Her Brother's Best Friend - Aching Hearts Series #2

Parallel Lives

CHAPTER 49 - PARALLEL LIVES

Lying in bed on his back, Riley covered his eyes with his arm, barely having the strength to breathe. Then again, what would be the purpose of breathing now? When every breath he took was one more instant in a life without his Honeybee. What for? Why did he even drag it on? There was no point in living, so why keep on burdening his mom and Jason and other people with his lifeless life?

Tears streamed his hollow cheeks for the billionth time within eight months. Every day was worse, there was no improving, no getting better, as that psychologist friend of his father's said. There were no five stages of grief, there was just pain, endless, wrecking pain that devoured him, chewing him up bit by bit, every single day, hour, minute, second. Every single breath.

What was the point in holding on? Holding on was supposed to be sustained by hope. Hope for a better future. A future where he and Emily were together. But if that future was not possible, then what was the point in holding on? Wasn't he simply beating a dead horse? Maybe he should just give in once for all. Free his mom, Jason and everyone of the trouble, but more importantly, reach her.

Didn't Romeo and Juliet did just the same? Surely the similarities were there, given all the shenanigans that kept splitting him and Emily. Romeo didn't have to face a psychotic ex girlfriend that kidnapped Juliet, though. In truth, Romeo and Juliet were newbies compared to them.

Lydia was dead, but that was no relief for Riley. She shouldn't have died. She should have rotten in a prison for life. It didn't matter that, for how polices recounted it, her death had been pretty painful nevertheless, it'd been still too little, compared to what she'd done to Emily. Part of him, the darkest, most hidden side he'd always thought nonexistent, suggested he would have rather Lydia was still alive. That way he could make her regret the life she'd taken.

But that wouldn't have given him back his Honeybee, would it? It would have changed nothing. Emily would still be gone. Forever.

Riley bit his lips, choking his own sobs, while his heart writhed its residual beats. Thinking of a lifetime beside Emily, he'd dared, he'd imagined them getting old together, he'd have considered, no, taken for granted, he would be spared the pain of living without her because, certainly, be it only for a matter of age, he would be the first to go. Never, not even in his wildest nightmares, would he have predicted that he would lose her so soon. That he would have to endure a lifetime without her.

He rolled over on his side, bracing himself as he, for the billionth time, spilled his sorrow onto the pillow. Crying had become almost the sole thing he was able to do, when even breathing hurt. Eating felt like a claim to life Riley did not want, sleeping was impossible when, every single time, he saw that very same scene, of her falling off that high cliff, without him being able to do anything to save her, every single time, he saw her disappointed face, heard her desperate pleads. In his ears, Riley could hear her calling for him, begging him to save her. But he never could.

She was supposed to remain by his side for the rest of his life, he would have peacefully passed away in his bed, with Emily holding his hand, he would have grown old beside her, but she was gone ... how could that happen? How could she leave him to the coldness of a world without her? How could he allow that to happen? He should have intervened sooner, should have told her the truth since the beginning, she'd have bewared, she'd have paid attention, Lydia would have not caught her, nothing would have happened.

It was his fault. His own fault only. It was his ex girlfriend after all, wasn't it? It was him to have brought such disgrace upon Emily, it was him to have caused for his Honeybee to be targeted by that psycho, he was the cause for that whole shenanigan. Why hadn't Lydia simply taken him? Why hadn't she just been banal, killing him, instead of his only reason to live? She said that, if she couldn't have him, then no one else would, so why let him live? Why not just end it once for all?