Page 144 of Come Back to Me

“I need you to do something for me.”

“What is it?”

“I need you to tell Grayson that I was never here when he wakes up.”

“Pardon?”

“Everybody keeps saying this isn’t my fault, but I will always have this guilt eating me alive, no matter if I stay with him or not. I want him to be happy. I want him to make all his dreams come true. Promise me you’ll tell him I was never here and that you’ll stay in contact with me. I don’t want him to know about this.”

“I promise.” He walks away from me, going to the opposite side of the hall.

I’m shocked that he didn’t ask me a bunch of questions about my thought process and why I’m doing this. I guess he didn’t want to get into any of that right now.

I look into the room and see Grayson again. “I love you, and I hope you’ll forgive me one day.”

As I head out of his room, I’m overcome by an overwhelming sense of sadness. My heart shatters into a million tiny pieces.

When I make it downstairs to the main lobby, I see Grayson’s mom, Dana, rush over to me.

Oh, I can’t do this right now.

“Violet!”

“I hope you don’t hate me when I tell you this.”

“Why would I hate you?”

“You never saw me here. I need you to know how much I love your son. I’m doing this to protect him.”

“Okay, now you’re scaring me.”

“I think it’s best if I never see him again. I know it may not make sense to you, but it does to me.”

“I’m not going to ask why since this is none of my business. All I’m going to say is you can’t blame yourself for this, Violet. You’re the best thing to happen to Grayson. You brought him back to life, so thank you.”

“Thank you for being the mother I never had.”

She pulls me into a tight embrace, and my eyes are unleashing endless rivers.

“I hope we’ll get to see each other again in the future,” she says as she enters one of the elevators.

I hope so, too.

now

VIOLET

When I finish telling him the truth, he sits there and stares into space. He’s processing all the emotions he’s feeling.

I fiddle with my hands to keep my nerves at bay.

“So, you’re telling me you were there at the hospital that night?” he asks, making sure he heard what I told him correctly.

“I was, but I wasn’t there for too long.”

“It doesn’t matter. You were there.” He closes his eyes as he gets up from the sofa. “You told Noah to keep in touch with you and not to tell me about it. You told my mother to not have me reach out to you. You were the one who brought my truck to the hospital, not Noah. I can’t believe this.”

“I know this is a lot of information to process.” I get up and stand with some distance in between us.