A Bad Boy's Brother (Book #2)

19. My Family

Ryder's P.O.V.

I opened my eyes and looked around slowly. Where the hell...

A flash of white hair caught my attention and I looked at Corey. His eyes were on the ground. I looked around more. "Where...where's Cain?"

Corey's eyes snapped to mine. "Ryder," he breathed. After a moment, his eyes swam with guilt. "He's...he's gone, Ryder."

I took a moment to consider this.

Cain was gone.

He'd left me.

I still wasn't good enough.

"Ryder," Corey said, reaching for my hand, "please. I know this is going to hurt, but you can't let it upset you. He was never good enough for you."

I looked down at the bandages on my arms. "No. It was me that was never good enough. I wasn't good enough for you so I had to try to find someone else, and I wasn't good enough for him either." Why did I feel so calm explaining this? My voice wasn't shaking. My eyes weren't tearing up. Maybe the fact that it was all true made it less sad to me. "Please leave, Corey."

"No, Ryder, I am not leaving you ever again."

"Please."

"No."

I looked up at him. For the first time, I saw tears in his eyes. I'd seen so many things in this boy's eyes; love, hate, happiness, pain...but never tears.

Slowly I unwound one of my bandages and stared at my burned, twisted skin that would most likely heal and scar like this. This is what my body looked like now. Burns, and scars, and just...defeated. I heard the click of a door opening and I looked up at Kelsey. "...hey." I wasn't sure how much longer I was going to be able to keep myself together.

"Corey," Kelsey murmured, "please leave the room for a moment." Devon stepped around her as well.

He was pale, and he got more pale when he saw me.

Corey hesitated before realizing he was outnumbered and made eye contact with me. "I am not staying out of this room for very long, Ryder. I will be right outside that door." Finally he stood up and walked out.

Kelsey shot a pained look at me the closed the door, leaving with Corey and leaving me to look at Devon. Tears brimmed his eyes and his mouth trembled. His hand shot up to cover his mouth. Finally he spoke. "You're alive," he managed to choke out when his hand pulled away from his mouth. His trembling lips twisted in to a shaky smile with tears slipping down his cheeks. "I'm so happy you're alive."

I looked at my arm again. "This isn't going to heal well, is it?"

"Oh sweetie," he whispered, rushing to crouch beside my bed. He looked up at me from where he was crouched. "Whether that scars or looks untouched when this is over, you will always be the most beautiful woman on this planet. We aren't going to worry about that right now, okay? All I want to think about is getting you home."

"I don't want to go home," I whispered, my voice cracking finally as the emotions began setting in. I looked in to his eyes, just barely fighting off my tears. It burned my throat to be trying to hard to keep them down. "He left me too, Devon," I whispered pathetically, a few tears finally slipping down my cheeks.

"I know, sweetie, I know," he murmured. When my tears turned to sobs his hand smoothed over my back comfortingly. "Shh...shh it's okay. We're going to get through this I promise. I wasn't here last time but I am now, and I'm not going anywhere. Shh..." he soothed.

"Why can't I be good enough to be loved?" I demanded, my speech broken in the middle by a sob and soaked in the pain I felt.

"I love you," he murmured, still stroking my back. "Kelsey loves you, and Aiden, and Jason. None of us are going anywhere, ever. We're right here. We love you."

I scooted over in my hospital bed and looked at him. He smiled weakly and laid next to me. I did my best to curl up against him for comfort like I would when I was little, but every movement I made sent agony through my body and made me cry harder.

He kept stroking my back until the door opened again about twenty minutes later.

Kelsey was there again, and she was doing her best to smile. "I haven't gotten my turn yet," she joked softly. "Jason and Aiden want to see you too."

I nodded slowly, forcing the tears to stop. Even though all three of them had seen me cry once before, I wasn't going to look weak right now. That would shatter what little piece of me felt like living right now.

She motioned and the two boys joined us in the room.

Aiden was the first to speak. "Damn. Any more bandages and we might have to start calling you an ancient pharaoh."

Kelsey kept her eyes on me and continued smiling as she drove her fist in to his arm.

"Hey!" he whined.

Jason looked at me for a moment. "You look fine to me. Are you sure you even need to be in the ER? Kells, babe, I think she's just playing it up to test how much we love her." His eyes made their way to mine. "And damn do we love her."

Had he heard me?

His arm went around Kelsey's waist and he rubbed her side absently as he looked around the room once more.

Kelsey kept smiling.

"Why are you so smiley?" I asked finally.

"Figured you could use a smile." She beamed again.

The happiness radiating from her smile finally made the corners of my mouth start to twitch up. They still loved me. These people weren't going anywhere.

These people were my family.

Yes yes yes I know I kept saying I wasn't going to update this, I was even saying it earlier today. Unfortunately I give in to peer pressure too easily XD so I've been spending the last few days trying to piece together a chapter for you guys. Sorry this is all I scrape together for now. Like I said in the comments of the last chapter, I'm really worried about giving you a bad ending instead of no ending, because it seems worse that way. I have...an idea. Lol. Its for the ending of this book. I think it's going to end kind of open ended but not nearly as open as it was before this chapter. Thanks for reading <3 and thanks for encouraging me to finish this. Sorry it took a few months lol