Back to Life (18 page)

“The
next thing I remembered I woke up in the hospital with restraints around my
wrists. I saw Marissa at the edge of my bed and Brody was sitting in a chair in
the corner with his head in his hands. I remember they all had their funeral
clothes still on, but I don’t remember if it was the same day or not. They both
had been crying. I started to get scared and I asked Marissa what was going on.
She asked me if I remembered anything after the funeral, and I said I didn’t,
just that my stomach hurt and then I passed out. I started to freak out and I
tried to move my hand to my stomach, but I couldn’t. I started crying and I
asked Marissa why I was here and why I was being restrained. She told me that
after I passed out I was brought here and placed on a seventy-two hour
emergency detention. My mother wanted to press assault charges, but my father convinced
her not to and said that I was grieving and that he would see to it that I got
‘the help I needed’.

“After
she told me that, I struggled with my arms and asked about the baby. I begged
her to tell me…I needed to know that my baby was okay, but I could tell from
the way she was crying and the look on Brody’s face that,” I paused, trying to
swallow the lump in my throat, “I had lost the baby. At that moment, I
completely broke down and started screaming like I had never screamed before. I
had lost Mason, and now I had lost our child too…and it was all my fault,” I
cried, and I leaned over and placed my head in my hands.

Marissa
gasped loudly and grabbed my hands from my face. “Rory! That was
not
your fault! You had a miscarriage. How can you say that?”

“Because
I didn’t take care of myself after Mason died! I wouldn’t eat or drink anything
because I just didn’t care! I knew I was pregnant but when he died I just
didn’t care about anything anymore. I wanted to die right along with him,” I
said. “I put myself and my grief ahead of my child. I am a monster.”

I
heard Liam clear his throat. “Can I say something now?” he asked quietly.

Shaking,
I nodded my head. “Okay.” Here it comes. This is when he says he can’t handle
being in a relationship with a psychotic monster that cause the death of her
unborn child. This is when every piece I fought to put back together falls
apart.

He
moved off the loveseat and knelt down in front of me. Before I could think he placed
his hands on my cheeks and looked me dead in the eyes. “Oh, Rory,” he said
softly, “you are not a monster. You have to be the bravest woman I have ever
known, and I love you so much. I am so sorry this happened to you.” At that
moment, I broke down into full blown sobs and collapsed into his arms. He
pulled me into his lap and wrapped his strong arms around me and just held me
for what felt like forever. He was running his fingers through my hair and
rocking me back and forth and kissing my head. I knew in that moment that I was
never going to love anyone more than him. When the tears started to dry, I
pulled back and looked at his face. It was full of nothing but concern and
love. “Rory, I can’t believe you thought I’d run away from you because of this.
All of this,” he said, waving his arm around, “isn’t and never was your fault.
If I were you, and I lost my fiancé the way you lost Mason, I wouldn’t have
done anything differently. Hell, I would have smacked the shit out of the one
responsible for all of it.” I snorted out a laugh. “And about the baby,” he
said gently, stroking my hair, “how do you know that something you did caused
you to miscarry? I mean, if Mason didn’t know yet, you couldn’t have been very
far along. That’s a high risk time for any woman. Who put that idea in your
head?”

I
sniffed and sighed. I didn’t really know that, but something in my mind told me
every day that I was a horrible person and that this was my fault. I was about
to speak but Brody cut me off. “Our mother did,” he said, his jaw hard. His
fists were clenched and his eyes were dark with anger. I now realized this was
the first time he’d spoken.

I
shot him a confused look, and Marissa’s eyes widened. “What? When did she say
that?” she said. “I was by Rory’s side almost the entire time, and I don’t
remember Mona being there.”

“It
was the night that I’d stayed with Rory so you could go back to the apartment
and get some rest. She’d been sedated again after she found out about the
miscarriage, so we thought she’d sleep through the night,” he said. I’d been
sedated again after that? Oh God, I didn’t know that. Fear spread through
me…what else had I missed? “Our parents were still in town, but I thought
they’d gone to their hotel. I had just walked out of the room to go and get
coffee when I saw Mom walking down the hall toward your room,” he said, looking
at me. “I thought she was maybe coming to apologize for how much of a bitch
she’d been to you, and to try to make peace with you before she went home, so I
waited outside the door so she could have a moment with you. I thought you were
sleeping,” he said, his voice cracking. “But you weren’t. You were pretty out of
it because I heard you mumbling, ‘Mommy?’ when you saw her.” He stopped for a
minute, not wanting to continue.

Tears
were still falling from my eyes, but this time they weren’t for my pain. They
were for my brother’s. “Brody, it’s okay. Please tell me what happened. I don’t
remember any of this. I need to know,” I said, and Liam gripped me tighter.

He
sighed. “She said that you were a disgrace to her and our family, and that she
was disappointed to have you as a daughter. She said that you deserved everything
that happened to you, and that Mason was better off dead than being with you.
She said she never wanted to see you again. The last thing she said before I
walked into the room and threw her out was that because of all your moping,
crying, and selfishness that your ‘bastard’ baby was dead and that you killed
it,” he said. I felt such a deep ache in my chest from hearing all of this, but
when I looked at Brody my pain was irrelevant. He’d been holding onto all of
that for four years himself because he wanted to protect me.

“Why
didn’t you ever say anything?” Marissa asked, tears staining her cheeks.

“Because
she’s always been a shitty mother to Rory and I wanted to spare her any more
pain. I didn’t know that Rory had subconsciously heard all of that and thought
it was true. I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you, Rory. I had no idea that you
blamed yourself for losing the baby. I really thought you were just still
grieving over the loss of Mason and the baby that I didn’t pay attention to how
you were actually feeling. I’m so, so sorry,” he said, and I saw a few tears
escape his deep brown eyes.

I
moved off Liam’s lap and over to Brody, and I threw my arms around him. “Oh, Brody,
you have nothing to be sorry for. You have been nothing short of wonderful to
me through all of this. Hell, throughout my whole life. You were just
protecting me like you always have, and I love you so much,” I said, and we
both cried together.

He
squeezed me tightly. “I love you too, Rory. And there is something you need to
know,” he said, pulling away and taking my hands. “I think it might set your
mind at ease, at least a little bit. From a doctor’s standpoint, you did
absolutely nothing to cause the loss of your baby. You obviously don’t remember
any of this, but you had an ectopic pregnancy.”

I
looked at him, confused. “A what? What the hell is that?”

“It’s
when an egg is fertilized by a sperm and it doesn’t implant in the uterus, but
in the fallopian tube. I’m sorry to say, but the pregnancy couldn’t have
continued. If you hadn’t naturally miscarried, it could have ruptured your
fallopian tube and it could have killed you. From a medical standpoint, you
were very lucky it happened when it did. You still have a very strong chance to
have more children someday. If your pregnancy would have continued on longer
that chance would have been cut in half.”

I
listened to what he said, and all of a sudden, a weight was lifted off of me. I
didn’t cause this. It wouldn’t have mattered if I’d taken excellent care of
myself. It wouldn’t have mattered if Mason was still here…I still would have
lost the baby no matter what. I was still extremely sad and always would be,
but knowing it wasn’t my fault after all took some of the hurt away. I pulled
him into another hug. “Thank you for telling me that, Brody. All of it. I
needed to hear it.”

“I
should have told you sooner.”

“I
don’t know if I’d have been ready to hear it. I didn’t think I’d be ready for
anything again until I met Liam,” I admitted, and I turned to look at him. I
didn’t notice that he’d stood up and was standing in front of the loveseat. We
all stood up at that point and Liam held his arms out to me. I immediately
walked back over to him and fell into his embrace. “I…I love you,” I said,
nuzzling into his chest.

Liam

I
held her as tightly as I could without hurting her, hopefully letting her know
that nothing she just told me would change how I felt about her. My heart broke
for her. Not only had Rory lost her fiancé, but she’d been committed to the
hospital by her parents and had had a miscarriage all in the span of one week.
Rory had been pregnant…that would probably have freaked me out if it were any
other woman but her, but it didn’t. I loved her with everything in me and I
wanted nothing more than to take that pain away from her. “I love you too,
angel,” I whispered into her ear. She pulled back to look at me, and I looked
at her face. She had tear stained cheeks and puffy, blood shot eyes…but she was
still the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. I raised my hand to her face
and I wiped the tears from her cheek, and traced my finger across her bottom
lip. Her breath caught and her chestnut eyes flashed to mine. Her hands started
to move down my back and rested in the back pockets of my jeans. I was suddenly
very aware that her brother and her best friend were standing right next to us
while her hands were on my ass.

Brody
cleared his throat. “You know, maybe we can talk about all of this later,” he
said, and he took Marissa’s hand. “Come on, sweetie, let’s leave the two of
them alone. Do you want to come have lunch with me?” he asked her, brushing her
cheek with his hand.

She
reached up and placed her hand over his. “Sure,” she said, and he leaned in and
kissed her.

As
they moved past us, Brody clapped a hand on my shoulder. “You take care of my
sister, okay?” he said, seriousness in his voice.

I
looked at him and smiled. “Always, man.” He smiled at me and then Marissa came
and looked me in the eye.

“Liam,
thank you,” she said. “Thank you for bringing Rory back to us,” she said, a
tear falling from her cheek.

I
nodded at her, and Brody wrapped an arm around her as they called out their
goodbyes as they left the apartment. I looked into Rory’s eyes, which now had
little flecks of green in them. “All alone,” I said. She smiled at me…and it
was a smile full of promise. “What should we do?” I whispered, feeling myself
getting harder as her fingers squeezed my ass through my jeans.

“You
know, I think I need a shower,” she said, quickly pulling away from me. I
turned toward her as she walked past, and she suddenly stopped. Throwing her
hair over her shoulder, she looked back at me, smiling her killer smile, and
said, “You want to join me?”

My
hot as hell girlfriend asked me to shower with her? Hell yes I wanted to join
her! As she began to walk down the hall, I quickly followed behind her. Once we
were in the bathroom, she leaned down to turn on the water and then turned back
to me. She ran her fingers down my abs and I shivered. Playing with the hem of
my tee shirt, and said, “The water takes a few minutes to get hot. Just give it
a sec,” she said, and she leaned up and pressed her petal soft lips to my
throat. I groaned and leaned my head back as she traced her hot tongue along
the vein in my neck. I leaned my head down and claimed her mouth on mine. She
tasted so sweet. I didn’t think I’d ever get tired of kissing her. I roamed my
hands down to her waist and my fingers found the bottom of her shirt. She
stopped the kiss for a moment and lifted her arms above her head and I pulled her
shirt off in one swift movement. Her mouth slammed back onto mine again as my
hand reached around and undid the clasp of her bra and she pulled it off her
shoulders. I moved my mouth from her lips down to her beautiful breasts and I
pulled one nipple into my mouth. She moaned loudly as I rolled my tongue around
it, tasting it. She shoved against me for a moment and she pulled at my shirt.
I lifted my arms as she had and I let her drag my shirt over my head. Her hands
immediately reached for the button on my jeans, and it didn’t take her long
before she pulled them down, taking my boxers with them. She stared at my dick,
which was already painfully hard, and licked her lips. I knew that she wanted
to take me into her mouth, but as hard as I was I couldn’t think of anything
but getting inside her as quickly as possible.

I
stood her up and I tugged at her jeans, and they fell to the floor. She stepped
out of them and we were standing in front of each other, completely naked and
panting with desire. Steam was filling the bathroom which meant the water was
ready. She took my hand and we both stepped into the shower, the hot water
cascading over our skin. Her hand reached for my cock, but I stepped back from
her and reached over her head to get the shampoo. I wanted to have a little
fun. “What are you doing?” she panted.

“You
said you needed a shower, so it’s time to get clean,” I said, grinning wickedly
at her.

Her
mouth fell open. “You mother fucker,” she said, and I laughed. “Are you teasing
me?”

“Lean
back,” I said, guiding her head so the water was falling all over her hair. She
smirked at me and leaned head back so I could shampoo her hair. I massaged her
scalp and she moaned the whole time. God, she sounded hot as hell. Once I got
her hair clean and rinsed, I poured some soap onto the bath puff and I began to
gently wash her body. Rory was by far the hottest woman I’d ever seen, but she
seeing her hot, naked, tattooed body all wet and soapy…I thought I was going to
come right then. She let me do my thing, moaning and closing her eyes the whole
time. When I was finished, she rinsed herself off and then took the soap bath
puff from me.

“My
turn,” she said, and began to run the soapy puff along my naked body. Her hand
would follow everywhere the puff went, and I groaned at the feel of her hand on
my slippery bare skin. She didn’t take long to wash my body and before I could
rinse myself off she had her hands in my wet hair, massaging it with shampoo.
Her nails scraped my scalp and I groaned. Fuck…that felt so good. Soon, all the
soap was gone from my hair and skin, and there was nothing stopping me from
ravaging her. She looked at me, pure lust burning in her eyes. I pushed her up
against the wall and pressed my body into hers. “Oh, Liam, please. I want you
so bad,” she said. I leaned in and kissed her, and I slid my tongue into her
mouth. She moaned and whined as our tongues swirled around each other, and I
swore my dick got even harder with that she could do with that tongue ring.

I
hesitantly broke apart from the kiss and moved my mouth down her hot, wet body.
I kissed her breasts, and moved down and licked her belly button, toying with
the piercing there for just a moment before I was down on my knees. I lifted
her leg and brought it above my shoulder. I looked up at her, and her eyes were
wide and she was breathing hard like she’d run a marathon. I smiled a wicked
smile at her before I leaned my mouth to her heat and ran my tongue along her
clit. She gasped loudly and gripped my hair with her hands as I licked around
her wet folds. She tasted so sweet, and she felt so good. I slid a finger into
her heat, feeling the wetness flooding her, and she screamed out in pleasure.
“Oh God, Liam, I’m close! Don’t stop!” she cried out, and I flicked her clit a
few times with my tongue. That sent her over the edge and she screamed my name
out loud as her body was shaking from her orgasm. I held her steady as I stood
to meet her heavily lidded eyes. “Oh, babe, that was…”

“Amazing.
You taste so good, angel,” I whispered to her. Her legs were all wobbly and
weak, so I grasped her hips and lifted her. I pressed her body against mine and
she wrapped her legs around my waist. “Rory, I want to sink myself into you so
bad right now up against this wall, but I don’t have protection.”

“There’s
a box of condoms in the medicine cabinet,” she breathed. She surprised me by
kissing me and thrusting her tongue into my mouth. Most girls I had been with
didn’t like to be kissed after I’d gone down on them, but Rory didn’t seem to
mind tasting her own arousal…and it was fucking
hot
. I reached over and
turned off the shower and I pulled the curtain back and stepped out of it with
Rory still wrapped around me. I pulled open the cabinet and grabbed the box of
condoms and I quickly walked down the hall toward her bedroom, ready to bury
myself in her.

“So,
that was another first for me,” Rory said, snuggling into me.

“What
was another first?”

“Showering
with someone. I’ve never done that before,” she admitted.

“Really?
You never did that with Mason?” I asked.

She
shook her head. “No. He always liked to take his showers in practically ice
cold water, and I couldn’t stand it. So, up until today, I was a shower
virgin,” she said, giggling.

I
smiled and kissed her forehead. “Well, I’m happy to be your first. Hope I was
gentle,” I said, and she laughed.

“Well,
you should know me well enough by now to know I don’t always like it gentle,”
she said, winking at me.

I
leaned down and kissed her lips. “My kind of woman,” I said.

“I’m
glad to be,” she said, running her fingers along. “I really didn’t think you
would stay when you found out about everything.”

“Oh,
Rory,” I said, wrapping my arms tightly around her, “there isn’t anything you
could ever tell me about yourself that would make me turn away from you.
Everything that happened…Mason’s death, the miscarriage, your mother turning
away from you…those are things that happened
to
you, angel, not
because
of you. It makes me so sad to know you blamed yourself for all of it.”

“How
could I not blame myself?” she said softly, emotion in her voice. She laid her
head on my chest and took a deep breath. “I wasn’t the one that shot Mason, but
if I had fought harder for him that night and made him stay with me, he
probably would have, and he’d still be alive. I know now that I would have lost
the baby anyway, but I still feel guilty. I should have paid attention to my
body and known something was wrong, but I was in such a deep depression over
losing Mason that I didn’t care about myself. As far as my mom goes…there
really isn’t anything I can do about that. We have never gotten along my whole
life, so I’m not really surprised to know she said those things to me, but it
still hurt to hear them, and I’m ashamed that I’m letting her get to me like
this.”

“It’s
okay to feel sad over how your mother treated you, Rory. It’s natural to want
your parent’s approval and to lash out when you don’t get it. Believe me, I’ve
been where you’ve been. I hated my father for ten years because he resented me
for how I wanted to live my life.”

“Yes,
but things in your family seem to be getting better. My mother has resented me
since the day I decided to fight against everything she expected me to be. I
never expect her to accept me as I am, and to tell you the truth, I really
don’t want her acceptance. It just bothers me that she was able to somehow get
in my head.” She took a deep breath and then decided to address one topic that
hadn’t been discussed yet. “So...you want to marry me, huh?”

I
exhaled deeply and laid my head back on the pillow. “Rory, listen…”

The
tone of my voice must have made her think I didn’t really mean it, and she
sighed, almost like she was disappointed. That made tingles shoot through me.
“It’s okay, I understand, you just said it in the heat of the moment.”

I
leaned my head back up lifted her chin with my fingers, forcing her to look at
me. “Why do you think that?”

“Well,
we’ve only known each other for less than two months and we’ve only been dating
for a month. Hell, last night was the first time we’d had sex, so I’m sure it
was just said in the moment to keep me from leaving.”

I
gaped at her. “Rory, I may have said that at the wrong time, but trust me, I
meant every word. I was serious when I said I wanted to marry you.”

She
leaned up and rested her elbows on my chest. “You were?”

I
nodded. “Listen, baby, I know that we’ve not been together that long, but that
doesn’t change how I feel about you. I am so completely head over heels in love
with you that I can’t see myself spending one day without you by my side for
the rest of my life. I get that this seems fast, and I don’t want you to think
that was a full on proposal, because it wasn’t. I love you, Rory Shaw, and I
will ask you to marry me the right way one day when you least expect it,” I
said.

She
smiled brightly, her gorgeous honey colored eyes shining. “So you didn’t just
say it to get me to try and stay?”

“Of
course not. Besides, even if I did, it didn’t exactly work, now did it?” I
said, and she giggled.

“You
really want to marry me, huh?” she smiled, leaning so close to my face I could
feel her sweet breath on my lips.

“I
do,” I said, arching an eyebrow, and she giggled. I felt my cock twitch…I don’t
know what it was about her cute little giggle that made me start to get hard.

“Ah,
what a day. I don’t think I have room in my head for much more,” she said,
smiling serenely for what truly seemed like the first time since I’d known her.

“Is
there anything I can do to take your mind off it all?” I asked her, tracing my
fingers along the curve of her spine.