Love Today (57 page)

Except for Jared lying in a hospital bed.

The sight of him choked me up. John
told me
that he’d give me privacy and he left. I couldn’t move at first, trying to decide which way the lump in my throat was going to go. Finally it
forced its way out
, and I let out a sob as I approached the bed and sat on the edge of it. I was afraid to touch him and just barely touched the blanket that was spread over him.

His face was bruised
,
but not as badly as Kurt’s. He had a gash above his right eyebrow and it looked like the other small cuts were from shards of glass. He didn’t have a shirt on because his entire right side looked like it was wrapped in bandages. I reached out and touched his left shoulder, where it appeared to be perfect compared to his right side
, and I leaned over to kiss it
.

I slid my hand down to hold his. I examined it for a moment, noting a few cuts across the top. I felt some gauze or something on the underside of it and I peeked
at his palm that looked taped.

I was shocked when his hand moved and lightly squeezed mine.
His eyes were partially open, looking at me, but then they closed again. “I love you, Taryn.”

It made me cry but I leaned over and
softly
kissed his cheek. “I love you too,” I said quietly.

He opened his eyes again but it looked painful, and then he closed them again.

“Do you want me to shut the shades more?” I asked. They were
mostly
closed, but I got up to shut
them all the way
. When I returned to the bed his eyes were open again.

“Thank you.”

It had only been twenty-four hours since he came out of surgery and the doctors said he’d been doing fine. The incident in the ambulance had caused everyone to worry, but thankfully there were trained professionals that knew what to do in situations like that
.

“Is Maggie here too?” he asked. His voice was barely above a whisper.

“No, she’s with my dad
at home
. My mom came out with me the second we got the news.”

He seemed to think about that for a moment, or at the least, take the time to ease into speaking and moving. I honestly wasn’t aware that he was at that point yet, and then the doctor came in
and
said, “Whoa, what are we doing awake?” He’d said it with a smile, so I wasn’t afraid for his life or anything, but I was startled.

“He hasn’t been awake yet?” I asked.

Dr.
Glenn
looked over his vitals and grabbed a clipboard, glancing it over. “Nope, not yet. We’ve been keeping him under pretty well.”

“You can’t keep me out of it when this girl is around,” Jared told him.

I smiled but at the same time worried I was going to be banned from his room
again
. If he was still supposed to be sedated, maybe I was hindering his progress.

“No, I guess not,” the doctor smiled. He turned to me
and said, “We juiced him down a little
this morning
. I’m not surprised he’s awake, but he’s probably
still
pretty sleepy. Don’t be alarmed if he dozes in and out.” I nodded and he turned his attention back to Jared. “How you feeling?”

Jared barely smiled. “Is that a rhetorical question?”

Dr.
Glenn
chuckled. “No, not really. I’m sure you hurt quite a bit
—even with the meds
.”

He traveled down to Jared’s feet and lifted the blanket up to his shin. For the first time I realized his right leg was in a cast. The doctor took a pointy thing out of his pocket and poked Jared’s big toe.
He
reacted and the doctor smiled.

“Guess you could feel that. Good deal. How ‘bout this one?” He did the same thing to the other foot and got the same reaction. He tapped each of Jared’s toes, asked him to move them on his own, and had him rotate his left ankle. “Excellent,” he concluded, jotting something down on his clipboard.

Another doctor joined us and the two of them discussed several things amongst each other, and also with me. And Dr.
Glenn
was right. Jared wandered in and out of
conscious
ness the entire thirty minutes.

But that was until his mom entered the room.

Chapter Forty-
Three

The fiery darts she shot at me were the evil sort and she snarled, “What is she doing in here?”

Both doctors looked surprised, even looking to me for an answer.

“John consented for me to be here,” I told her
, feeling like I had to fumble for an excuse
.

Jared was awake again, already feeling the hostility in the room. He looked confused.
“What?” he mumbled. “Why did my dad have to consent for you to be here?”

Jocelyn was at his side in a
milli
second. “Jared? You’re awake?” She let out a giant exclamation of relief
as she took his hand
, and even though I could relate to how she felt, I couldn’t shake her
hatred
of me. “Oh my God, I was so worried for you. Oh Jared, I’m so glad you’re okay—”

He’d pulled away from her by then, even wincing in pain.
Dr. Taylor
said something about his ribs but no one even acknowledged
the portly man
.

“Mom, did you tell Taryn she couldn’t be in here?”

She smiled in a motherly sort of way. “Honey, I didn’t let
anyone
in here. You needed to rest. You needed to get better—”

His bitter chuckle cut her off, especially because he grimaced again.

“You almost died, Jared,” she said sternly. “Don’t you get upset with me for that.”

“Ma’am, let’s not get him agitated…” Dr.
Glenn
began. But she gave him the evil eye before he could finish.

“Yeah, I need to relax,” Jared said
with a painful sigh
. “I think you should leave.”

I thought he meant everyone, but when I took a step toward the door he said, “Not you, Taryn. Please stay. Please?”

I knew it wasn’t his fault, but if there was anything that could make Jocelyn
hate
me even more, that was it.
Her look was only brief but it spoke a thousand words.

I honestly did not understand her.

His mom left and Jared reached his hand
out
for mine.
“Taryn, I am so sorry—
”

“
S
h
h
, don’t worry about it. Everything is okay now, and I’ll be here until you can go home. Let’s work on that, okay?”

He nodded, but I knew he still had unresolved issues with his mom. I didn’t know what to do about it anymore and I feared that this most recent incident would continue to haunt me.

Thankfully the rest of the crew wasn’t banished from seeing
him
anymore. Later that afternoon they came in two at a time to see for themselves that
he
was indeed awake and on the road to recovery. He was still pretty groggy and
in and out of sleep
for
a lot
of it, but I think for the most part everyone felt so much better that there wasn’t
a
brick
wall to keep
him
from knowing how much his friends cared.

That
brick
wall being Jocelyn Miller.

I stayed in the hospital with Jared for
three
days. My mom had returned home but I knew that Jared’s parents were still in Chicago
until the day before he was discharged
. Both of them did pop in and out of
his
room, separately,
and even though
there were plenty of awkward moments, I was thankful that nothing got out of hand. Jared still wasn’t on
good terms with either of them, and I wasn’t sure if he ever would be.

It was so nice when he was finally sent home to California
. T
he tour
had been
postponed, b
ut t
hat was the least of my worries.
I just wanted Jared to get better.

He was forced to be in a wheelchair for
the first part
of his recovery. With his broken ribs and shoulder injury it was way too difficult to use crutches. He chose to hobble into the bathroom
though
,
and
even that was difficult for him. It took a while because he could only used one half of his body; his entire right side was under repairs and was pretty much useless for the time being.

His right leg was broken in two different places, and the doctors even
said
that he had ligament damage in his knee. That would have to be tended to once the cast came off.
Jared
had a lot of physical therapy ahead of him, but the only thing
he
focused on was that he would be able to dance with me on our wedding day. I thought it was very sweet, and it was very much like Jared to be thinking of something like that.

Maggie was glad he was ba
ck home. She understood that he’d been
in an accident and had a lot of injuries, but she didn’t understand the career aspect of his life. It didn’t mean anything to her that
the rest of
h
is U.S. tour had been postponed; she was just glad to have him home.
As it was, we weren’t even sure if he’d be ready to tour Europe. That was the second goal he was shooting for; his trip to Europe last year had been cut short because of
other
unforeseen
misfortune
. Career-wise, Jared couldn’t do that again.

We’d been home
in San Francisco
for almost two weeks when I could tell Jared was getting antsy. He enjoyed day-to-day with us as a whole, but he
was dying to play some music. In fact, he did spend a lot of time writing. Sitting at the piano wasn’t very comfortable for him, but occasionally he’d
carefully
strum a guitar. He was pretty pleased when I set up Maggie’s keyboard for him next to the couch. He could sit with his leg up, and because the stand was adjustable, it was level for his left hand to play.

But whatever he’d been writing, I could tell that he was ready to compose the entire
song
. Since I’d met him, Jared had
also
been writing a solo album while finishing up
some songs for his band’s latest album.  I believed that his newest song was meant for his solo project, although I never asked him straight out. I loved it when he shared anything with me, and I was always interested in all of his work, but sometimes he just had a process that did not consist of talking about
it
. I’d catch bits and pieces of it sometimes, but unless he openly shared something, or asked my opinion, I didn’t interrupt him.

By the fourth week he could hobble down to the basement on his own, and after that, I didn’t see him for about six hours of the day.
From upstairs I could hear him playing if he was just messing around on his instruments, but if he was inside his recording booth, no sound traveled upward. If the basement door was open, I knew he didn’t mind if I went downstairs. Otherwise if it was shut, I knew he was working on something he wanted to keep quiet. I asked only once and h
e just smiled and said, “Can’t tell you.”

During this time, Jack, Kurt, and Marcus
came up north
quite a bit, along with Adrian and a few other industry people. I think those visits were for the band’s sake, to keep fresh because Jared planned on being ready to go when the Europe
an
dates hit. The U.S. dates that had been postponed were rescheduled for October and
early
November, and the band also composed two new songs to take on the road for their fans.

In all the music and family time, there really were wedding decisions going on as well.
It became even more important to me that our wedding and reception were both simple. I didn’t care about anything fancy or
impressive
; I just wanted that permanent union with Jared so we could start a family together.
My mom
had
sewn
Maggie’s dress already, but she also finished mine. Even though it was simple—how I wanted it to be—it was beautiful. May hit, the weather was gorgeous, and I was dying to be a married woman.

Jared had his cast removed that week. It was kind of scary because although he was told he wouldn’t be able to walk very well on his leg, I
think he actually expected to.
When it didn’t happen in the therapy room, I could tell he was frustrated.