Read Online Beautifully Shattered (The Beautifully Series Book 1) by Courtney Kristel - Free Book Online Page A

broken.
    I
did this.
    I
broke him.
    I
destroyed our family.
    I’m
struggling to breathe when Jax says, “You’re stronger than you
think, Ads. YOU. CAN. DO. THIS.”
    He
unlocks the door, opens it and kneels in front of me. He sets the
Stargazer Lilies on the floor next to him before he fits my hands in
his. As he says, “We’re all here for you, you’re not alone,”
my eyes are transfixed on the bouquet at his feet. When did we pick
those up? How long have they been in my hands?
    He
lifts my chin, pulling me out of the silent battle between forgetting
everything, and not wanting to ever let the memories go. The pain in
his sad eyes resemble mine. I caused him pain, too. All I do is hurt
people with my selfishness.
    “ Don’t,
Ads. This is not your fault. Don’t blame yourself for surviving.”
    Surviving.
Yes, I’m a survivor, that’s what the doctor told me, too. Too bad
I feel like I’m dead inside. I ignore Jax because I don’t want to
fight. If I tell him what I’m really thinking, we will just argue.
I’m too tired to fight with him. I’m tired of everything.
    “ This
can’t be my life . . . it can’t. I can’t . . . I-I-if I go with
you, it will be real, they will really be gone . . . I don’t know
how to live without them.”
    Jax
squeezes my hands. His voice breaks as he says, “It’s already
real, Ads. It already happened, you can’t change that. You need to
do this, we don’t need to rush, we can go when you’re ready.”
    Jax
doesn’t say anything else and neither do I. There’s nothing to
say. I know he’s right. This is real and I have to face it. Deep
down I know that I have to do this, I just don’t know how. I feel
like I shouldn’t be allowed here, I shouldn’t get to say goodbye
to them, it’s because of me that they’re dead. After minutes of
sitting in the car with my hands clasped in Jax’s, I finally nod.
    “ It’s
time.” I whisper more to myself than him. If he’s surprised at
hearing me speak, he doesn’t show it.
    My
legs feel like Jell-O. Jax supports most of my weight. If it wasn’t
for him I would have crumbled to the ground. Logan and Connor walk
from the front of the car to where Jax and I are standing.
    Logan’s
tear-strained face would break me if I wasn’t already dead inside.
“I’m ready.”
    Logan
nods. I cling to him with Jax grasping my free hand as we make our
way to our family’s graves. I hate that I’m making them all
relive the pain. I wish I was strong enough to say goodbye on my own,
but I’m not. I wasn’t even strong enough to save my family.
    When
Logan told me that our family was dead, I didn’t cry, I haven’t
cried a single tear since I woke up in the hospital two weeks after
the accident. But when we reach their graves and I see Hadley’s
name etched onto her headstone, I lose it. I fall to my knees and
bawl my eyes out. I gasp for breath.
    The
world around me disappears.
    All
that is left are three graves.
    Three
lives lost because of me.
    “ I
did this,” I choke out.
    Logan
crouches beside me to tell me something, but I don’t hear him. I
barely see him. I can only see the three headstones.
    I
cry for everything that I lost.
    The
mom that I lost . . .
    The
dad that I lost . . .
    My
little sister . . .
    And
finally I cry for myself . . .
    The
night of the car accident, I died with them. I never made it out
whole. Now I’m just a shell of a person. I don’t know how long I
stayed like this, kneeling on the ground in front of my sister’s
grave, but eventually the world starts to come back into place. I’m
still crying, silent tears now, even though inside I’m screaming.
The pain is all-consuming.
    When
I look at my brother, I see how much I have broken him. Connor and
Jax are in silent agony, watching our world fall apart and not being
able to do anything but witness it, all because of me.
    I
did this.

    The first thing I
notice when I open my eyes is the stained-glass stars Logan hung
above my bed. Jax’s