Chapter 25

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

DECLAN

Sarah's eyelids flutter, and she tries to lift her heavy head from the pillow. She's been asleep for most of the afternoon, the time she spent holding Fiona this morning having absolutely exhausted her. Her voice cracks, whispering my name, as she searches the room for me. "Declan?"

"I'm right here." I quickly cross the room and gently squeeze her hand as soon as I reach her bedside. No matter how hard it is being here, wild horses couldn't pull me away from her.

Without letting go of her hand, I pull up my chair and sit beside her. Her grip on my hand has grown drastically weaker this past month, matching the current frailty of her body. She's so thin, I can't imagine she still even weighs one hundred pounds. The drugs, previously prolonging her life, have now done nothing but cause absolute havoc on her body.

A navy-blue silk scarf is wrappedaround her head, providing warmth and a semblance of self from thewhen the chemotherapy caused her to lose most of her gorgeous strawberry-blonde hair. Those same chemicals coursing through her veins have left her previously perfect porcelain skin riddled with bruises and scarred fromchemo's painfulscarlet rash. Even now, a shell of who she was a year ago, Sarah is still fucking beautiful.

"Promise me," she forces the words through her shallow breaths, "Promise me you'll be the father I know you can be." Squeezing her hand, I promise even though Ihave no ideahow to raise a child on my own nor have the faith in myself that she had in me to do it.

Neither of us is under any notion that a miracle is coming. Treatments have failed her, and we moved her from the hospital a few days ago so that she could die at home in peace. As I watch the numbers dwindle on monitors beside her bed, I know we are at the end. I know I am about to lose her.

Struggling to turn on her pillow to face me, she asks the same question I've heard every day since we learned that her cancer was terminal. "Will you love me for the rest of my life?"

The numbers continue to fall on the monitor as I stand. I gently lift the oxygen mask from her face and place a kiss on her lips as the alarms sound to alert the at-home nurse that her heart has stopped. The tears in my eyes fall upon her cheeks as I press my forehead to hers, answering her question seconds too late. "No, mograh, I'll love you for the rest of mine."

Startling awake, I wipe the tears from my face. Every bit of my dream was so vivid; it was like living through it all over again.

Losing her all over again.

The bed shifts as Quinn burrows herself against me, and I am slammed with guilt like I have never felt before. I promised Sarah I'd love her forever, and I'm lying in our bed with another woman. Pulling my arm from under her, I push back the navy duvet and climb from the mattress.

"What's wrong?" Quinn's groggy voice cracks. Pacing along the floor-to-ceiling windows and staring over the city skyline, I hesitate to answer her question. When I don't, she climbs out ofbedto join me at the window. She reaches out to wrap her arms around me and I grab her wrists to stop her.

I don't deserve it.

I have been lucky—or unlucky—enough to love two women in my life. Not only have I had to deal with the pain of losing both of them, butI'm now riddled with guilt over not maintaining my promises to either of them.

"Declan," Quinn delicately demands my attention. "Look at me."

The faint lights of the skyline illuminate her face and the gold flecks in her emerald eyes twinkle in the dim light of the room. She stares up at me, her gaze unwavering as she sniffles, "Don't shut me out. Don't push me away. If you do, you will break me. Mourning us again will break me in ways I will never recover from."

"Quinn…" I sob as I wipe the tear rolling down her cheek.

"I love you." She palms my face with both hands. "Let me in. Let me help you with whatever you are struggling with."

"I'm sorry," I apologize into the void. "I promised to take care of you. I promised to love her. I've done nothing but fail you both."

"You did not fail me, Declan. Shitty things happen in this world, and as much as you will it, you cannot always protect everyone you love." She squeezes my face harder and looks deep into my soul. "And you did not fail Sarah."

"But—"

"No. Listen to me," Quinn interrupts. "Life ends. Love doesn't. I know you love her, and I know you always will."

Quinn slides her hands from my face to my chest and rests them over the thud of my heart. "I don't need you to love her less to make room in here for me, just like you didn't forget about me to make room for her. I know that your heart is plenty big enough to have room for us both because it always has."

She slides her arms around me and holds me tight. With her face resting against my chest, I mutter, "I will never grasp how you can be so understanding of…everything."

"It's simple. The stupid decisions you've made, your pain, your faults, Sarah, Fiona… All of them have made the version of you finally ready to let me in… To love me."

"I do," I whisper against her forehead. "I fucking love you, mocheadsearc ."

"I love you, baby."