was to have someone with such fierce loyalty to him already. And that's why I was so mad when he left you. Because he should never throw that kind of devotion away."

     I was dumbfounded. Never in my whole life of knowing Cross had he ever said so much at one time. He was loyal too though, to a fault like me. And when that loyalty is broken, it really changes you.

    "I think in some ways Cross, I'm in love with you too. I'm in love with the happiness and contentment you brought to me, in a time when I didn't think my world was ever going to turn the right way again. You were my best friend and I'm thankful for you. But I have to let you go, I have to let you find someone who is going to love you the way I love Sutter. Because when you find that love, you'll know there was never any room for anyone else." Cross was special to me, so special. And I probably had more feelings for him than I should, and that was something I was going to have to process when I was alone and had time to think it over. But for now I had to make things right between everyone, including myself.

   I knew who I couldn't live without, and he was waiting for me back at home.  

   "I never had a chance, did I?" He asks, but there's a teasing tone in his words.

   "It's kinda hard to make your heart get over someone when your heart grew with them already in it." I figure that's a nice way to say there will never be another person I love, the way I love Sutter.

   "Lil, stop looking like you just had to murder your dog or something. It's okay, and i'm okay. I always knew that it was a long shot for you to love me like that, and I promise i'll be okay. We're going to college soon, i'm sure i'll meet someone to help me get over the famous Lilly Matthews."

   I scoff playfully, trying to ignore the dig in my chest I felt about him and other girls. It wasn't fair, and I knew that, it was just something I would have to get over. It was nothing like the feeling of physical sickness at someone else being with Sutter. That was something I would never be able to play off and live through.

Smiling almost shyly at each other, he picks me back up off the couch and places me back in my wheelchair. He offered to drive me where I needed to go, but I told him Nadine had stayed and waited on me while I was in here talking to him.

As he rolls me out the house and to Nadine's little SUV, I place my hand on his before he can lift and place me in the car.

He gives me a questioning look but I just wrap my arms around his neck. "I'm really happy you're okay, and I'm forever grateful for you and everything you've done for me."

He sighs sadly, but eventually wraps his arms around my waist and squeezes me tightly. "You know I've got your back no matter what. I'm gonna work really hard on loving you the right way. So that may mean some space for us, but I don't want you to think I'm mad at you. I'm not anymore."

I can't help the wetness that pools in my eyes. "This world really doesn't deserve someone like you." I pull back and kiss him on the cheek, and then jump away from him and lower myself into the passenger seat.

Nadine pops the trunk and Cross minimizes my wheel chair and sticks it in the back. When he walks back by the car, he gives us a little wave before walking back inside his house. I can't help but notice the obvious slump of his shoulders, and I just hope they don't stay that way for long.

Cross is too strong of a person to ever let his shoulders droop over someone like me.

I realize I never asked him about the weird dream state that I woke up in before I truly woke up in the hospital. I don't know if that was real, or just some trick my mind played on me. I guess I never will.

"Where to now?" Nadine asks softly, obviously knowing that whole encounter was a lot more taxing on me than I'm letting her see.

"Now take me to Denny's." I say, knowing this was the last stop I had to make before I could go back home to Sutter.