CHERISH (27 page)

I found this Rochelle person. And, no. She wasn’t nice and she wasn’t helpful. But in the end, I managed to convince her that helping me find Bruce was in the best interests of her future as a walking, talking, functioning human.

I’d never overtly threaten a woman, but she picked up the vibe I was putting down.

The Suburban’s speedometer topped out at 100 MPH a few times on the freeway en route to Providence Memorial. I didn’t wait around to ask the details of why Bruce was at the hospital with Promise, but I got out of Rochelle that Promise was sick. Or hurt. Or fucking God knows what.

All I know is I left her and now she’s in a hospital with our baby in her belly.

The drumroll beat of my heart had my lungs burning for oxygen. Every disastrous scenario tore through my head as I ignored the red lights and turned into the parking lot with brakes squealing. On top of wondering what was happening with Promise, the thought of what the fuck was happening with Jordan had me losing my shit.

How the hell am I going to tell her that not only is he not with me, I fucking honestly don’t know if I got him killed?

The one thing in the world she asked me to do was bring him back and I fucking failed.

I stomped through the hospital reception area, barking at the security guard until he gave me the room number and directions to get there.

Now I'm standing outside her hospital room. Bruce sips a Starbucks while Promise sleeps inside. When the security guard at the desk finally gave me my wife’s room number and informed me it was in the lock-down psych ward, my head just about cracked fucking open.

“So, Jesus.” I rub my hands back and forth over my head trying to process the information the doctor has given me. “What fucking medication?” I look from the twenty-something in the white coat to Bruce, who shakes his head.

The doctor looks at me in confusion. Probably wondering what kind of fucked up marriage we have, since I don’t know what meds my wife takes.

“Her sertraline.
Zoloft
? When she came in, she indicated she’d been taking this particular medication for approximately ten years. That is a very long time and cutting it off like she did without lowering the dosage first was dangerous. She had an extreme reaction.” He picks up on my confusion. “No one noticed a change in her behavior leading up to when you found her unresponsive?” He looks to Bruce first, then back to me.

“I’ve been out of the country,” I groan. I’ve been up for going on twenty-four hours now, and the amount of sleep I’d gotten in the four days I was away amounted to only a handful of hours. I’m walking on a knife’s edge and all I fucking care about is if she and the baby are okay. “Is she okay now? What about the baby?”

“She is better.” The doctor’s voice isn’t dripping with reassurance. “Your wife is still in a dangerously depressed mental state. That's why we've been keeping her sedated. Yesterday, we tried to lower the level of sedatives, and she became . . .” He pauses as he sticks his hands down into the pockets of his lab coat. “Despondent. I’m confident though that with the right balance of the sedative and a lowering of her medication incrementally, by next week she will be back to baseline. However, I do suggest she sees someone. I do know that keeping her on the same medication for nearly ten years is not standard protocol. You may want to find a new psychiatrist.”

“She’ll be okay.” Bruce leans forward setting a hand on my shoulder.

“Yes, and she more than likely won’t need medication long-term, but you will need to keep a close eye on her for the next few months. The pregnancy is certainly a factor in mood swings as well. Maybe for the better. We will see.” He sneaks a look at his watch without taking his hand out of the lab coat pocket. I grit my teeth.

“The baby? Is the baby okay?” My patience is non-existent and I do not like having to repeat myself.

“We have ultrasound coming up around one o’clock. Hopefully, she will be awake by then. An OB/GYN consult has been ordered and they will be here as well. Okay?” He pulls his hand out of the pocket this time, lifting it to look at his watch again.

I glance over my shoulder for the tenth time. All I want to do is hold her. She looks so small and helpless under the clinging, white sheet. It’s tucked around her body as she lays on her side. Both her hands are melded together like she’s praying as they rest on the pillow in front of her face.

Her cherry pink lips open slightly as she breathes evenly. The mid-morning sun squeaks lines of light through the closed blinds. I want to wake her. To tell her I’ll love her forever, no matter what.

My chest tightens because my heart is shattering inside it. She’s been in so much pain and she didn’t trust me enough to tell me. After everything we’ve gone through, after clearing the decks and promising there would be no more lies or secrets, I’m somewhere between crushed and fucking pissed off.

She’s mine to take care of. All of her. I’ve shown her that. Told her that. What would make her think that she couldn’t tell me about taking some damn medication, after everything she’s been through? There’s no shame in that. The blame rests on my shoulders. I’ll take it. Because in the end, if she doesn’t feel the level of trust I’d hoped, it means somewhere along the line I haven’t earned it. I’ve missed caring for her in a way she needed.

“Sir?” The doctor looks at his watch again and it is starting to piss me the fuck off.

“What?” I guess he’d said something but I’d been too busy staring at my angel laying in that hospital bed.

“Do you have any more questions?”

“When can I take her home?” As soon as the last word leaves my lips, another punch hits my gut. I remember that we don’t even have a fucking home to go to. We can’t go back to the loft. That bridge is burned. Fuck knows, I may get back there today and find out all my shit’s been tossed in a dumpster. All the years of sketches. The letters. But none of it fucking matters if I don’t get my girl back.

And get her smiling again. Because more than anything in this life, I want her happy. There is nothing I wouldn’t do to ensure that she is. Nothing.

“I’d say a few days. Let’s take it slow. We don’t want another day like yesterday. Okay, gentleman, I have to run. If you need anything else, let the nurses know.”

I spin on my heel as Bruce shifts to follow me. I’ve got tunnel vision as I make my way to the side of her bed, crouching down to gaze at her paler-than-usual, translucent skin. Her hair falls in a loose ponytail at the nape of her neck. She’s breathtaking, even in a hospital gown. I run two fingers over her cheeks, feeling the warmth as I swallow the lump in my throat. I don’t ever want to stop touching her ever again.

I swing my hand behind me to grab the bedside chair. Bruce steps up and slides it to me.

“Thanks.” I nod.

“Sure.” He sips his coffee then continues. “I tried to call you. Left about
fifty
fucking messages.” Bruce maneuvers around the chair to lean against the window ledge. He runs a hand back and forth over his shiny head and crosses his long legs at the ankles. His light blue polo looks cheerful and, as always, his jeans are perfectly pressed. Even in a crisis that dude can dress.

“Yeah, we had a bit of trouble. Phones were collateral damage.”

“She was better this morning. Yesterday was scary. Not gonna lie.”

“Fuck.” My head drops to the bed and I take a moment before asking. “What happened?”

“I went home to shower and change, and came back a couple hours later. When I walked in, she was screaming at two nurses and had an orderly practically crying. She was backed up into the corner there.” He nods his head to somewhere behind my chair. “Screaming something about her mother. How she was going to end up like her mother. That they should take the baby. Crazy shit, man. She’s not good with meds.” He raises his eyebrows. “Some people just have wild reactions. You couple that with being pregnant, taking herself off a medication known to cause withdrawal symptoms, all the crazy shit that’s gone on the last week, and you being gone. Jordan gone. Shit, I’d be jumping out a damn window myself.”

“Holly come back around?”

“Not that I know of, but she wouldn’t have any idea we were here. I’d have intercepted that train wreck fast.”

“Thanks. Here you are again saving the fucking day. I don’t know how I will ever thank you.”

“Me either. I thought I got rid of you two when you got married, thought you'd be tormenting each other. You’re still a pain in my ass.” He shakes his head playfully, trying to lighten the mood.

Promise sighs and turns in the bed. My eyes dart to her and my hand caresses her cheek.

“Babe.”

Her eyelashes flutter. The soft curve of her lips turn up, then they sink right back down.

“Jordan?”

I make a split second decision.

“He’s fine. Babe, he’s good. We’ll talk about it later. You just need to get better. Okay? That’s all that matters.”

My heart almost dies as I lie to her. I want to take it back immediately, confess, but I can't. She needs to be calm and if she never forgives me then I'll just have to wear that too. Because she is the most important thing to me, and right now she needs to feel safe.

Her sleepy eyes close again. As much as I want to talk to her, I’m relieved when she slips back to sleep.

At least she knows I’m here.

Promise

Beckett is here, and for the first time in days I feel something other than catatonic hopelessness.

Silence envelops the white walled room, except for his even breaths and the hum of the monitor over my head.

I think it must be night time. No light streams in through the blinds and the door to the room is closed.

My dry lips hurt like I’ve been walking in a desert. I’m desperate for water but I don’t dare move. Beckett’s head rests on the side of the bed. He’s settled in the chair, and he’s pulled it as close to the bed as possible. His breathing is deep and steady.

I remember him coming in. I remember asking about Jordan and I remember feeling safe when I looked into his eyes.

He said Jordan was okay and that lit a flicker of hope inside of me. For the last few days, a blackness I could’t even begin to describe had crippled any hope that remained inside me.

This feeling. This black weight that’s taken over my whole existence these last few days. It first began after the rape and the fire. I remember the day after I set that garage on fire, Jeremy came. He took me out of that house. I felt so humiliated that I could have fallen in love with someone who just played with me and then tossed me out like a used diaper.

The night after I’d snuck over to the neighbor’s garage, I did what Jeremy told me to do. I should have thought for myself. But for so long I had no clue who I even was. I existed only as a fixture for others. I lacked any sense of self.

I hated living with that particular foster family, but in truth, I hated most of them. Now I realized Jeremy encouraged my hatred. If I hated them, I’d see him as my savior. He still held out hope that somehow he could get some sort of legal claim on me. He told me to set the neighbor’s garage on fire. Not the house where I lived. He said no one would get hurt. But I used all the gasoline he left for me. He told me to soak one rag, stuff it down inside this metal bucket, light it and go back to the house.

But that’s not what I did. I poured a big puddle of gas on the floor, next to the garage wall by the door, then I stuffed the rag down into the neck of the can and lit the match. After I threw it down I immediately knew what I’d done. The entire place was up in flames almost before I hit the back door. My feet flew across the alley, running to my bedroom. To safety.

By the time I made it back to hide under my covers, Steven Holder had pushed open my bedroom door. His sinister grin lit his face as he took what little life I had left in me and smashed my heart into a million pieces.

Those boys broke me that night. Jeremy came and took me because of the fire. I had to go to the police station. I didn’t talk. I didn’t say a single word. In fact, for the next week I didn’t speak. Didn’t eat. I lay in a corner at the state run halfway house, curled up in the fetal position.

That was the first time it dug its claws in soul deep. The feeling of falling. The weight of something dark and cold that filled me until I couldn’t stand to take another breath.

The feeling that there would never be a place for me. I was beyond repair. Beyond repair and beyond hope. No one could ever love me because I had done such terrible things. I took a long cord from a phone and wrapped it around my neck. I wrapped and wrapped until I felt myself spinning. I made friends with the black well that day and I never wanted to open my eyes again.

When they found me, they sent me to the pediatric psych ward and I ended up on two years of treatment and probably ten combinations of drugs. Years later, my doctor cut me back, but I’ve still been taking the Zoloft for ten years. I suppose in a way, I wanted to take it. A daily reminder of how broken I am. How, deep down, I should always remember I will never really be like other people.

What happened to me at Bruce’s felt so similar. The black nothingness covered me until I had zero sense of reason. Looking back now, it seems like someone else was living my life. Feeling my pain. That couldn’t have been me, right?