POV
Millie
I'm completely frozen, I can't even turn around to look at him, everything has become deafening, if an explosion just went off right in front of me, I don't think my body would even respond.
June 22nd was the day my life forever changed.
I somehow turn my body around back to the ocean after a minute, I don't even pay attention that X is still here, a million thoughts are flooding my mind.
"You still call her?" he asks and I look down at him with his back to me as he's looking out into the distance.
"I never shut her phone off," I say quietly enough that I don't even know if he heard me.
"Who told you?" I ask him at the same volume as my last statement.
He pats the sand beside him indicating for me to sit back down and I slowly walk back over and do so.
I'm still in a stunned state when I sit down and he puts his hand over mine in a comforting way.
"How'd she die?" he asks and those words slice through me like a knife.
"Me" I respond in the most monotone, staring into space way.
"Talk to me baby," he says gently.
I pull myself out of my spaced-out trance and move my head to the side to look in his eyes "I remember the day like it happened yesterday, I remember every single second of it." I say slowly.
I start to feel some buried emotions arise, I try to suppress them as best I can, and X is looking at me intently waiting for me to continue.
"It was a Saturday, my dad was working, like I said, he was a cop."
X nods his head assuring me that he's listening.
"It was a foggy warm day, it had rained all morning and all afternoon, my mom and I had to go into town, get our nails done, and pick up a dress for her. My parents were going to renew their vows on Coronado Beach on June 29, their 25th wedding anniversary, it's where they met and it's where they got married. There were going to be about fifty people there to watch my parents renew their vows on the beach. My mom picked out a beautiful white, long, simple, yet elegant dress from a bridal shop in town. We got our nails done in a French manicure, and on our way home, the fog was so dense I couldn't see a thing in front of me. I ran a red light and we got T-boned on the passenger side."
I pull my knees tightly to my chest and wrap my arms around myself and look down.
I continue on "She died on impact, and I walked away with only a few cuts and bruises. My dad was one of the responding officers, and when he saw my mom, I will never forget the look on his face and his pleas to her lifeless body."
I can no longer conceal my heartbroken emotions and a stream of tears run down my face.
X moves closer to me and wraps his arm around my body.
"A week later, on June 29th, the day that was supposed to be a beautiful celebration of love and happiness was a day full of darkness and sadness. My mom was buried in her white vow renewal dress and still with her manicured hands. The funeral home concealed all the injuries that I was responsible for, but she still didn't look like my mom anymore regardless of how much makeup they put on her. June 22nd is the day I lost my mom, and June 29th is the day, in my heart, that I lost my dad. That was the first day he drank himself to numbness, and once he found an escape from his new reality, it never stopped from that day on, it only got worse and worse trying to find a deeper escape. My dad never looked at me the same after that day, on most days he couldn't even look at me at all, I was the one responsible for taking the love of his life away."
I'm full-on sobbing now, I've never told an outsider that part of my life before in so much detail of the accident. X moves himself to go behind me and puts a leg on each side of me and wraps me in his arms.
"Baby, it was an accident, please don't blame yourself." He says so sincerely that it makes me cry harder.
He starts to pet my hair and then puts his chin on my head "I'm so sorry, this is not your fault, I'm sorry I bought this up to you tonight baby, I had no idea the details." he says apologetically.
I shake my head "It's okay" I say through tears.
We sit in this position, just staring at the ocean for the next hour watching the sun set and the moon rise in complete, but comfortable silence.