Stubborn Love (26 page)

The next day, 3:06pm – Mia

The four of us walk into
the room that Ash has been moved to. Hers is the only bed in there, but right
now, there are two people sleeping in it, curled around each other. Luke is
holding Ash against him and even though he is asleep, I can see the pain all
over his face. I can’t even begin to imagine what his night has been like, but
I suspect this is a million times worse than anything he ever went through
growing up.

“We should let them
sleep,” I whisper to the guys.

“Yeah, we should,”
Jared
says. “I’ll just leave the bag for them and we can
come back later.”

“I’m awake,” Luke says,
slowly opening his eyes.

“Sorry,” I whisper,
walking towards the bed.

I watch as he slowly sits
up, trying not to disturb Ash, who is tucked in against him.

“It’s okay,” he says. “I
was just dozing.”

I walk over and wrap my
arms around his shoulders, pulling him in a hug as best I can, given he is
still sitting on the bed. “You okay?” I ask.

“Yeah, no, I don’t really
know, Mia,” he says so only I can hear.

“What can I do, Luke? Tell
me what you need.” I pull back and look at him and I can see the pain in his
eyes. When we were kids, he always looked so sad, resigned almost, to the shit
he was forced to put up with. Then when he met Ash, discovered music, he
changed. His eyes were full of happiness and life; he was a completely
different person. Escaping from our father changed him, but music and Ash,
those two
made
him. Made him into the
person he is now. Seeing that change in him was exactly why I’d done what I’d
done.

But right now, that
happiness and life is gone, replaced instead with pain and misery. Agony
really. But it’s different than before,
it’s
deeper,
darker, a blackness that has worked its way inside of him. I can only hope that
with every day Ash gets
better,
so does he.

He shrugs at me, as if he
doesn’t know the answer.

“She’s going to be okay,
you know.”

“Yeah,” he says, although
he doesn’t sound like he believes it.

We only stay for an hour,
and Ash doesn’t really wake up during that time, not even when Ben and Sarah
finally show up, hand in hand. Luke starts to relax a little, if saying more
than three words at a time can be called relaxed. At one point he even cracks a
tiny smile. I watch as he sits, holding Ash’s hand the entire time, and I know
he notices Jared and me. I’m sitting on the armrest of Jared’s chair and his
hand is resting on my back. It’s only when Luke sees
that,
that
he does smile and it gives me hope.

Jared’s right, Luke never
did have a problem with us being together, it was always me.

When a nurse finally comes
and kicks us all out, I walk over and pull my brother into another hug,
pressing a kiss to his cheek. “You’re going to be okay Luke, both of you are.”

“Yeah, thanks Mia. Looks
like you and Jared are doing okay again too?”

I pull back and look at
him, see another tiny smile on his face. I smile back at him, trying to
encourage it. “Yeah, we are.”

“Good,” he says, his smile
a tiny bit bigger as he hugs me again.

Six days later – Jared

I watch Luke and Ash as
they walk out to the living room. They both look completely exhausted. Luke
especially looks like death warmed up, and with an arm around Ash as though
he’s never letting her go. It’s
kinda
easy to understand why, after everything that’s happened.

“Hey Ash, how you
feeling?” I ask as they sit down on the couch, Ash curling up against Luke,
practically in his lap.

She smiles at me as though
she’s starting to get a little sick of the question and I can imagine Luke’s
been asking her ever since they left the hospital an hour ago, probably even
earlier. “I’m
okay
thanks Jared, just tired now. You
talk to Mia yet?”

I smile back at her. She
has known far more than we’d ever let on. She’s also been the one pushing both
of us to do something, to fix this thing between us. The last time we had
spoken she’d told me life is short and I shouldn’t waste it. I really
understand where she’s coming from now.

“Yeah we’ve talked, a
lot,” I say to her.

She smiles as me and then
the three of us sit in silence. The only noises are the sounds of the TV, an
old ball game on low and Mia’s voice drifting out from the bedroom as she
speaks on the phone. I want to say something more, to say that yes Mia and I
are together again, that it’s going to be different this time. I want to talk
to Luke about what happened before, about his father and all the things he
tried to do. But I know now is not the time.

Eventually I turn to him
and notice Ash is asleep, curled up with her head on his shoulder and her arm
around his waist. Luke has both of his arms wrapped tightly around
her,
just watching her sleep and I don’t think two people
could get any closer. It hits me then, just how close he’d really come to
losing her.

“You okay?” I ask quietly,
nodding toward the sleeping Ash to explain what I mean.

I watch as Luke kisses the
top of her head. “Better than I was.”

“She’s
gonna
be alright you know, she’s a tough girl and she’s through the worst of it now.”

Luke turns to me, a look
of complete devastation on his face as though he is reliving the nightmare on
repeat in his head constantly. “Yeah I know, I just…” I watch as he turns back,
kisses her again. “I just don’t know what I would have done if I had lost her,
you know. I don’t know how I could have survived that, how I could possibly
have gone on without her...” I can hear the emotion, the words choking him on
their way out.

I reach out and put my
hand on his shoulder. “Yeah I know Luke, but you didn’t lose her and you need
to remember that. Don’t dwell on the bad shit, because it’ll eat you up,
destroy you.” Luke turns to look at me again as I continue. “You remember what
Mia was like after she saw you, don’t let that happen to you too.”

I watch Luke as he closes
his eyes and lowers his head to rest on top of Ash’s. She’s fast asleep and
doesn’t even notice him doing it, but I can see that for him, it is everything.

“I know I didn’t ever say
it Jared, but I’m glad you were there for her back then, I’m glad Mia had you,
I’m glad she’s always had you.” His eyes open now. “Thank you for looking after
her.”

I turn away; stare up at
the ceiling as I lay my head back on the couch. “It was nothing,” I eventually
say, knowing it was never a chore. Loving Mia was always easy; it was having
her love me back that was tough.

“It wasn’t nothing dude,
you know that.”

I just shrug. I don’t know
what he wants me to say, there’s still so much he doesn’t understand, doesn’t
know. But now is hardly the time to go into all of that.

“So, you two have sorted
all your shit out right?” Luke suddenly asks.

“Yeah…” I say, but it
sounds flat.

“But?” Luke asks.

I turn to face him now.
“You should talk to your sister Luke, just talk to her.”

I watch as he nods at me
even though I don’t think he understands half of it, before we sit in silence
again. I want him to know the truth about what happened between us, but it
isn’t just my story to tell. Luke needs to speak with Mia and hear her side,
and as much as I want him to know, I need it to come from her. This isn’t
really about me, and despite all our best intentions, it had always been about
him, their father, their past, all the things she had chosen to do. So I stay
silent, knowing I need to let them sort this out.

“I’m
gonna
take Ash to bed,” Luke suddenly says.

I nod at him, watching as
he stands up with Ash in his arms and walks her into their room.

Watching them, suddenly
all I want to do is be with Mia. I can still hear her voice on the phone in my
room and I don’t really care if she talks all night, I just need to be with
her. I push up off the couch, kill the TV and walk into my room. Mia is lying
on her back in the middle of my bed, the phone to her ear. Her eyes meet mine
as I walk in and shut the door and her smile tells me it’s okay. Without a word
I crawl onto the bed and lay my head on her stomach, my arms wrapping around
her waist as I pull her against me. I hear her say goodbye before she drops the
phone on the side table. I feel her hand running through my hair and my eyes
close in response.

“You okay?” she asks me.

I squeeze her tighter.
“Yeah.”

Mia slides down the bed so
she is face to face with me. “Is everything alright Jared?” she asks gently.

I pull her towards me,
kissing her gently on the lips as I tell her, “I just…I can’t ever lose you
Mia, I can’t lose you again.”

Mia’s hand gently brushes
my cheek as she pulls back to look me in the eyes. “You won’t Jared, I promise.
You won’t ever lose me again.”

I close my eyes, begging
for it to be true.

Seven days later – Mia

When I wake up I can hear
the sound of ice and sleet hitting the window, winter must finally be here. I
slowly roll over so I am facing
Jared,
my body trapped
under one of his arms, which is wound around my shoulders. He’s still asleep,
barely stirring as I bury myself against his chest, my hands between us, and
resting against his warm skin. I close my eyes, even though I’m not tired, as I
remember last night’s conversation with his parents.

Jared knew I was a calling
them and even though he wanted to be the one to tell them, I knew it was my
job, my responsibility. Thankfully, they’d
been incredibly
understanding
, although really, I don’t know why I expected them to be
anything else. His family is amazing and his dad was great. He listened and
while I’m not sure he believed my father’s threats could turn into anything, he
acted like he did, because he’s good like that. His mom, on the other hand, was
just excited that Jared and I were back together and I couldn’t help but smile
at her obvious happiness and say yes when I promised we’d be back out to see
them before we left for LA.

Now there was only one
other person I had to speak to. And like a sign that now is the time to do
that, I hear noises of someone moving about in the kitchen. Jared is lying with
his arms wrapped around me and I’m certain Ash will not be allowed out of bed,
probably forever, which leaves only one person.

Carefully, I slide myself
out of Jared’s arms, knowing this is probably the only chance I’ll get for some
time alone with my brother. Pulling on one of Jared’s t-shirts and a pair of
pajama
pants, I quietly open the door and walk out.

“Hey, how are you doing?”
I ask as I walk into the kitchen and put an arm around his waist.

Luke shrugs as he looks
down at me. “Hey sis, I’m okay.”

“Did you sleep at all?” I
ask him, knowing he always had problems sleeping when he lived at home.

Luke shakes his head as he
wraps an arm around my shoulders. “Not really, no.”

“When was the last time
you did sleep Luke?” He looks like shit, which given everything that’s
happened, is completely understandable, but it still worries me. I know he
wasn’t sleeping well in the hospital either.

“December thirtieth,” he
says.

I pull him into a hug,
squeezing my arms around him. I wish I didn’t have to tell him all of this stuff
now. I wish I didn’t have to dump even more shit on him, especially given it’s
about our stupid fucking father, the person I know Luke must hate more than
anyone.

“You need to rest you
know,” I tell him.

I feel his laugh against
me. He always laughs when I tell him what to do, ever since we were kids. He
always used to tell me it wasn’t my job to look after him; it was the other way
around. He was the oldest, so he looked after me. But I had to look after him,
otherwise who else would.

“You do Luke, you need to
rest so you can look after Ash.” Luke’s arms squeeze around my shoulders, a
silent acknowledgement that he knows I’m right, even if he has no intention of
doing what I’m telling him. “How is she doing?” I ask.

“Good, she’s doing good,”
he says, pulling back a little and smiling at me. “So…you and Jared huh?”

I smile back at him, punch
his arm as I feel my cheeks start to heat a little. “Yeah, me and Jared.”

“You guys finally get back
together then?”

I feel my smile get
bigger. “Yeah we did, we talked, a lot. Sorted things out,” I say, watching for
his reaction. “You’re still okay with that right?”

“Of course I am, I always
was,” Luke says as he pulls me in for another hug. “I’m really glad, Mia. You
were always much happier with him.”

I rest my head on Luke’s
shoulder, knowing he genuinely means it. As I glance at him, I see from the
corner of my eye the tattoo he got done for Ash a week ago, a declaration, a
promise and a future.
He’s happy now
,
I know this
. He doesn’t need me to look after him like I
used to because she will do that for me. I know she really will. I wish I
didn’t have to burden him with all of this other shit, especially now, but he
needs to know.

“Luke,” I say, lifting my
head off his shoulder and taking a step back. “I need to tell you some things.”

“Okay…”

“I’m sorry, I really wish
I didn’t, especially now, after everything that’s happened,” I say, biting my
bottom lip.

“It’s okay Mia, really.
What is it?”

I take a deep breath.
“It’s about dad.”

Luke visibly tenses when I
say the last word and I can’t say I blame him. This man has caused so much
heartache for both of us, Luke especially. Unfortunately, Luke doesn’t even
know the half of it.

“What about him?” he says,
his voice harder now, but in a way only I would notice. It’s the way he used to
talk back when we were kids, the way he’d talk to him.
Emotionless,
cold, removed, as though he didn’t trust himself not to say something real.
Five years ago, he learned the hard way not to say what he really thought,
which was invariably the opposite of what dad was telling him to do.

“A year ago,” I start,
wondering how the hell I’m going to get this all out. “He came to see me…in
Chicago.”

“What?” Luke asks and I
can tell he’s both shocked and worried. I take a step closer, put my hand on
his arm. Despite everything I’ve tried to do, it has always been Luke, looking
out for me, always. He is an amazing brother.

“He found out about Jared
and me,” I say. “About us being together, being serious, and about me leaving
Chicago to come back here.”

“What the fuck did he do,
Mia,” Luke asks, his voice like steel. “What did he do to you?”

I can
feel the tears
,
I knew they would come
. It feels
like I’ve been crying for the last week, ever since I started this whole thing
and I’m starting to get really sick of it. It’s hard to believe that only a
week ago, I was sitting on the couch with Ash and she was telling me that life
is too short and I should talk to Jared before I regret it and lose him forever
and I was telling her that she should tell Luke how she really feels, even
though I knew he already knew. Now Ash is in bed, recovering from a gun shot
wound, she’s told my brother she loves him and I’ve told Jared all of the shit
I carry with me because of my fucked up family and all the reasons I’ve put him
through hell for the past year.

It feels like this past
week has been going on for a year. And unfortunately, our biggest problem isn’t
going away any time soon.

Fuck…I have to wonder
whether any of this will ever get any easier. Looking at Luke, my brother, my
best friend, the only one who knows what I’m going through, what I have gone
through, I can’t believe I’m about to make it all worse for him.

“He came and saw me,” I
say. “He knew about me and Jared, about me moving back to Boston and he came
and saw me.”

“Fucking hell Mia, what
did he do, did he hit you, if he fucking hit you, I will kill him…”

“Luke, no, no, no, I
promise, it’s okay,” I say stepping closer and gripping his arm. “He didn’t do
that, I promise.” I’m staring into my brother’s eyes. Eyes that I know we
share, not just with each other, but with the man we both hate more than
anything. I try not to think about that though. I don’t see my dad in my
brother and I never will. Luke is nothing like him…nothing.

“Just listen okay,
please,” I beg.

Luke nods, his hand
scraping over his hair. I remember how weird it was for me to see it so short
that first time. Our entire lives, it had always been longer than this and I
remember the first time I saw him without it was a shock. Of course the bigger
shock had been seeing his face and everything dad had done to it, but I
remember the hair was the first thing I noticed. When he’d finally woken up and
I’d seen him do this, rub his hand over it, it was like he was wondering where
it had all gone too, and it had actually made me laugh at the time.

“I never told him about
you coming to Boston, you know that,” I say, watching as Luke nods again.
“Obviously, he found you, and apparently he found out about me leaving Chicago.
Something he apparently didn’t want me to do because of how it would make him
look.”

Luke nods as if he
understands, and I know he does. We both know the man knows no bounds, will
stop at nothing to get his own way. God, it’s like Luke and I aren’t even
people to him, much less his children. We are nothing but commodities, at best,
clients, with only one role
;
to make him look good.

“That probably explains
the random phone call I got from him then,” Luke suddenly says, his hand
rubbing his hair again.

“What, when?” I ask him.

Luke shrugs as though he’s
trying to remember. “Dunno, maybe around the time you guys were breaking up.”

“What did he say to you?”
I can’t believe our father.
Not only would
he come and
see me, try and tell me how to live my life, threatening the people I love the
most if I didn’t do what he wanted, but now he’s apparently called Luke too.

“He asked me why you were
leaving Chicago,” Luke says, his fingers gripping his head now. “Seemed to
think Jared and I had talked you in to ditching your job out there.”

I’m shaking my head in
amazement, even now, still surprised at the lengths our father will go to, just
to get his own way.

“And what did you say to
him?” I ask.

Luke laughs a little now,
his hand moving so it’s resting on the counter next to mine. I reach out and
rest mine over the top of his, trying to let him know it doesn’t matter what he
said, the damage was already done and that was solely thanks to our father.

“Well, I told him that he
didn’t control you, that you are an adult and he couldn’t tell either of us
what to do anymore.”

I smile
,
I can’t help it
. Fuck I would have loved to
have seen
dad’s face when he heard that. “Really?” I ask, my
voice like an excited little kid.

“Yeah, and then I told him
to stop trying to control everyone and everything, to listen for once in his
life and…” Luke pauses as though he wants to get the words exactly right. “And
then I said not to fucking call me again.”

I’m laughing now, wishing
I’d had the balls to say all of that when dad had shown up at my front door.
Luke always was the stronger one out of the two of us. Maybe that’s why dad
liked beating him down so much; he hated that defiance, hated that someone
would actually have the gall to challenge him.

“And what did he say?” I
ask.

Luke laughs as he says, “I
have no idea, my phone stopped working when I threw it against the wall and it
smashed into a million pieces.”

We are both laughing now
and I step into my brother, pulling him into a hug. “You are the best brother I
could have ever asked for, you know that.”

Luke rests his chin on the
top of my head. “Yeah, you’re not so bad as a sister either, you know.”

I laugh as I gently punch
him in the stomach, glad we can both see the humour in all of this bullshit
that’s happened.

“You never left Chicago in
the end though,” he says, his voice serious now. “What happened Mia, how come
you never came back? Why did you and Jared break up, why didn’t Jared just move
to Chicago? Did dad have something to do with that?”

I pull back a little, look
up at Luke and slowly nod.

“What did he do to you?”
Luke whispers and I know I have to tell him everything. About giving up Chicago
and why I was going to, and about giving up Jared and why I had to do that.

By the time I am finished,
I am crying again and Luke has his arm wrapped around my shoulders. I have no
idea if Jared has woken up, no idea if he is wondering where I am right now. I
left the door open, so I hope if he is awake, he can hear me. I have nothing to
hide from him anymore.

“Mia, fuck,” Luke says.
“Why didn’t you talk to me, talk to Jared,
talk
to one
of us at least?”

I wipe my cheeks, sick of
crying over all of this shit now. “I don’t know Luke, I was scared. Scared of
making everything worse, scared of him doing something to either of you,
especially after seeing what he was capable of, what he did when he found you.
I don’t know, I just…”

Luke pulls me into another
hug, his arms wrapping around me as he rests his chin on the top of my head
again.

“So you broke up with
Jared, spent the past year unhappy, all because of him, because of what he said
he would do?” he asks.

I nod against his chest.

“And if you’d just talked
to us, one of us, we could have sorted this out so you wouldn’t have had
anything to worry about?”

“I know, I know, I was an
idiot,” I say. “Trust me, I do know this.”

“So what now Mia, what
happens now?”

I pull back again, but
Luke keeps me close, an arm around my shoulder still. “Now I’ve told you both
everything,” I say. “And now I’m not going to let him tell me what to do, not
going to let him threaten the people I love. It’s not going to happen anymore.”

Luke doesn’t say anything
and when I finally look up at him, I can see he’s smiling, looking at me with a
mixture of amusement and something that almost looks like pride.

“What?” I ask him.

He laughs, rubbing his
knuckles on the top of my head like he did when we were kids. “Well it’s about
fucking time you stubborn ass!”

I laugh, wiping the last
of my tears away.