Goodbye for now

Cold Embrace

Warm arms wrapped around my waist. The heat sinks deep down into my muscles soothing me. Calming me. Like the soft lulling from my mother when I was a child. His rich cologne creates a haze that envelopes me holding me tighter than his embrace. I miss this. Cuddling calmly on the couch even if we don't exactly fit comfortably.

"Where are you?" he groans at my question. Oh, his voice! His deep timbre voice. How I missed that too. His chest expands from a deep breath and pushes against my back. "Safe," his voice comes out in a croak. Like the way it gets when he's just woken up. After a long pause, he continues, "where are you?" his reciprocated question floors me. If this wasn't a dream my jaw would be wide open with my eyes bugging out wildly. "Trudging slowly through the depths of the last circle of hell," my answer not only worries him but leaves him speechless. His chest expands and compresses many times before he finally says, "keep going," except his voice sounds like he's underwater. Gurgled and distorted.

No, I'm the one underwater. My throat constricts tightly and I struggle to breathe. Heart pounding like it's trying to escape while my arms flail and wave going nowhere slowly. My legs thrash. My chest burns. The air wheezes as it passes through my lungs. White blinding light flashes from behind my eyes. And I'm falling. I'm flailing and I'm falling. I'm in agony as pain pulses from my hip. The hip that has crashed into the ground when I fell out of the bed.

I. Fell.

...out of the bed?

I glance down at my legs swaddled tightly by the bed sheets stopping their panic. My anguish continues when I awkwardly shuffle back into the bed I don't remember falling asleep in. I scowl down at the bed that still tortures me with horrible memories. The bed adorned in boring prim white linen that I was once excited to use. The haze still fills the air attacking my sinuses putting all of my nerves on edge.

The bitter tea hits my tongue in small sips as I struggle to swallow it down. "Did you know Rio before he died?" Jax raises a single dark brow at me. "What makes you think he's dead?" I stare at him unable to answer his question. Leaving me stunned in place, unable to move. Unable to breathe. I shake my head trying to clear the muddle confusion that confounds my brain. Why wouldn't he be dead? If Rio's alive, Rio would be here. In my arms, in his charms, in our home. Unless... Rio must really not have wanted me.

"...I lost it." I took a deep breath readying myself to speak but it took me a while to make the sound pass my lips. His warm breaths waft over my neck where his head is buried. Soft tufts of grass tickle against my arm as they sway in the wind. The sun's bright warmth causes hazy shadows. One of which we now lie under basking in the slightly chilly breeze. The earthy scent of the tree fills our nostrils along with the familiar haze. "I know" he murmurs into my neck running his hands up and down my arms then finally bringing his palms down to rest them on my lower belly. Where our child once resided.

"My baby." I sob out. The emotions are still fresh and boiling in my chest. He sucks in a breath like I've offended him somehow. Can't he see me hurting here? I don't need his fervor right now. He will never understand what I've gone through. "Our baby," he corrects me. Voice strained and grated. I miss him so much. Misery consumes me as I mourn the life I once had. The man I once had. The man who once loved me. "I'm sorry" comes out my hoarse whisper as I twist my body to lay on top of him. "I know" his voice reverberates through his chest and vibrates into mine.

I bury my head into his chest savoring his scent that still comforts me even after years of knowing him. Hiding my face. "It should have been me. I wish it were me" tears stream from my face without me noticing. "How could it have been you?" he sounds confused. I never really thought about it. I've been plagued with thoughts about how my baby should be alive and I would gladly be dead in its stead. "I should have never been born." My reply comes out so quietly that I hope he doesn't hear me. My words make my lungs constrict and my fingertips ache. My eyes almost hurt with how forcefully I squeezed them closed. Knives are ripping through me.

When his reply is nothing but silence I continue. I may be burying myself even deeper in my self-torment. "I know that nothing I say can change your mind but I am so, so sorry. I'm sorry I wasn't enough for you. Maybe in a different life, I could have been better for you." For a second, it feels like he's stopped breathing. His warm comforting body cradling me slowly turns impassive, frosty, distant... I open my eyes to a bed dressed in soft clean linen. I'm ripped out of bed too quickly for me to react. The mood of the environment around me shifts into a dark and dangerous tone.

I'm involuntarily dragged downstairs where I'm set down onto a tall kitchen island chair. My wrists bound painfully at the bottom of my spine. The rope is so tight and rough that it's certain to rub my skin raw. How I'm bound is so uncomfortable that my shoulders and my elbows hurt.

The man reeks of cigarettes and reminds me of a sly, cunning hyena. The aura he exudes is a dangerous one but it's underlined with deceit. He's nothing like Jax. Jax is dangerous but he's always honest, sometimes brutally. Cold hard metal is shoved under my chin and the hand that is clasped behind my head forces my head harder onto the object. A chill passes through me. His gaze rakes over my face before coming to settle on my dark sunken eyes and his mouth ticks up into a smirk. "My, my aren't you a pretty little thing." His words reflect no ounce of charm or warmth. The look of animalistic heat in his eyes strikes me with a deep fear leaving me with an unsettled feeling in my stomach.