Fix It for Us (26 page)

             
Charlie asks, “Are you decent?  And if not, can I come in?”  Smart ass. “See what I did there?”

             
“You are hilarious.” I fake laugh. “I’m decent, but you still need to come in.”

             
Upon entering the bathroom, Charlie howls, “You are a mess, Biz.  A hot mess.”  Charlie turns me, so I can look in the mirror.  He’s right.  I look like a half drown crazy woman.  Hair hanging in strings around my face.  Old mascara ringing my eyes.  Naked from the waist up, only covered by a towel, with my Hello Kitty PJ pants on.  Charlie doesn’t waste a second helping me pull myself together.  He turns away and closes his eyes when I have to remove the towel.  He puts my figure eight brace back on me without causing me any pain, assists me with my bra and t-shirt, all while essentially blind.  He may have peeked a little to get the job done.  I don’t care.  He is, for all practical purposes, my brother.

             
Jules holds her sides and squeels in amusement when she enters the bathroom to find Charlie blow-drying my hair.  He’s already assisted me with my make-up and actually did a good job at it.  “OMG, it’s like a slumber party in here. Where’s my phone? I need to record this.”  Charlie and I both smile proudly and make silly faces at her in the mirror.

             
Charlie’s phone chirps that a text message has been delivered.  He stops drying my hair, pulls it from his pocket and flips it around to see who the call is from.  Charlie looks at me in the mirror and with questioning eyes, like he’s guessing at what my reaction will be, says, “It’s Davis.”

             
When I look at myself in the mirror, my expression is concerned.  What does Davis have to say?  Charlie’s phone continues to alert several times before I tell him, “Read it.”

              Charlie taps on the message, but doesn’t look at it or read it to me.  He looks up at Jules and then me and says, “I’m not reading it to you if it will hurt you.  Right now, I’m on the fence about Davis and his parents.  I have been only just keeping myself from going down to that hospital, laying into them and shaking him awake.”

“He’s awake now.” I tell them both. “Just read the message.”

Charlie looks at the screen of his phone, “Weird…”

I can’t stand it.  If I could move better I’d grab the phone from his hand, “What. Does It. Say?”

Charlie makes a face at me and shoots back, “That’s why I said, ‘Weird.’ Look.” He holds up the phone for me to read the message.  Which I do, out loud.

The mouse devoured the hawk
-James Brandon

             
“It’s not Davis.” I say glumly.  “It’s his dad.  And the message is a line from the musical I did last spring. ‘The mouse devoured the hawk.’  It’s a metaphor for when the prince stands up to the queen and breaks the spell on the king.  What’s he talking about? Where’s Davis?”

             
Jules laughs and I turn and stare at her.  What’s so funny? “Don’t you get it, Biz?  I think it means, Davis is the prince and…Mrs. Brandon…” Jules makes a sour face after saying Davis’ mom’s name. “is the hawk.  Davis must have told his mother off.”

             
Before Jules can say another word or I can text the Lt. Governor back, Charlie’s doorbell rings.  Charlie shrugs at both of us in the mirror and leaves to get the door, mumbling, “Now what?”  Jules and I pad out after him and are stopped dead when he opens the door.

             
Meredith Brandon is standing in the threshold.  Meredith Brandon, a woman I have never seen with an eyelash, let alone a hair out of place, is standing in front of me and is a complete mess.  Her eyes are bloodshot and teary, mascara smeared and smudged.  Her skin is blotchy, her breathing labored, and she is shivering.  It appears she has the same habit as her son, because it looks like she’s been raking her hands through her hair.  Just as I notice, she does just that.  Both hands fly to her face, she sobs and runs both hands back and through her now disheveled coif. 

             
In a broken cry, Meredith steps forward and looks at me.  Just me and pleads, “Biz, I was wrong…I…please, you have to come with me…” Now, she has me worried.  Is something wrong with Davis?  My concern and confusion are calmed with her next words. “Davis…he…he won’t talk to me or let me be a part of his life, if…if I don’t bring you back to the hospital right now.  Please, I can’t lose him.  I’ve already lost one son.”  She doesn’t say why he wants me back at the hospital.  And Davis hasn’t called me.

             
I ask, “He’s okay? Right?”

             
Meredith chokes back her sobs, “Yes, just agitated.  I’m sorry, Biz.  Please will you come back with me?”

             
I’m scared.  Scared to see Davis after what happened to him.  What I caused to happen to him, but more scared not to see him. “Of course, Meredith, of course I’ll come with you.  You should know, I’m going to tell him the truth – all of it.  Even the condition.”

             
With a cleansing sigh, Meredith tells me, “He already knows that part.”

***

              Davis wants to see me alone.  I don’t know why I’m so nervous.  It’s Davis.  I’ve never been closer or more intimate with anyone in my life.  He’s been moved out of the intensive care unit into a regular room.  Charlie and Jules are standing behind me.  I sense Jules come up beside me and stare at Davis’ hospital room door with me. She rubs my back and not turning to look at me, whispers quietly, “Go ahead.  He’s waiting.”  I take a deep breath and knock lightly on the hospital room door.

             
“Come in.”  Davis says in an unusually weak voice for such a strong guy.

             
I suddenly miss him terribly.  Everything about him.  He’s only feet away from me and I miss his voice, his touch, his smirky smile.  Pushing the door open just enough with my good arm, I slide in.  Seeing him in the same hospital bed I saw him in a couple of days ago – but now sitting upright with color and life in his face – causes my heart to practically jump out of my chest and tap dance on the floor.

             
I stand, just inside the door of Davis’ room.  I want to run to him.  Mrs. Brandon said Davis wanted to see me, immediately.  I’m hoping that’s a good thing.  Davis’ face is impassive as he looks up and our eyes lock.  I can feel him penetrating right into me and the pull, the buzz increases.  Love on a cellular level.

             
Simultaneously, we each say, “I’m sorry.”  Only Davis’ tone is deadly serious and mine is squeaky and apologetic.

             
Davis’ voice is suddenly stronger, intimidating almost.  He even seems to sit up taller in the bed, “No, Biz…I’m sorry.  I am sorry my mother felt she needed to keep you away from me.  I’m sorry you got hurt.  I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you…”

             
I interrupt, “You’re sorry? But I, I put you in danger.”

             
Davis bats my words out of the air, dismissing them, “No…you were…God, you were… you were trying to fix everything.  I’m horrified when I think about what could have happened if I hadn’t shown up.”

             
Sadly, I interject, “You wouldn’t be in the hospital.”

             
Clearly frustrated, Davis shakes his head and rolls his eyes back, acknowledging my words, but continuing his thought, “And that degenerate would have taken you.  Have you halfway to Mexico – Why are we talking about this… why aren’t you here, in my hospital bed, kissing me?

             
I walk over and fall into his arms.  Getting as close to him as I can without dislodging an IV or bumping his wounds or my shoulder.  The electric buzz, the pull I feel whenever I’m anywhere near Davis, amps up.  I was so worried I’d never feel it again.  I survived all summer without it, but it’s been worse since he was injured and we’ve been separated.  Worse when I thought we’d never be together again.

             
Davis looks me over, moving his hands from my face to my arms and finally, gently wraps them around my waist. “Are you okay?” he asks, voice full of concern.

             
“I have a broken collarbone and my shoulder was dislocated a little, but that’s actually feeling much better now.”  I say, trying to minimize my injuries.  His are so much worse, but other than the bandage on the side of his head and face, he looks like my Davis.  Heart stoppingly handsome, even in a hospital bed.

             
“Goddammit!”  Davis barks out.  There is palpable tension in his chest and arms.  “I’m going to kill that guy.”  He sighs repeatedly, trying to self soothe.  “I’m glad you feel better, but it never should have happened.  You shouldn’t have been injured or have to be in that sling contraption.”  He indicates the sling/brace I am wearing. 

             
I pull away from his arms a bit to make eye contact, “I’m fine…I’m just worried about you…You, Davis… you had a gun?”

Davis bows his head and tells me that it was
the gun Cole used to kill himself
.
 
Davis had it in his car.  He didn’t know what to do with it when the police returned it, so he hid it in his car and forgot about it. Repressed it.  Something I understand.  Davis remembered it was there on his way to find me, which he did, by the way, by installing a ‘Find my Phone’ app on my phone months ago, after I kept leaving it behind.  Now Randall has the gun.  I can’t bear to think about him any longer and purposely move the conversation in a different direction.  Davis looks tired.  “How are you feeling?”

             
“Never mind about me.” Davis is irritable, just like Mrs. Brandon said.  He grips my shoulders, being careful with the injured one and pins me with his gaze.  He’s not happy. “Never. Ever. Do that again. Never leave me.”

             
I shake my head no.  Davis is wrong.  I had no intention of leaving him.  He has to know. “I won’t.  I wasn’t.  I mean, when I took the money to Neil, I wasn’t leaving you.  I didn’t leave you.  I thought I was going to be forced to when your mother took my engagement ring…”

             
Davis heaves a huge sigh/growl noise from deep in his chest and runs a hand through the side of his hair that has been partially shaved off. “I knew it.  I knew when she handed me the ring and said you’d broken the engagement… all I could hear was your voice, see your face, when I gave it to you.  I remember you saying, ‘I am NEVER taking this off…if I do you will know something is really wrong…and you need to come and find me.’  I knew you’d never take it off without a good reason.  I’m sorry I couldn’t come and find you.”  Davis points to his IV and bed, “I was sort of tied up, and as you say, not in a good way.”  I almost laugh. “I tore into my mother.  She had no right to do that to you, to us.  And my dad, well, mom’s been babying him and controlling him since the…since Cole died.  We talked.  She won’t be controlling us anymore.”

             
“She was only trying to protect you.” I assure Davis.  “I, sort of, understand.”

             
“Biz, we’ve been letting mom get away with running things for too long.  It was all to make losing Cole less difficult.  In the meantime, my dad and I, well, I just have to say it, when it comes to her, we’ve been pussies.  But no more, not when it comes to you.”

             
“So?” I ask, “The mouse devoured the hawk, huh?”

             
“Uh huh.”  Davis says proudly.  “How was that for irony?”

             
“Cute, Mr. Brandon, real cute.” And with that, I FINALLY kiss him.  It feels like a million years, even though it’s only been a few days.  I don’t even recall feeling this relieved and content when he came home from his summer at the Shakespeare festival.   My skin ignites and a vibration floods me with desire.  I really have missed him.  My heart has missed him.  My body has missed him.  Kissing, we come together like we are fused.

             
Davis stops kissing and commands out of the blue,  “Lizard, baby, I need you to sit up.”

             
I sit up suddenly.  My arm and shoulder complain, but I ignore it. “Why, am I hurting you?”  I look him up and down.  He seems okay. 

             
Then I see it.  “No, I just need to put this…” My ring.  He is holding it between his thumb and forefinger, wiggling it a bit so it catches the light. “…back where it belongs.” Davis takes my left hand and places it back on my third finger.  I think my finger missed the diamond as much as I did.

             
I look up, away from the ring; to see is a pair of clearly thrilled emerald eyes.  What a girl wouldn’t give to have those eyes and eyelashes.  Then my gaze drops to see Davis smiling at me, but something is wrong.  His smile is more smirky than before, as a matter of fact, he is only smiling on one side.

             
“Your smile…” My voice is thin and frightened sounding.  “It’s broken.” 

             
“I know,” Davis says. I can’t help notice the defeat pouring out of him in those two words. “Are you going to be okay with that?”

             
I’m stunned Davis even has to ask.  I am, of course, surprised, but is it okay? “Davis, I am absolutely okay. I love your smile.  It’s a part of you, a part I am very fond of, among others …” I think I see Davis’ one-sided smile grow. “…but I love the whole Davis more.  I just…” I employ my trick of looking up at the lights to stop myself from welling up.  “Randall broke your smile, and it’s all my fault.”