Give Me Love (45 page)

I buzzed for the nurse. She needed to take me back to the floating place. STAT.

“I don’t understand why you’re doing this.” I choked out the words as I slumped back in my bed. I didn’t want to look at him, but I couldn’t look away. He stood there, so beautiful, almost close enough to touch in the small room, but the distance was now a living thing that pulsed between us.

He cursed and shoved his hands in his pockets, making no move to pick up the bottle leaking water all over the floor.

“Remember both those assholes that almost got you killed? All I wanted to do was keep you safe, but it turned out I was the biggest one of all. I didn’t plan on being another asshole in your life, Evie. I never wanted to be that person to you.” Jared’s shoulders slumped as he stared out the window, the wall propping his weight. He looked defeated and pain lined his eyes, sending a pang through my body.

I looked away quickly, closing eyes so tired they burned. “All I know is that you’re leaving me. Just like everyone else who mattered that came before you.” I opened my eyes and glared at him. “Despite our misunderstandings, I thought you were so far beyond doing something like this that I actually trusted you. In your eyes, I saw strength and courage and fearlessness, but I guess I saw wrong. I never figured you for a coward. I always thought that was my department, but obviously I’m not…I've never been the best judge of character have I?”

His shoulders slumped further at the words that left a bitter taste in my mouth. I felt the urge to escape the confines of my hospital bed and run away from this new nightmare.

I knew I’d been scared and cautious, but in the end I’d given him my heart, and now the warmth that once flooded my body from feeling treasured by this man was now a cold chill of rejection. I remembered being in my car after I picked him up from hospital, when he’d said that when I wasn’t with him it was like someone had turned out the lights, and here he hadn’t even left, and it was so dark I thought I’d never see daylight again.

Where was that damn nurse? I pressed the buzzer impatiently, biting down on my lip so I wouldn’t beg him to stay.

“Get out.” My hoarse shout ripped through the silence and he flinched at the words as though I’d hit him.

Swallowing hard, he nodded, his chest expanding as he drew in a deep, shaky breath.

“I’m sorry, Evie.” His deep voice was rough, cracking on the apology, and he spared one more glance at me, his eyes trailing slowly over my face as though to memorise every feature, before he turned and left the room. The door closed with a soft
click
behind him.

The fight left me as I heard his heavy footsteps recede down the hall. I turned my head, my face pressing into the pillow as the tears came, heavy in my throat and spilling over to slide down my face. I could hear my own choking sobs in the empty room and cradled my arms over my stomach, never feeling more empty or alone in my entire life, than I did right at that moment.

When the nurse arrived she stood at the end of my bed, checked my chart, and informed me that she couldn’t give me anything more for at least another hour.

My eyes were bruised from tears, my body ached from head to toe, and my voice was thick and raspy. “But it hurts so much.”

She glanced up from the page she was busy scribbling a note on. I didn’t know what she was writing. I imagined it was something like
patient acting irrationally, proceed with caution,
yet her eyes on me softened with concern. “Do you need the doctor?”

Not unless his or her speciality was in the practice of life reassignment. I shook my head and waited for sleep to give me some peace.

* * *

When I woke again, I welcomed the return of the blessed floaty feeling with a loving hug and a warning not to leave like that again. I didn’t feel better, I didn’t feel worse, but I also didn’t feel happy or broken. I just didn’t feel. At least for a moment, until, not opening my eyes, I focused on what appeared to be an argument in progress.

Henry growled. “I say we play the song.”

“No way!” Mac hissed. “We’ve been sitting on this for years, asshead, and you’re not ruining it for me now.”

“Come on. She gets that song out on repeat every time she’s suffering through something really bad. It’ll help.”

I
felt
then. I felt an ”oh shit” moment.

“Have you ever listened to the words of that song?”

A pause. “Um…no.”

“Maybe it might be too much for her. I mean, how many times has she seen him walk away from her? The song bloody sings about how nothing a hundred men or more could do to take me away from you.”

Jesus, Henry. Thanks for making me sound like a pathetic dishrag.

Another pause. “Well…we can’t control what she listens to, can we? Why don’t we just pack her iPod for next time.”

Henry sounded frustrated. “Mac, she’s just been shot and you’re worried over blackmail material.”

“Henry, don’t you see? If we start acting all retarded around her and try to be something we think she needs when all she needs is for us to be ourselves, she’ll bloody well fall apart.”

Upon the realisation I would have to oust my obsession with Toto's
Africa
before it could be used against me, I tuned out, willing them both to leave and take their argument with them.

* * *

The next two weeks followed the news that Jared made good on his words and left. The news extinguished the last small piece of hope that maybe he’d stayed, and losing it was like another blow. Casey had moved in with Travis, and Peter moved back to our place. It probably wasn’t a moment too soon because although Peter was admirably passionate in all his endeavours, it could be wearing on some. Henry was busy helping Mac with the Jamieson obligations while she dealt with the press, and believe me, the press was
huge.
If we thought touring with Sins of Descent would help our rise to success, then the lead singer of Jamieson getting shot gained us international fame. Gary from Jettison was riding a wave of excitement so high he automatically added an extra zero to the dollar figure on our record contract. Journalists were apparently frothing rabidly to win the all-important first interview. Perhaps I should’ve thought of getting shot sooner. Who knew?

Eventually I left the hospital, unnaturally quiet and subdued. The only consolation was that it appeared I had the constitution of a Terminator. I’d survived through so much. War could rain down, leaving devastation and destruction in its wake, and I would walk out the other side. That boded well for me in facing the wrath of Coby. If I thought the fires of hell were going to swallow me up and spit me out after the drugging fiasco, busting out and going all Quentin Tarantino on Jimmy’s ass was enough to unleash the unholy hounds of hell.

* * *

The next three months passed by as though I was in a repetitive dream. Wake up, physical therapy, write songs, go to bed. Intersperse that with interviews, meetings with Jettison Records, and counselling sessions with Jude, and there was my life. I was continually exhausted from being unable to sleep. Every time I closed my eyes, I felt the jerk of bullets hitting my body, I saw Jimmy grinning at me, and I saw blood. Rivers of it. Sometimes I would see it without closing my eyes, and the anxiety had my heart fluttering in my chest and me sucking in short, tight breaths that never seemed to reach my lungs. The anger at Jared for not being there when I needed him most was a slow burning ember that I welcomed. I wanted to hate him, and I wanted to
feel
it. I wanted to shake with the rage, but then I would remember the sweet plea in his eyes and his voice when he begged me to be with him. I remembered the way his lips would curl up and his eyes crinkle when I sassed him. Most of all, I remembered lying on the floor of Jimmy’s house and seeing the agony in his eyes as he bent over me, and the fierce desperation in his words when he told me he loved me while tears spilled over and ran down his face. Then my anger would fade to despair, knowing that no one would ever matter to me the way he did. That no man would ever find their way through the broken pieces left behind from a love I’d never have again. Despite all of it, a breathless anticipation would cut through the void whenever my phone rang.

I shouldn’t have wanted to hear from him, but I did.

And it hurt.

Each day that passed by without hearing his voice pierced my heart until I had to fist my hands together and dig sharp nails into my skin to direct the pain elsewhere.

“Hey!”

A voice cut through the fog and someone splashed water in my face. I turned to confront the threat, putting my hand in the ocean and flicking water in retaliation with a smile that was forced.

Casey grinned in return. His hair glistened with water droplets from the early morning sun, and tanned muscular arms protruded from his short-sleeved black wetsuit. “Look out, she’s cracked a smile, call the paparazzi.”

I gave a mock snarl and he laughed.

“That’s more like it,” he said and then nodded towards the horizon. “Set’s up.”

Following his gaze, I shivered at the line of waves rolling in. “I can’t do this anymore.”

“You can. Shut up and start paddling.”

Casey was teaching me how to surf as part of my physical therapy because it helped rebuild the core strength I’d lost. Unfortunately, I wasn’t quite ready to hit the pro circuit. I was far too busy meeting the ocean floor with my face and eating sand for breakfast. Casey, who appeared to be good at everything, found the whole farce the highlight of his mornings, but I’d rather sit down and endure back to back episodes of
The Nanny
while eating sprouts. At least I’d gained a new nickname―Kook―which was apparently some kind of reference to a newbie surfer. I didn't know if it was complimentary, but I did learn from Casey’s surfer mate, Ben, that Casey was a ripper hotdogger, whatever that meant, so I used it liberally and told everyone else to as well.

“Fine,
hotdog.
”

The wave bore down and I turned on my board and literally paddled for my life, feeling the cool water lurch beneath me, each stroke of my arm a gnawing ache in my middle.

“Woot. Go Kookie!”

Grinning, I paused in my paddle to introduce Casey to my middle finger and promptly tipped my board, going down in a crash of limbs, riding the white wash upside down and inside out to the shore. I crawled up the sand on my hands and knees, my board dragging behind me as I coughed out a piece of seaweed.

A warm hand landed on my back and with tired eyes I looked up at Casey’s concerned face.

“You okay?”

I flopped down on my back and sucked in life saving oxygen. “Does everyone have it in for me? Even the ocean is trying to write me off.”

Casey dug his board upright in the sand and leaned down to remove the leg rope from my ankle. “Don’t be like that. You’re getting better.”

“I know.” I let out a painful wheeze. “I didn’t eat sand that time.”

He gently let go of my ankle with a laugh. “See? More room for bacon and eggs.”

I eyed him hopefully and sat up. “You wouldn’t tease me, would you?”

He gripped my bicep as he helped me up. “Come on, Kookie. I’ll take you to Tilly’s. Us surfers need to keep up our strength.”

This was true. I ate twice as much for breakfast since I started the whole surfing debacle. I wouldn’t ever admit it to Casey, but I always felt better afterwards. Fresher, more alive and, a little less sad.

We picked up our boards and trudged through the sand, dodging the diehard beachgoers setting up their place with competent movements in the early light of day. A few surfers trotted by with a hand wave and shouted greetings like “Yo, brah” and “Hey, Kook.” I’d seen the movies and being known as Kook sounded preferable to seeing newbie surfers enduring bloodshed for ‘dropping in’ on waves. Apparently, I was well known though. Suffering a few bullet wounds in a badass gun fight made me a “hard core babe” and earned Casey lots of back slapping for his “score.” Not correcting their assumptions, Casey would just roll his eyes and accept their good natured ribbing.

We reached the outdoor showers, and I peeled the wetsuit down to reveal my bikini underneath. I turned the water on to its one and only setting of ice cold and shivered under the spray.

I turned around and Casey, now down to his boardshorts under the shower next to me, eyed the scars on my torso, and his lips pressed flat.

“Fading,” he said, his voice barely audible under the spray of water.

Rubbing at the one on my chest because I couldn’t get used to the numb feeling, I turned back around self-consciously. “Yeah.”

We finished up, and half an hour later found me sitting at Tilly’s clad in a simple pair of short denim shorts and white tank top, wet hair tied messily in a bun on the top of my head. We sat at an outdoor table in the sun, so I was wearing my giant sunglasses as I annihilated a stack of pancakes and bacon.

Casey swallowed a mouthful of eggs. “How’s it going with Jude?”