Letting My Brother's Best Friend Take My V-Card

My Husband 387

GUILT JOSH

The hallway outside her room felt too long. Too bright. Too goddamn sterile. My footsteps barely made a sound against the polished floors, but inside my head, everything was roaring. Laura was alive.

The words kept looping over and over, but my body hadn't caught up yet. It felt like if I let myself believe it too much, the universe would take it away again.

A doctor had tried to stop me at the nurses' station, spitting out words like stable condition and still on a ventilator, but none of it registered. I'd shoved past them, past the concerned voices, past the fucking security guard who grabbed at my arm. Nothing was going to stop

me.

And then I saw her.

The doors burst open, loud voices calling after me, but none of it mattered.

My heart stopped.

Laura.

Her pale, thin frame was bundled into a wheelchair, her body swallowed up by hospital-issued clothes that hung from her like she was nothing but skin and bone. Her hair was limp, her cheeks hollowed, and her skin too pale under the harsh 0.00%

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fluorescent lights.

But she was looking at me.

Those eyes-those beautiful fucking eyes-were staring right at me, and I swore I felt something crack wide open in my chest.

Laura was alive.

had taken from her, that she wasn't the same. She was still the most

him a glance. My feet moved before my brain could catch up,

barely felt it. My

so thin. So

wrists, her knuckles, anything I could reach, my breath shaking against her

afraid she'd break, but I needed to. I needed to feel her. To prove to myself

"Laura," I choked out.

trembled as she reached for something at her side. The nurse beside her passed her a small whiteboard and a marker, and with a shaky grip, she

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Hi, babe.

me. Something between

smiling even as my vision blurred, even as my chest ached with everything I couldn't say. This was

as much as I could have when guilt was busy filling up

from my mouth like I had no

raw, broken. "I-I fucked up, Laura. I gave up on you. I almost signed-I almost signed,

breath hitched, my hands tightening around

shook my head, squeezing my eyes

unable to stop the

head onto

so fragile beneath me, but her fingers-her beautiful, delicate fingers-moved through my hair, soft and slow, like she wasn't angry. Like

been begging for forgiveness, for a chance

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GUILT

288 Vouchers