Bullet (18 page)

“Why, Charlotte?  What did I ever do to you to make you hate me so badly?”

She snarled and paused.  “You think you’re so perfect.  You do everything right.  You’re so nice, and you’re this perfect little fucking virgin.  And then, to top it all off, you just waltz into our room mid semester with one of the hottest guys on campus.  Sorry, but a little goody-two-shoes like you doesn’t deserve a guy that hot with a cock like that.  You wouldn’t have any idea what to do with the damn thing.”

I growled again, using the muscles in my neck to push against her hand, but it was becoming a losing battle. 
“And he wanted
me
, Valerie.  In fact, he said he wished you were more like me.  He could never love you.  You play too sweet.  You don’t want to get your hands dirty.  And so it’ll never happen.”

Her words hurt worse that her physical beating was.  And, believing that Ethan might have actually said those words, I lost hope.  She sensed that and said, “Loss for words, bitch?”

Slam!
went my head into the floor again, and I saw a white flash.

“Get the fuck off her, Charlotte.” 
Zane…oh, thank goodness.  He must have started to worry when I didn’t arrive right away.

I lay there and felt her
being pulled off my body, but I was losing consciousness.  I drifted off, and the next thing I remembered was Ethan rolling me over, holding my head in his hands.  My eyes closed again, and I heard him say, “Zane, let’s get her up to our room.”  I couldn’t remember that trip, only that they helped me—mostly carried me—back to their dorm room.

When I opened my eyes again, I noticed I was on Ethan’s bed, and I didn’t know where
Zane was.  “Val, are you okay?”  He brushed my hair off the bloody mess on the right side of my head.  I blinked but didn’t say anything.  “Good thing we came when we did.”

“Ethan…she said…”

Gently, he laid his finger on my lips.  “Shh…don’t talk.”

Zane
came back in the room with a wet washcloth, and Ethan wiped the blood off my face.  I winced.  It hurt.

Ethan looked at
Zane.  “Maybe we should take her to the hospital.”

I tried to sit up.  “No.  I can’t.  I don’t have any money, and they’ll ask questions, and—”

“Val, don’t worry about it.  You’ve been through too much tonight already.”

I shook my head, sending new waves of pain through my bones.

“Enough.  We’re going.”

I sighed but then told them we’d need my dad’s insurance card.  It was in my purse back in my dorm room. 
Zane went to fetch my purse.  I gave him my room key, but he said he’d give Jennifer a chance to answer the door first.  He didn’t want her hitting him over the head with a chair or something.  While he was gone, Ethan stroked the side of my head that hadn’t been beaten in.  “God, Val…this is all my fault.  I’m so sorry.”

“No, it’s not, Ethan.  She’s psychotic.  Always has been, I guess.”

“Yeah, but she probably wouldn’t have done it if I hadn’t…been with her.”

I tried to smile.  “That’s true…asshole.”

“I guess I deserve that.”

“I was just joking.”

“I wasn’t.”  We were quiet then, and I closed my eyes, trying not to think of Charlotte wrapped around Ethan.  Man, she’d known how to hurt me.  The physical wounds would heal, but I didn’t know about the ones she’d inflicted on my heart.

I was having a hard time holding onto wakefulness, but soon I was in the emergency room, waiting for someone to look at me.  When the doctor came in the room, he kicked the men out.  He believed I had a minor concussion and said that someone should wake me up every few hours.  If I didn’t wake up, they needed to call the doctor.  He also treated my gashes and then sent me on my way.  They said they’d bill my dad’s insurance.  I needed to call my parents the next day and let them know what happened.  I knew they’d be okay with the bill, but I wanted them to know the details
instead of getting the bill or the statement from the insurance and wondering what happened.

It was late when we got back to the dorms…early morning, actually.  Ethan said, “I want you staying in our room, okay?  We need to keep an eye on you like the
doctor said.”  I didn’t protest.

Zane
asked, “You need me to fetch anything from your room?”

I shrugged.  “I don’t think so.”

He nodded.  “I’m gonna go shower then.”

Ethan
knelt over and untied my shoes for me.  “I want you to lie down and try to rest.  I’ll wake you up every few hours like the doctor said.”

“Ethan?”  He looked up at me from where he squatted on the floor.  He raised his eyebrows, waiting for me to speak.  “Thanks.”

He frowned.  “I don’t know what for.  But…you’re welcome.”  He stood.  “Now, lie back, and I’ll pull the covers over you.”

I did as he asked, and he pulled the sheet and blanket over my body.  He sat on the bed next to me and moved my hair off my forehead.  “Tell me what happened.  You think you can do that?”

I sighed.  “You really want to know?”  He nodded, so I strained to recall the events that had occurred earlier that evening, from the time I’d gotten to the bottom of the flight of stairs in my building up until he and Zane found me in the hallway.  “But…what hurt the worst was when Charlotte said you told her you wished I was more like her.”

“She
said
that?”

“Yeah.”

He leaned closer to me.  “I never said that, Val.  I would never say that.  I don’t ever want you to change.”  He stroked my cheek with his finger.  “Can you ever forgive me?”

“If you didn’t say that, I don’t need to.”

“Oh, yeah, I do need your forgiveness.  I never should have gone out with her but…she was so goddamned tempting…”

I hadn’t needed to hear that either, and if he wanted my forgiveness, he needed to shut up.  But, in that moment, he looked so vulnerable.  For the first time since I’d met Ethan, he looked open…exposed, and he’d done it on purpose.  He was laying himself bare to me, for me, and gone was that glint in his eyes he’d usually carried with him.  He was pure then, and so I let my guard down too.  “Ethan…I have to tell you something, something I should have told you so long ago, and I hope you’ll understand.”  His eyes just looked at me, the question drawn in them.  He didn’t need to ask.  So I continued.  “I…care more for you than I’ve ever let on. 
I thought you just considered me a friend, so I left it at that, but I can’t bear it any longer.  I want you to know and then, well…where it goes from here is up to you.”

His eyes searched mine.  “Are you saying you…love me?”

I’d already said too much, so I just nodded.  He smiled.  “Val, oh, God, Val.”  He closed his eyes and let out a long breath.  “You have no fucking idea.  But…after Brad, and then Zane…I just thought you wanted to be friends with me.  I had no idea.”

I chuckled, but it hurt my head.  “Ethan…do you remember the day we met?”  He nodded.  “My sitting behind you in class was no accident.”  He raised his eyebrows
, but I kept talking.  “And then you invited me to that concert.  What prompted you to ask
me
?”

He grinned.  “Stupid ass
Zane was supposed to come with me, but some little sorority girl in a miniskirt invited him to a barbecue.  He couldn’t pass up a cute little blonde piece of ass.  So you told me you were into metal and I had an extra ticket.  Perfect timing.  What about you, though?  What do you mean sitting behind me
was no accident
?  And then…why the fuck did you go to the dance with Zane?”

“Why’d
you
go with that Mercy chick?”

“I already told you.  I thought
you and me were strictly
friends only
.  Besides, you’re…so pure.  I didn’t want to…soil you.”  Had I not been so tired and achy, I would have protested, but he continued.  “And…well… a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.”  I giggled again, and my head throbbed again.  “Are the pain meds from the hospital wearing off?”

“He said I
shouldn’t take anything else for a few more hours.”

Ethan nodded. 
“You’re avoiding my other question.”

“Oh…
well, I…uh…I noticed you in class.  You were the best-looking guy on campus, so I wanted to get to know you.”

He smile
d and looked almost embarrassed.  That was a first.  “Really?”  I smiled back.  And as his expression grew more serious, he touched my chin and lowered his lips to mine.  I closed my eyes.  I had been waiting for this moment for so long.  His lips were soft and warm and as his parted, mine responded.  In just seconds, I was tasting the sweetness of him, and my head started to spin.  In those few moments, I was aware of his breath on my cheek, of my heart beating, the blood pumping through my veins.  My hands grabbed his t-shirt into fists, not wanting to ever let him go.

My spinning head, though…that wasn’t necessarily due to the breathtaking kiss.  When he opened his eyes, he said, “You need to rest.”  He reached in the pocket of his jeans and pulled out his cell phone.  “I’m
gonna wake you up every couple of hours, okay?”  I nodded and felt my eyes closing.  But I didn’t fall asleep until I felt him lie down next to me.  He draped his arm over my waist, and the weight of it made me feel secure.

I drift
ed into a peaceful sleep.  Not only had I kissed the man I’d fallen in love with, but we’d finally bared our souls, shared our deepest feelings with one another, and now I felt closer to him than ever before.  His arm holding me close all night long reassured me of the new love we shared as well as our enduring friendship.

Chapter Eleven

Present

“
BREATHE, BABE.  THAT’S it.  Through your nose, out your mouth.  You can do it.”

Yeah, easy for him to say, but I bit my tongue.  He was just repeating what the childbirth coach had told him in our classes.  I couldn’t help it that the pain was making me pissed off.

But as hard as the earlier phases had been, the last hour had been excruciating.  The nurse kept telling me not to push, that I wasn’t ready, so I had to fight the urge, and breathing was the only way.  But I was still fighting the pain.  They’d supposedly put a painkiller in my IV, but I wasn’t feeling it.

Finally, the fucking doctor arrived.  I wanted to tell him I was sorry I’d disturbed his sleep, but he was trying to be cheerful, something he hadn’t always managed in his office.  He examined me, shoving a latex-gloved hand inside to measure the progress of my uncooperative cervix, and he said, “You’re ready.”

I saw one of the nurses wheeling in all kinds of stuff—a table for the baby, complete with a lamp on top.  I almost laughed, thinking it looked like one of the heating lamps at a fast food restaurant.  Then she wheeled in a stainless steel table full of instruments, much like I was sure they used during the Inquisition.  The doctor sat on a rolling stool and turned around to examine his tools of torture while the bedside nurse rattled off instructions.  She told me to wait until the next contraction and then to push.  She and Ethan would count to ten out loud, and I was to push as hard as I possibly could for the duration of the countdown while pulling my knees to my chest.  After three tries, then I could rest until the next contraction.

And then I understood why labor was so painful—so that when it was time to push, it was a relief.

And it was.  I heard Ethan and the nurse cheering me on while the doctor, in his calm monotone voice, kept urging me to “Come on.”  But after the three pushes I lay my head back on the pillow and tried to gather my strength.  Ethan looked at me, and I saw fear in his eyes.  I’d never seen him look like that before, and it almost scared me, especially because he was trying—and
failing
—to put on a brave face.  Was something wrong?  He brushed my sweat-soaked hair away from my face with his hands, and I wasn’t able to worry anymore as the next contraction overcame me.

This time, I couldn’t even hear them counting as I pushed with muscles I hadn’t known I had.  I could feel them bearing down on that little life inside me, trying to force it out into the world.  “I see your baby’s head.  Come on, now, Valerie.  One more good, strong push.”
  I did as the doctor asked and then Ethan let go of my hand to go stand beside the doctor.  “Okay, now, stop pushing.”  He started doing something with the baby, but I rested my head on the pillow.  I was exhausted.  When I opened my eyes, I saw Ethan with scissors in his hand as he cut the baby’s cord.

The doctor looked over at me.  “You’re the proud parents of a beautiful baby boy.”  The doctor then placed the baby on my chest.  He was covered in fluids
, and his little face was balling up, ready to express his displeasure at his new surroundings, but I felt a tear form in my eye as I knew this little man was going to be the most important male in my life from this day forward.

That night, after hours of nurses doing this, that, and the other to my baby, having weighed, cleaned, and dressed the child, he was lying in my arms.  He and I were making our best attempts at breastfeeding, and I felt like I was failing miserably.  My once modest-sized breasts were now huge and trying to block his nostrils.  One of the nurses who had been annoying the shit out of me earlier with her bossiness had now come back in the room.  She was about to leave as her shift was almost over, but she was checking in.  She showed me how I could press on my breast right by the baby’s nose so he could breathe and nurse at the same time.