Ethereal Love (Book 2 LS Series)

Chapter 60

Michael's POV

"There was a girl named Della," I begin to explain to Skipper, after calmly leading her by the shoulders to be seated on my bed. She was expressionless. To my great relief, Diana promptly excused herself from the room, and left me to explain in private.

Skipper's silence is almost distracting; she sits primly with her hands folded, waiting for me to continue. I can sense the old emotions of mine boiling to the surface, attempting to pull me down into depression once more. "She was the third sister- of Diana and Delano, I mean."

Again, she says nothing. "She was the only one of them I could stand- she was the prettiest, the tallest, the sweetest- yet I only thought of her as a sister. Unfortunately, she thought of me in a different light. I was aware of her crush on me, I just... never wanted the situation to escalate.

"Della was a good girl. She was..." I explain to her the minor details of Della and I, until I finally reach the terrible truth, the part of me I thought I'd erased forever- Things I promised myself I'd never concede to another living soul. "Della fell in with the wrong crowd, essentially. The people Diana and I hung out with. While we could ignore their advances, she was far too sweet. She began doing drugs, and other things. Lost her virginity, and became a different person. She was a year older than you."

Skipper blinks.

"One night," I choke, "I was with her. We were at a party, at a hotel... god, I should've never been at that damned party." It's extremely hard to continue. I deeply desire for any sort of reaction from Skipper, it would ease my pain. "Since she changed, she'd become more forward with her feelings for me. We were in one of the rooms inside of the hotel. She had some cocaine." I glaze over some of the details.

"She said she wanted to have sex with me, but... I couldn't. As I said before, she was like my sister, and there's no way I could live with myself if I had sex with her. I was trying to distract her, in any way possible... She had already done a few lines of cocaine when she tried to trap me on the bed." My voice breaks as the emotion comes flying back to me, leaving me almost doubled over against the bed sheet.

"I was trying to distract her, but she was getting on me... you know I'd never do cocaine, I never have. I told her to do one more line to stop her from trying... and she did it..." She barely blinks again. "She... went into cardiac arrest after that line of cocaine. She just... started seizing, and I hadn't come to St. Mary's to study medicine yet so... I watched her die, like some dumb fuck. I just... I left her." I have to bite my lip to keep from sobbing.

"The paramedics found her ten minutes later, but by then it was too late. She was gone."

Skipper glances down at her pink painted fingernails, slowly examining each color-coated finger. I cock my head slightly, and wait. "That's my reason." She finally portrays emotion, giving me a quizzical glance. "It's my reason for being a surgeon. Della," I blink back tears in my eyes. "Maybe I could've saved her if I was medically savvy, right? So... now I am."

And then she saddens. Her eyes shine with empathy, as if she was waiting for me to finish before she offered up her opinion. Soon, she has crawled into my lap and lowered my head to her shoulder. "I understand," She whispers, "I know exactly how you feel." I almost forgot that she'd done the same, but she has a valid excuse for taking the life of another human being.

"You didn't kill Della. The drugs killed Della." She attempts to soften things for me, but she only makes me brutally aware of how much I don't deserve her.

Only Skipper would completely accept my flaws and attempt to excuse them, only she would kiss my cheeks gently and whisper to me about our unconditional love. I don't even begin to deserve Skipper, and the more I am forced to review the events of my past, the more I begin to decipher the problem with us.