Filed to story: Sorry Alpha I Am Wolfless Novel
“How come Riviana didn’t come to dinner?” Eve asked next.
“Joaquin, what is going on here?” Wesley sounded concerned.
“Tell us Joaquin, where is my granddaughter?” Samuel looked as stern as ever.
“Son, what is going on?” Mom was next.
“Yeah, I agree. I want to know where my Astro is.” Paul piped up.
“Give him time to breathe and time to answer.” Cedar came to my aid a little. “We all want to know but you’re not giving him the time to answer.
“Cedar is right, you guys. Joaquin needs time to answer all of our questions.” Acacia added for her husband.
“Thank you.” I nodded at Cedar and Acacia to show them my thanks.
“Oh, it’s not just for your benefit.” Cedar gave me a stern look. “I just want to speed this up so I can find out what happened to Riviana.”
“Yeah, and if we find out that you did something to her, we will make you pay.” Carter was so protective of Riviana. He always had been.
“Calm down.” Noah snapped at him. “He didn’t do anything.”
“You know what happened and didn’t tell us?!” That seemed to make Carter even angrier.
“How could you keep this to yourself?” Wesley sounded hurt.
“I asked him to. We needed to figure some things out. So, if you would all give me some of your time, I will explain it all now.”
They didn’t say anything but all of them settled into their chairs and turned to look at me. They were ready for the explanation.
I gave it to them. I made sure to tell them everything from the moment that I got the call about her being found in the hall and up until today when I had seen her last. She was still laying there, as still as could be. She was pale and not moving. It was like she was asleep, since I could still hear her heart beating and see her breathing.
I had also had Griffin hook her up to the equipment that monitored her condition. She was given a feeding tube to make sure that she was still getting nourishment and the triplets could grow and thrive.
“How could this be?” Eve was the first to ask in a low wail as she held her face in her hands.
“What happened to her?” Carter looked like he was close to tears.
The others added their questions too. Almost all at once.
“What happened to my best friend?”
“Wake her up already. Kiss her like it’s a fairy tale.”
“This is impossible.”
The outbursts went on for a while. They were upset and I knew that they would. I had to try my best to explain things to them while I told them what I was doing to wake her up and fix this situation.
They all went from anger to sadness, back to anger, and finally settling on heartbreak. Some of them were in a state of denial that Noah and I had to work hard to break through. It was a tough night, but I finally managed to make it through and have them all understand what had happened.. Finally, they knew and I didn’t have to feel like I was doing something wrong by keeping it from them.
****
Joaquin
****
Seven days. A week. One hundred and sixty-eight hours. Ten thousand and eighty minutes. Six hundred and four thousand eight hundred seconds. That was how long it had been since I came home to find my wife comatose. OK, I don’t know about the exact second, and I might be off by a minute or two, but everything else is exact.
“Where are you, Riviana? Why aren’t you coming home to me? To your family? What are you doing out there?” I knew that asking her these questions was pointless. It wasn’t like she could answer them for me right now anyway. Still, it made me feel a little bit better to actually say them out loud.
For this past week I have done everything that I could to keep myself from falling apart. I have been trying to stay strong and calm for the kids. I had even kept it together as best as I could when I spoke to Riviana’s family. That had been hard, way harder than I expected it to be. I made it though and it was done.
Now, all I could do was sit there and wish that there was more for me to do. I wanted to do something, anything, that would help my wife’s soul to come home. I needed to do something that would fix this whole situation.
As I went round and around with these thoughts inside my head, I heard someone knock on the door to my room. There were very few people that would come to disturb me while I was in my room with my wife. And I could tell by the way that they walked and they smelled, that they were someone that would have no problem interrupting me right now.
“Joaquin, can I come in?” Trevor called from the other side of the door.
“Yeah, come on in.” I agreed, but I didn’t look away from my Little Bunny, and I didn’t let go of her hand. I was still putting almost all of my attention on my wife. No offense to one of my best friends in the entire world, but my mate came first.
“Hey man, how are you holding up?” He came right over to me after he opened the door and clapped a hand on my shoulder. With his grip firm on me, squeezing comfortingly, I finally looked away from my Little Bunny and up into Trevor’s face.
“I’m not.”
That was the first time that I honestly admitted that I was not doing so well. I have been trying my best to be positive for the kids and everyone else, but it was so hard on me. It was all just an act. I wasn’t really holding it together at all. On the inside, all I wanted to do was scream, yell, howl, whine, tear someone’s throat out, anything that would be doing something. I couldn’t, though. All I could do was sit here and hold it all together with will power and duct tape.
