Whispers of a Broken Halo by Abbi Glines

He was right. I needed to be dressed. Cullen would wake soon. The police would call me. I had things to handle. Falling apart was not one of them. I just couldn’t get past the sorrow enough to do anything about it.

Rio walked out of the room but returned within seconds with my brush in his hand.

“Sit down,” he told me, and I obeyed.

He brushed out my damp hair until it was smooth.

When he was done, he bent down to look me in the eyes. “Lie down. Rest. I’m not leaving. When Cullen wakes up, I will be here.”

“I haven’t told him,” I whispered.

Rio nodded, then kissed the tip of my nose. “Rest.”

I moved to lay my head on the pillow, and then Rio covered me up. I watched him leave me there and close my door behind him. I knew sleep wouldn’t come. If it did, nightmares would come with it. I thought about her room and all her things. I would have to go through it. Keep things for Cullen. Find all the pictures of them together on her phone and get them printed.

But how was I going to tell him? How did you tell a little boy you loved more than life, wanting to do nothing but protect him, that his mother was dead?





Chapter Thirty-Six

Rio

I opened the apartment door for Henley, and she came in, carrying bags of what I knew were burgers and fries. Those bags came from the popular burger place in town.

“I also ordered a pizza, and I brought the pink cupcakes, but you already brought over a half-dozen of the new Spider-Man ones I made for Cullen, right?”

I nodded, glancing back at the two closed doors. Cullen would wake up soon.

I looked back at Henley. “He doesn’t know. She’s not told him yet. So, if he comes out, don’t mention it,” I warned her.

Henley looked at me as if I were an idiot. “Even if he did know, I wouldn’t say something to him about it. I’m smarter than that.”

True. I just wanted to make sure Bryn was able to do this the way she felt he could handle it best.

“How is she?” Henley asked me taking a seat on one of the stools.

The ache in my chest that had been there since I had seen her standing at the door, looking so broken, squeezed tighter. “Not good. I had to dress her and even brush her hair. She was just standing there with swollen, red-rimmed eyes, wrapped in a towel, looking so damn lost. God, Henley, I can’t stand to see her like this. What do I do?”

Henley’s eyes filled with tears. “Just be there for her. It sounds like you did exactly what she needed. She needs someone to take care of her. Death isn’t easy. You know that. I know that.”

“She’s blaming herself. She thinks she could have done more to save her sister. When she was here, doing everything Tory didn’t do. She loves Cullen like her own child. She’s so fucking innocent, yet she works a job where she has to show off her naked body just to give him all he needs. She puts him first in a way neither you nor I had as kids. I’ve never witnessed anyone sacrifice the way she does. Yet she thinks she didn’t do enough.” I ran my hand through my hair. “I just want her to see that. She can grieve. That’s understandable. But she can’t take any blame.”

Henley was no longer crying, but watching me. A small smile was playing on her lips. “If she’s that perfect, maybe I need to leave Saul and take her away from you.”

I rolled my eyes. “Shut up.”

“I’ve never heard you sing anyone’s praises before. You see the faults in people and forgive them for it if the good outweighs the bad. But you always see the faults.”

I scowled at her. “No, I don’t.”

She raised her eyebrows and smirked. “Yes, you do. Shall I list off some examples?”

“No,” I snapped at her. “This is not what I need right now.”

“She’s not perfect. No one is. But the fact that you can’t see any faults from her means something.”

“What?” I asked.

Henley shrugged, still grinning.

Before I could snap at her again to stop being vague, Cullen’s door opened.

He peeked out and saw me and then Henley, and his eyes swung to the bar, looking for a bakery box. He believed Henley always meant cupcakes. When he spotted it, he ran down the hall toward us and beamed brightly.

“Hey, Rio! Hey, Henley! Are those cupcakes?”

“They sure are,” Henley said, standing up from the stool she had been sitting on to pick up the box.

Cullen’s bright eyes looked at the box, then scanned the rest of the area. “Where’s Aunt Bryn?”

“She’s lying down, bud,” I said quickly.

He looked down the hallway at her closed door. “Is she sick?” he asked, looking worried as he stared up at me.

“Not at all. She just needed a nap,” I told him.

“Like the other day, when you were here?” he asked me, relief in his eyes as he remembered her being asleep on the sofa after he’d woken up.

I nodded. “Exactly.”

“You make her tired,” he said.

Henley choked on a laugh and turned away from us.

“I guess I do,” I replied, smiling for the first time since finding Bryn in her towel.

“I can’t have a cupcake until I ask her,” he told me, looking deflated.

“She already said it’s okay for you to have one,” I lied, knowing she would have no objection.