CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 9: THE REVERSAL
It was 2:00 AM when my phone rang.
I woke up instantly, my heart pounding. But it wasn't a threat. The caller ID said Alex.
"Liv?" his voice cracked.
Alex, the man who never cried, who had kicked a mahogany door off its hinges to save me, was weeping.
His fiancée, a woman he had loved fiercely for three years, had unexpectedly called off their wedding and left him that afternoon. He was devastated. He was entirely broken.
"I'm coming," I said.
I didn't hesitate. I woke Elias, who immediately went to the guest room to sleep so he could be there when Grace woke up.
I grabbed my keys, got in my car, and drove through the empty, rain-slicked streets of Chicago.
When I arrived at Alex’s townhouse, the front door was unlocked.
He was sitting on the floor of his living room, surrounded by half-packed boxes and wedding invitations that would never be sent. He looked up at me, his eyes red and hollow.
I didn't offer platitudes. I didn't tell him everything happens for a reason, because sometimes things just happen, and they destroy you.
I walked over, sat down on the hardwood floor right next to him, and pulled his head onto my shoulder. I wrapped my arms around him exactly the way he had wrapped his arms around me in that sterile hospital room years ago.
He sobbed into my jacket.
"I don't know how to do this," he whispered. "I don't know how to put it back together."
"You don't have to," I told him, resting my cheek against his hair. "You just have to breathe. I'll hold the pieces for you until your hands stop shaking."
Hours later, when the sun began to peek through the blinds, he looked at me.
"You came," he said, his voice raspy.
May you like
I smiled softly.
"You taught me how, Alex."
