Holding Her Hand (Reed Brothers Book 15) (24 page)

“And?”

“And she sold your pictures to the news outlets.”

“What pictures?”

He winces.
“The before and after pictures of
your scars and the tattoos.”

Emilio flips on the TV and finds a channel where the news is playing.
“In entertainment news today,”
the announcer begins.

I fall onto the couch, my knees weak as I see my original scars and hear the story of how I got them, of my parents dying in the fire, and my suicide attempts.

“People know,”
I tell them.

“What do you want to do about it?”
Emilio asks.

I square
my shoulders.
“Call a press conference,”
I tell him.

“Are you sure, mija?”
Marta asks.

“I’m positive.”
I’ve never been more positive about anything in my life.

“Okay,” she says softly.

“I’ll get ready,” I say. And I go to shower, and then I go home and change my clothes and put on makeup. I put on a pretty outfit with short sleeves, and I show up at the press conference.

The room goes silent
when I walk in with my sisters, their husbands and boyfriends, and with the Reeds and their wives behind me. Ryan stands with his family, his mother included, and the fact that they are here, too, catches me right in the gut. They must have come straight from the hospital. Tears burn my eyes, but I blink them back. I have to keep it together.

I step up to the podium.

“I’ll take questions now,”
I say softly.

“Did you try to kill yourself, Ms. Vasquez?” someone asks.

“When I was fifteen years old, yes, I did. I had lost my birth parents, and I felt like their deaths were my fault. I found it hard to get over the loss of them, and I’m still not over it. I still have periods of grief and sometimes the guilt overwhelms me. But I get through it.”

“Do you take medication for your problems?”
someone else asks.

“To which problems are you referring?”

“You mentioned depression and suicidal thoughts.”

“Whether or not I take medication is not relevant—”

“But it is,” the reporter shoots back. “America wants to know how you’re going to keep it together.”

“Do you know why I’m here today?” I ask the crowd of reporters.

Cameras click, cameramen adjust their lenses, and microphones are
pushed closer.

I clear my throat so I can talk past the lump in it. “I’m here today because I want our fans to know that depression is a disease. It’s not a lack of mental fortitude or an emotional weakness.” I tap my chest. “If I had a problem with my heart, I would be urged to see a cardiologist. If I had a problem with my knee, someone would suggest that I get an anti-inflammatory for it.
If my lungs didn’t work, I would see a pulmonologist and find what medical route I could take to get better.”

My voice gets louder because now I’m angry. “I’d like to know why it is that when someone is depressed, it becomes a problem about the person having a lack of character or a lack of fortitude or something to be embarrassed about. If someone seeks out medication for depression, that person
grows stronger, because his or her illness is being treated. Depression is an illness, people. It’s not a lack of conviction and it’s not a lack of mental fortitude. It’s a disease. And it should be treated with just as much aggression as any other disease. So, yes, people who suffer from depression do often take medication.

“But my prescription history is none of your business, and if I did
take medication, it would be none of your business, just like high blood pressure pills and insulin would be none of your business. Your only question to me should be ‘Are you getting treatment, Ms. Vasquez?’ Yes, I am getting treatment. My days are no longer dark, because I sought treatment. I didn’t look at my illness as a lack of self-awareness, a lack of mental acuity, or a lack of conviction.
I looked at it as what it was. It was a medical issue. I got treatment. I am better.”

I clear my throat again. And the room is silent.

“My family and friends probably didn’t understand why I would agree to stand here and take questions on such a delicate subject. Here’s why.” I point to the monitor. “If you there at home feel like you have nothing left to live for, if you don’t have one thing
to look forward to or a reason to get out of bed, there are treatments available. There are doctors who can help. Don’t stay home and not seek help because it makes you feel weak to ask for help.
Ask. For. Help
. Treat your brain with as much sympathy as you would treat your heart, lungs, or any other organ in your body that needs medication. Because isn’t it the same thing? If parts of our bodies
are sick, we make them better by seeing the right kind of doctor. Go. Do it. Get better.” I look at my family, and Ryan. “It does get better. I promise.”

I hold up my arms. “I used to have ugly scars that I hid from the world. You’ve all seen them since they’ve now been plastered everywhere. They are still there, underneath the beautiful ink. What was once an ugly reminder of my darkest days
are now full of color… full of hope, love, a future, and a past. Do not let depression define or control you.”

I give out a phone number for a counseling hotline I know does good work. Then I thank everyone for attending.

I walk off the stage and stop in front of Ryan.
“How did I do?”

“Will you marry me?”
he asks, tilting his head.

My heart bumps in my chest, but not with fear.
“Yes.”

“When?”

“Whenever you want.”

He takes my hand and we walk out together amid all the camera pops and flashes. “I could hold your hand forever,” I tell him.

“Count on it,” he replies.

Ryan

Three months later

I cover my head as birdseed pelts us outside the church, trying to protect Lark from it as much as I can, but she just laughs and pushes toward the limo that’s waiting for us. The Reeds are having a blast throwing shit at us, and they’re laughing like hell. We accept congratulations from all of them. Her parents are standing by the limo door and she stops to hug them.
Emilio pulls her close and whispers in her ear. She gets teary and blinks it back, and then Marta holds her close.

I see my mom standing by the church doors, so I ask Lark if she can wait one second. I run over, pick my mom up, spin her around, and set her back down.
“I love you, Mom.”

“I love you more,”
she says.

“No. You can’t love me more. Not possible.”

“Yes, it’s possible. My heart is
older, so it’s bigger, which means it can hold more love. Sorry, kid, you won’t win this one.”
She grins at me.

This is a mock argument we’ve had ever since I was small. I’ll never win it, but I do know that my love for her is huge. And so is my love for Lark. My mom hasn’t ever once doubted my love for her or that it would lessen any when Lark came into my life. I hear horror stories from some
of my friends who say that their moms hate their wives, but that’s not the case here. My mom loves Lark and they spend a lot of time together.

She points to Lark and scolds me.
“It’s rude for you to keep her waiting.”

I give her a hearty kiss on the cheek and run back to my bride.

Lark looks so beautiful. I thought my heart was going to stop when she started down the aisle. And she’s mine,
from here forward. To have and to hold. In sickness and in health.

We went this morning to the place where her parents are buried. I think it was important for her to talk to them, to tell them about me, about us and the wedding. She always thought her mom would fluff her veil on her wedding day, and she did. It just wasn’t the mom she was given by birth. Marta fluffed her veil and wiped her
eyes and took care of her, all the way up until she gave her over to Emilio so he could give her to me.

Lark spent about an hour at her parents’ graves, and then she was ready to go. She spent the morning with her sisters getting ready for the wedding.

Star waddled down the aisle like a penguin, and I think Wren looked a little green at one point. Finny is Finny, and she just made inappropriate
jokes about the size of my junk. Peck was quiet, but I get the feeling from her that she wouldn’t hesitate to chop my balls off if I did something to hurt Lark.

They’re part of my family now and so is Lark. I take her hand in mine. Her hand is mine to hold forever.

“
You okay
?” she asks.

I nod. “
I’m fine
.” Just feeling a little undeserving of all I’ve been given, is all. I brush a lock of hair
back from her forehead. “
I love you so much
.”

“
I love you too
.”

I pop open a bottle of champagne, and she laughs at me when I get it all over my tuxedo pants.
“I just want water,”
she says.

“You sure?”

She nods and I give her a bottle of water instead.

We decided to get married in her hometown, because I wanted her to feel close to her parents today, so we’re also really close to the beach,
and I want to take her there. I asked Emilio to find out what beach she used to go to with her parents and I made special plans.

I crack the window of the limo and I can feel the dampness of the ocean. It’s going to be cold, but I don’t care. I don’t think she will either.

“Where are we?”
she asks, when we finally stop.

“Somewhere special,”
I tell her. I get out and hold my hand out to her.
She’s still in her wedding gown and she looks like a princess. My princess. She puts her hand in mine like she has all the faith in the world in me.

We get out and she freezes. Then her eyes fill with tears. “How did you know?” she asks. She doesn’t sign, but I read it on her lips.

I shrug.
“I have my ways.”

We’re at the beach where she spent that last weekend with her parents before they died.
She walks toward the water, kicking her shoes off so she can walk barefoot on the sand. It’s cold, so I know she won’t want to stay out here long, but a few minutes should be long enough.

I go to the trunk and pull out the kites I bought yesterday. There’s one for her and one for me. And I bought four more in case we broke one or lost one in the wind.

“I have a chess board too if you’d rather
play that.”
I look at her and watch for her reaction.

She starts to unwrap her kite and put it together. It’s the cheap kind, the kind that you can get at any vacation gift shop. When it’s all put together, she runs out onto the sand and lifts her kite to the wind. It unfurls and catches the breeze, and I watch as she lets it rise into the air. She smiles at me, and the wind blows her hair all
around. She doesn’t care. She just lets it fly.

I set my kite up and stand beside her, letting the wind be at our backs, and letting it fill our kites, raising them up higher and higher.

She looks over at me and her cheeks are wet.
“This is the best day ever,”
she says.

“I know.”
I laugh at her, because she’s so damn pretty and she’s
mine
.

“How many kites did you get?”
she asks.

“Six. Why?”

“One for me, one for you, and four more for…?”
She watches my face.

“For extras.”

“Save them for our kids,”
she says. She grins at me.
“How many kids are we going to have?”

I laugh, because it feels so right.
“Well, we have four kites
…” I shrug.

“Okay,”
she replies. She stares into my eyes.
“Can we start tonight?”

“Start what
?”

“Start our family. Or is it too soon?”

She stands there on
the sand in her wedding dress, a cheap kite reaching into the sky, one arm extended as she shivers with goosebumps, and she’s asking me if we can start a family?
“It’s not too soon.”

“We can start tonight?”

I look around at the beach where we’re drawing a crowd.
“We can start right now, if you want.”
I jerk my thumb toward the waiting limo.

She stares at me as she reels in her kite. I pull
mine in too, and we race back to the limo. She grins as we put the kites away. She raises the privacy screen with the push of a button and climbs into my lap, arranging her skirts around us. They’re big and bulky but I don’t care. She kisses me as I unbutton my pants and push them lower, and she pulls her panties to the side and sinks down slowly onto my cock. I’ve never been inside her without a
condom, and it feels so damn good.

I hold her face in my hands as she rises and falls, trying to catch her lips, but she won’t let me. She’s making me come apart beneath her, and she’s riding me like we have only a short while to do this, rather than a lifetime.