Butterflies in Honey (Growing Pains #3)(112)

Something occurred to her as she lost her will to fight for the surface and let the craze of currents take her where they willed. He was the second thing that mattered in her life that she gave up. That she quit. Right then, in utter hopelessness, she realized the only other thing she didn’t fight for that mattered, that really meant something, was Sean. The two most important things of her life, one being life, and the other her future, she was now giving up.

With that thought, she gave over to the boiling water and encroaching darkness. She allowed her body what it craved most: a breath.

Acid reigned into her throat and burned through her chest as air was replaced by water. She felt her body spasm and a vice on her arm as she was tugged down into the maw of the earth.

And then a funny thing happened. Instead of utter darkness, her eyes were seared with blinding light. She saw a kaleidoscope of images. A swish of piercing blue. A bronze shoulder glistening in the sun. A powerful arm stroke cutting through white foam. The lick of brown, grainy sand. The velvety blackness of surrender.

She heard her name called. It echoed and ricocheted through the void. Someone turned on a vacuum in a freight train and the world was washed in a whoosh of sound that culminated into one big POP.

“Krista! Oh God please, please KRISTA! Can you hear me? KRISTA? Please Krista, please!”

The blinding light baked her eyes. An angelic voice flirted with her ears and breathed on her face. She was floating.

“KRISTA?! Krista, can you hear me?”

She wanted to answer him. Of course she could hear him. She knew that voice better than she knew her own. But that way meant pain. She could almost feel it. Her chest, her throat, her stomach. Better not get too close. Better to slip further down into the soothing darkness.

“Please Krista, please don’t leave me. Oh God, not her. Please don’t take her. Please!”

“Help is coming, man! Keep her alive. Help is coming.”

Krista’s mind drifted away from the pain. Floating in nothing, it was easy to get lost. She remembered how sad she felt before she gave in. If the mother of all the world could shed one tear, it would be for the love she lost. That unspeakable sadness that consumed her when she realized it. That love she let go.

People gave up on life all the time. What was life anyway? Nothing but a bunch of memories stacked together. If there was a heaven, Krista had plenty to remember while she sat on a bench somewhere, feeding the birds. Actually, probably kicking the birds because she hated seagulls.

She let herself keep drifting, the pain receding from her awareness.

Except…wait…she was missing some memories, wasn’t she? That sadness… Hearing her child cry for the first time with Sean holding her hand. She didn’t have that one. What about her wedding day? She didn’t have that one, either. What about waking up to Sean’s smiling face, his eyes turned gold by the early morning sun, as he looked at her, dripping with love. No, she had that one. She had a few of those, actually. But Sean always looked the same. She didn’t have one with his hair salted and his laugh lines etched deep in his face. She didn’t even have one in his new house, their life spread around them in pictures and memorabilia. If she gave up now, she wouldn’t have half her life to take with her.

She heard the begging again. She heard sirens behind it. Her chest was rising and falling by foreign wind pushed into her lungs. Her mind was a murky black swamp. She distantly felt the pain.

“Krista, please come back to me. Please Krissy.”

It was calling her Krissy that did it. She’d always loved that special name that no one else but the love of her life used. It reminded her of slow mornings with soft sunlight, making love, feeling skin on skin, breathing in his smell, basking in his love.

This was going to hurt something awful.

“Look! Her eyes fluttered!”

“Krista? Krista!”

She coughed and sputtered, acid spilling over her mouth and nose. She was tilted to the side as her stomach emptied. By the look of it, not for the first time. She blinked a few more times, but everything was foggy.

That was when the world exploded. She heard people shouting, sirens blaring, the never ending crash of those vile ocean waves, and behind it all, Sean’s voice saying her name over and over again as he hugged her so tight her ribs felt like they were going to crack. She surrendered to the blackness again. This time just for a little while. Just for safe keeping.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Sean watched, helpless, as Krista was rushed into the emergency room. There was nothing he could do now but wait. Wait and hope. But she had coughed. She had coughed before she’d passed out at the beach. She moved of her own accord for that brief second. That had to be a good sign. It had to mean there was hope.

Sean sat down heavily and put his head in his hands. He needed to call her friends. They needed to know what happened. He needed someone to lean on.

He took out his phone stiffly, grief much too close to the surface. Blinking away the moisture in his eyes, he made the hardest call first.

“Hello?”

“Kate?” Sean said with a thick tongue.

“What do you want, ass? And don’t start that shit about you being my boss because it’s Sat—“

“It’s Krista,” Sean croaked, barely holding it together.

“What? Are you okay? What do you mean it’s—what’s Krista, Sean? What’s happened?”