Abby Has Gone Wild (12 page)

I had called my boss completely prepared to
quit but Stan hadn’t let me. He’d been quick to remind me I still
had a week of vacation that was going to carry into the next year.
In the new year I would be celebrating my five year anniversary and
that was the year our number of paid time off days went from thirty
one to forty. Stan promised to handle HR and if I needed more time
to call him and he’d work it out. He made it clear he wasn’t
willing to accept my resignation. I was valuable to Stan because I
made him look good. He’d been so effusive in his compliments it had
shocked me and been a nice piece of good news.

A nurse knocks on the door and motions me out
of the room. I reassure Jack I’ll be right back and go out. The
nurse hands me Jack’s cell phone with the information that it’s
been ringing all day. I take it and check the call log, I see four
missed calls. Abruptly, the phone begins to ring in my hand.

“Hello?”

“Yes, can I speak with Jack Morgan
please?”

“That’s not possible for now or even in the
immediate future. Jack has been hurt and is in the hospital. Who is
this?” I think his voice sounds familiar but I’m not sure.

“Oh dear, how awful, I wondered why he hadn’t
come back when he’d been so impatient. This is Bertie Kleinman and
you must be. Oh dear, I can’t, I don’t think he’d want me to speak
with you. Is there by any chance a Shane Hamilton there? Shane
would know and he could maybe direct me.”

My head is pounding in time with my heart, I
can’t hear, there’s a buzzing outside of me overwhelming all my
senses. I know who Bertie Kleinman is now. Kleinman’s had been the
go to Austin jeweler for three generations, at least that’s what
Bertie proclaimed in his commercials. That’s why he’d been so
tense, I thought he was getting tired of me and I had been so
wrong.

I look down at the phone and have no idea who
ended the call but it’s over and I find Shane’s number. He answers
after just one ring.

“Abby?”

“Yes, my ring. The jeweler called. It’s
ready. He wants to talk to you.”

Shane sighs and tears begin to flow. “He’d
been so pissed when they told him it wouldn’t be ready for
Christmas. He was adamant it had to be engraved first and their
stupid machine was broken. This isn’t the way he would want it to
go.”

“We don’t always get a choice, sometimes life
has other plans. Go get my ring Shane.” I hang up.

He comes into the room hours later and he
hands me the box. My hands are shaking so badly it takes a few
tries to get it open. It’s so beautiful, two carats cushion cut
with a halo of diamonds around it and pave set diamonds in the
band. A shock goes through me when I realize it’s exactly like a
fake ring I had tried on during our walk along south Congress that
very first day. I’d laughed and put it back with a sad sigh and
then covered it up by saying I was bad at keeping rings. It was the
reason why my mother only ever bought me earrings or necklaces.

“He remembered.” I whisper as I take it out
of the box. I look for the inscription that had been so important
for him and tears begin to fall, worth the wait. In the beginning I
remember him telling me that time and time again and I had agreed.
Jack was worth the wait. I slide it on my left ring finger, it fit
perfectly.

“Yeah, we spent about an hour going through
rings until he found the right fake one. Then he took it into
Kleinman’s and demanded a real one just like it. He said he was
sure you wouldn’t lose this one.”

I shake my head and clutch my hand against my
heart.

The second surgery went well and the doctor
was really happy with the progress of the previous grafts
healing

My mother had flown in the day after Shane
brought in my ring. She refused to sit out something so important,
she declared. There was also extremely good news. She handed me a
set of signed divorce papers and a huge payoff from my father and a
hug. Caught in the act with an underage girl my father had been
meek and mild and given in to all my mother’s demands. Now free, my
mother fluttered around me like a bird uncaged. I loved my mother
and was happy for her, but all I wanted was to be with Jack.
Finally, she seemed to understand that and although I liked to read
to Jack she had induced me to talk about him. Remembering to censor
most of our relationship was hard because I loved and was proud of
all of it. But she was my mother and it was nice to remember all
the things I loved about Jack that had nothing to do with sex and
everything to do with the person he was. As the second week drew to
a close my mother had taken to only spending an hour a day with me.
After making sure I’d eaten, she would disappear and I appreciated
it. I couldn’t help but think Jack did too.

Coma or not as I held his hand and talked to
him, read to him, or when I spoke to my mother or Shane, I detected
just the slightest difference in Jack. He was calmest when it was
just me, he seemed to like when I talked, just talked about the
various things I thought about. I gave him the weather report and
the latest gossip I’d read. When I read he was calm but it was
almost as if he was trying to make sense of it and I wondered if he
floated in and out and missed important bits of the story. When
others were in the room, doctors, nurses, my mother or even Shane
he seemed tense. I had allowed a nurse to attend to cleaning him
the first time but after that I had taken over. Despite the
doctor’s insistence he felt no pain I knew there were times he did.
When the catheter was changed, when his bandages were changed, his
touch told me he was taking it all in.

At last the third week came to an end and
they stopped the drugs and the doctor warned it might be a few days
before he came awake on his own but Jack surprised even me. That
night I’m reading to him when he squeezes my hand and croaks out my
name. Relief so immense spills up and out and I begin to cry as I
pull his hand to me and I lean down and kiss him on the mouth.

“Jack, it’s going to be okay sweetheart. I
know it.”

His grip tightens to the point of pain as the
room begins to flood with nurses and doctors. A nurse attempts to
order Jack to let me go so they could check him over. Jack very
succinctly and rudely told her what she could do with herself and
held on tight. I cling just as strongly, attempting to soothe him,
I rub his hand that held mine. He saw it then, the sparkle of the
ring I hadn’t taken off once. He smiles then and all the long hours
standing and then sitting in the hard chair are worth it. Bringing
my left hand up to his face, he kisses the back of my hand and
eases back into bed.

After that response, his changing demeanor
over the next few days was harder and harder to understand. When I
reached for his hand he’d pull away, he’d grown sullen and silent.
I thought it might be the intense scrutiny of the ICU but when he
is moved he’d made it clear I wasn’t needed to help out.

At the end of the fourth week yet another
specialist came to discuss his loss of feeling in his legs. The
specialist was clear that feeling should return as the swelling had
completely gone down. Nothing was broken and perhaps with physical
therapy the sensation would return. Yes, there was the slight
chance feeling would never return and he’d be paralyzed from the
waist down but the specialist refused to say what those chances
were.

It just got worse from there, as the doctor
walked out another walked in. He was the doctor who had done the
skin grafts. Now was the time to remove the bandages from the first
grafts done on Jack’s arm and chest. His back would wait another
week. Although the doctor and the nurse assisting were gentle it
was obvious it hurt. I suggest something for the pain but Jack
refuses. When they are finally done I fight back tears, something
so awful looking had to hurt. The idea of Jack in such pain is
nauseating. Jack asks for a mirror and I flinch. Jack’s face is
healing but it is still raw and red, it would be a shock to him. I
know it would bother him but I didn’t care, I really didn’t. I was
just thankful he was still here in one piece, whole and
breathing.

I don’t say anything, keeping a hand on
Jack’s arm. He ignores me when I reach for his hand. Jack had been
tense the moment the specialist walked into the room, as the man
spoke Jack had begun to look like he was carved out of granite. The
doctor who had removed the grafts leaves, pleased with his work. I
fight to find words of reassurance. I open my mouth but Jack beats
me to it.

Shaking his head, his face set, he doesn’t
look at me. “I think you should go now. You’ve been through enough.
I appreciate what you’ve done but you don’t need to stick around
anymore. I’ll be fine on my own.”

Every word, every sentence was like a lash to
my skin. I want to scream from the pain but then I look down and
see his hand that I’d held in mine every day for three weeks is in
a fist so tight his knuckles are white. In a rush, Shane’s words
come back to me, taunting me to make sure I was strong enough. He’d
warned me Jack might be bitter, I’d told the nurse he’d be scared
and would need me. Then I remembered Shane telling me how one by
one his family had walked away from him. I could breathe then, deep
and full and although I’m shaky I force myself to appear calm.
Reaching for the chair by the bed I pull it closer and sit down. I
rest my hand on his and do my best to hold his hand.

“I think, you should stop thinking because
right now you aren’t doing it very well. Me, I haven’t been through
nearly as much as you but yeah, it hasn’t been easy. Day after day
holding your hand and you might have missed it but I came to
realize some not so pretty truths. I had taken so much from you but
not really given you anything back. I took your patience as you
helped me work through my fears. I took your kindness for even
wanting to help someone as damaged as I was. I took your
thoughtfulness as you did everything you could to make sure I had
pleasure and felt safe with you. What did I give you? My body, it
was all I felt like I had to give. It had been taken against my
will before and there were times I felt giving it away gave me
power, the power to choose to give it. Even then it was about
me.

I didn’t want to love you. The thought of it
terrified me so badly I wouldn’t even let it enter my mind. We were
having great sex, amazing sex, that’s all it was. That was all I
wanted from you. It was all I was willing to give you. But if I’ve
learned something about myself the last few weeks it’s that I am
one bad liar. You had conquered my mind with your witty messages, I
swore I could hear you talking to me. You conquered my body with
those stories, I couldn’t get enough. I wanted you, that was all it
was, want. Then you held me in your arms that night and rocked me.
It was that night that I fell in love with you, before you even
spoke and told me all the things I needed to hear. I loved you and
I would have done anything for you. Had you laid me on the bed and
gotten into bed with me, I would have given myself freely,
completely and utterly.

So later that’s what I did. I thought my love
wasn’t good enough, I thought you didn’t want my love. I thought it
was just my body, so I gave it to you, intent that you’d remember
me above all those who came after me. So Christmas day I bit my
tongue until I thought it would bleed. I wouldn’t tell you I loved
you. I wouldn’t put that pressure on you. I’m sorry I was so
stupid. I’ve always prided myself on being smart.” I’m crying, the
tears are steady and I snatch tissues from the bedside table.

Jack won’t look at me. “You deserve better
than half a man with a face that looks like roadkill. It was kind
of you to say but I want you to leave.”

I laugh, I can’t help it. This wasn’t the way
it was supposed to go. The movies got it better than this. I move
the bed rail down, it’s a big bed and because of the shifting and
room the doctor had needed to work on his left side, the side free
from burns and pain there is a large gap. I crawl in, exhausted. I
lay my head on his chest, my arm around him, low on his stomach. He
doesn’t move or say a word and I fall asleep in minutes.

I sleep for hours and when I wake the room is
dark. Jack is asleep below me, I can tell. My mind twists over all
the things I read about the spinal injury Jack has and I remember
that most of the time the patient did regain full sensation. Often
the patient had some sensation, it was usually physical therapy and
patient desire that had been the answer not a doctor or surgeon. As
my mind wanders, as I have so often in the past my hands stroke
over his body. My hand over his stomach moves lazily back and forth
and it takes a full minute for me to realize that Jack is hard,
very hard.

There is no thought behind my actions, only
curiosity and I’m not ashamed after three long weeks, need. His
hospital gown had been pushed up to his stomach and I know after
taking care of him that he isn’t wearing anything below the gown.
My hand slides down his body seeking the heat of him, the feel of
him hard. His intake of breath tells me he’s awake. And my name
comes out of him a guttural groan of warning but I don’t
listen.

“Can you feel that your dick is hard?” I
whisper. My hand captures him around the base. In the last three
weeks I’ve been the one that bathed him, not allowing the other
nurses to see him. I’d been ashamed that each time, it had made me
wet. But I’m not ashamed now. I squeeze him gently and slide my
hand up. “Can you feel me touching you?”

“Yes, yes I can feel it. No, Abby. I meant
it. You have to go. You aren’t tying yourself to some ugly
cripple.”

His words anger me and my grip tightens
around his cock to the point of pain. “You are beautiful and you
aren’t a cripple. You’re lucky you’re laid up in the hospital
because I’d smack you for those words any other time.”