Open Wounds | Captain Swan

41. What about me?

EMMA'S POV

He had fallen asleep shortly after we had returned home – a word that felt weird to even think of at the moment, especially now that an important person that contributed to turn their house into a home in various ways was gone. He had hidden his face in the curve of my neck, his dried tears scattered over my creamy skin and his lightly reddened cheeks. The fact that he hadn't moved in over an hour brought some comfort to my unsteady heart, as he usually slept quite restless after such an incident.

In all fairness, I was pretty exhausted as well. My eyes felt weary, my eyelids heavy as though gravity could force them to close in a matter of seconds. I tried to fight the exhaustion the best I could, though, for his sake. He needed this more than I did; he had hauled his tired body out of bed every time Alex was begging for food during the night. It seemed only fair to grant him this brief moment of peace. And in addition to that, it also took his pain away, something I was grateful for.

We were both familiar with the pain of losing relatives. Almost our entire families had been taken away from us, slipped from our grasps too soon and too sudden, despite our efforts to keep them within our embrace. The grief we were experiencing now was just a stark reminder of all the loved ones we had mourned over in the past.

"How are you guys holding up?" Jen asked, her voice filled with an obvious hint of concern, but it was the trace of pity that annoyed me the most. I squirmed a little due to my discomfort, completely unintentionally, but the sign seemed to be clear to my sister. "How's he holding up?" It was a minor alteration, changing the personal pronoun, but the about-face provided a question I was comfortable retorting.

"Not that well." I replied, unwittingly dibbling a tender kiss on top of his head, lingering in that position a few short moments to inhale his scent, which mostly consisted of his shampoo. "I can't imagine how hard this must be for him. I mean, I'm already constantly on the verge of crying every time I think about her and the tormenting ache in my chest is barely manageable for me. But I didn't have the chance to bond with our child, he did." It was more arduous to talk about this topic than I had thought. My love, the most important person in my life, was hurting, talking about it, saying it aloud made it real, so real that it almost didn't seem like reality anymore.

I hadn't even noticed the way I was clenching my fists around his shirt and hair until I caught her staring at my knuckles, completely painted with a white color due to stress saddled them with. I kept staring at my hands, wanting to release him – too afraid that I would hurt him, or even worse, wake him up – but I found myself resisting the urge let go off him, needing to have this one assurance to convince myself he was still here and hadn't been taken away from me, too.

"I guess I'd better get going." She stood up, straightening her dress before grabbing her leather jacket and putting it back on. "You don't mind, do you?" I shook my head quickly, before she got the opportunity to rethink her decision, which I wanted to prevent. I knew Killian and I needed some time to grief, alone.

She nodded, silently letting me know that she understood before digging her hands into her pockets and crossing the threshold, without saying anything or looking back once, which I was kind of grateful for. For now, the only thing I could think of that would pacify us both was lying in each other's embrace, silently.

THE NEXT MORNING

"What are you doing?" I asked, leaning my weight against the door frame as I watched him rush around the room, not even noticing the suitcase on our bed initially. I had heard constant footsteps and cursing coming from upstairs when I was downstairs making us breakfast, so I decided to check on him, as I thought he was still sound asleep, but also needing to assure myself he wasn't doing anything stupid, so that I could stop thinking about it.

"Packing," He retorted, sounding a bit out of breath. He didn't even bother to look at me, though, he just kept his focus on his movements. It took a few seconds for his words to dawn on me and even when they did, it still didn't make complete sense, or rather not at all. "I have that school trip, remember?" He told me, stopping to scan my face for a second.

I knew what my facial expression looked like; exactly the same as how I was feeling, hurt, fretful. He threw the clothes he was holding on the bed and walked over to me, clearly worried by the look I was radiating. He placed his hands on my cheeks, his touch dissolving into a trace of comfort, which happened to be capable of relieving my pain for a fraction of a second. I hadn't planned for it to happen, nor wanted it to occur, but I flinched when his hands made contact with my silky skin. An outsider wouldn't have noticed it, but this man, who had seen me deal with a lot during the past years and thus knew me better than anyone else, immediately detected it.

"Emma, I can't just not go, I have responsibilities." His voice sounded sincere and I knew he was right. He had to go, despite our protests, but a small part of me had hoped he would cancel his trip. I felt as if the loss of our child and I weren't enough reason to make him stay. It was mostly my childhood fears thinking for me, deep down I was aware of that, although I couldn't seem to admit that right now. Instead I did something worse; I got angry, without having a rational reason for it.

"What about me?" I whispered, my voice on the verge of malfunctioning as I took a step backwards, exiting our room and backing out of his touch as well. "Aren't I your responsibility?" The harsh tone of my voice resulted in his jaw clenching as he dropped his gaze to the floor, his mouth opening a couple of times as though he was scanning the floor, searching for a decent reply there.

"Emma." He eventually said, sounding truly sorry, that was probably why it was all hurting me so much.

"We lost our fucking child, Killian!" I yelled, knowing it would be my fault if he would start yelling too. Admittedly, he could be a person with a bad temper sometimes, but he would never show that in the presence of me, unless I was the one who had triggered it. "You can't just leave!" I added, desperate for him to stay and hold me until we both fell asleep, which was the only thing that gave me the peace I needed to keep my mind clear.

"Oh no?!" He huffed, storming over to the bed, and seizing his bag. He walked back to me, swinging the bag over his shoulder as he approached me swiftly. "Watch me." He hissed, his face so close to mine I could see and count all the veins in his eyes. Without saying another word, he twirled around and ran down the stairs, leaving me standing in our corridor, hopeless.

[Can you tell that I suck at punctuation? Also, I feel like my chapters seem really rushed lately, what do you think? Btw, it's been a year since I started this story. I just wanted to thank everyone who has read my story (and still is). My story has reached 55k reads, 5k votes and 7k comments, that's insane! I never thought that would happen when I started this story a year ago. I know I'm a pretty impossible person, but thank you so much, that's all I can say!]