Tension (2 page)

Stella texted George after her first full day in Montana, bored out of her mind. Prior to heading to the field office her second day in Montana, George received another text.

Headed to the office for another titillating day

Wish you were here to titillate me

Later that day, Patrick Greer, Stella’s roommate, had come to the bar to see if Stella had contacted him. There was an explosion and Patrick didn’t know if she was dead or alive.

That was the
second
time George lost Stella.

The long hours between Patrick’s visit to the bar and Patrick’s subsequent strained call that evening, notifying him that Stella was in the hospital and not the morgue, were excruciating. Time seemed to stretch forever. George told Hazel to run the bar and took the first flight to Montana. He didn’t remember the flight or the drive to the hospital. The only thing he remembered about that day was that he cried. George hadn’t cried since his dad died.

The nurse ushered him into the room, and there she was, unconscious, with what seemed like a dozen tubes coming out of her body; a tube and bandage-covered replica of his Stella. Seeing her brought a fresh round of tears to his eyes; he stood staring at her broken body for what seemed like hours. Then he gently crawled into bed with her and touched her. And he did another thing he hadn’t done since his dad passed. George prayed.

That’s how he met her parents. He was laying there, holding her and mumbling comforting words between sobbed prayers, when he heard people enter. He knew before he looked up that it had to be her parents. They walked with nervous shuffles, not the brisk efficiency of medical staff.

Stella’s mother sobbed openly and her father had stood there staring, stoic. George had carefully gotten out of the bed, wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his shirt, and held out his hand to Stella’s dad. “I’m Willston Finnegan.”

Stella’s dad was tall, probably over six feet, with salt and pepper hair. His lined face was worn and covered in stubble. His eyes were dark blue and vacant.

“Who?” Stella’s mother asked. George looked to Stella’s mother; her shocked faced outlined by her black bob, which shone in the florescent hospital lights. She was wearing tortoise shell glasses, a pink cardigan set, and jeans. She was the total opposite of Stella.

“Oh.” George cleared his throat. “George. Stella calls me George.”

Stella’s father never took his eyes off Stella, but shook George’s hand with a nod.

Stella’s mother took in George from head to toe, making careful note of his blotchy face and disheveled clothes. “George. Of course. I’m Miranda. Oh, God. I can’t believe this. This is Frank.” Miranda pointed at Stella’s dad, but his eyes never left his daughter. “Frank, remember when she broke her arm when she was ten? That’s what she looks like.” Miranda’s voice broke.

Stella’s father finally spoke. “She looks dead.”

George flinched.

“Frank!” Stella’s mother cried.

Frank looked to George for some sign of support. “This is nothing like a broken arm.”

“The nurse told me she’s doing the best as can be expected with all the injuries she sustained. Um…” George took a deep breath and rubbed his hand over his short hair. “Her vitals are good. They don’t think she’ll be paralyzed, but they won’t know until she wakes up. They repaired the damage to her heart. There was a slight rip where the bullet grazed it and then exited out her back.”

“They told you all that?” Stella’s mother asked, her eyes wide in surprise.

“Heather, her shift nurse, felt sorry for me,” George said, rubbing his head with his hands. “Also, they think I’m her brother.”

Miranda smiled weakly. “George, would you mind going to get us some coffee? I think we need a minute.”

“Sure.” George nodded and walked out. This wasn’t the way he imagined meeting Stella’s parents.

Stella walked hesitantly down the stairs, holding onto the railing for support. When she got to the sand, she smiled as she felt the warm grains surround each toe. Looking up, she saw Cooper, his expansive back to her as he sat watching the waves crashing on the shore, his tail wagging back and forth making a fan shape on the sand. Cooper’s straw-colored fur was longer than usual because George hadn’t known to get him shaved.

George sat next to Cooper, his tan, lean back was bare and showcasing a tattoo of a half of a heart covering his shoulder blade, which looked like someone had drawn it with a sharpie. Stella walked cautiously toward the water and eased her body down carefully next to George. They stayed silent, but she leaned into his side, touching him from his shoulder to his ankle until Cooper rose from George’s side and nuzzled in between them, forcing Stella to separate herself from George.

She put her hand on Cooper’s back, sighed, and pushed her sunglasses up her nose. “I love you, you know.”

George turned and looked at her, a tear threatened to fall from his eye. “I swear, El, you’re going to be the death of me.”

The bullet had clipped her heart and traveled through her shoulder blade and her back, wreaking havoc on internal organs and bones. She had heinous scars on her chest, spreading across her from one side to the other, where surgeons had to repair the internal damage. At one point, staples and stitches were the only things that held her together. All the doctors said she had been lucky, an inch this way or that way and she would have been dead. Lucky that the bullet had gone through her shoulder blade and not her spine or she would’ve been paralyzed; lucky that the bullet exited her body at all.
Lucky.
Her doctor told her that going out in the sun with the scars was a bad idea, but she could cover them up with bandages, which is what she’d done. She was a walking bandage.

“Maybe...” Stella smiled faintly. “Maybe it wouldn’t be a bad way to go, would it?”

He grabbed her hand.

“You know George, I don’t know if I’m digging the new tattoo. It’s kind of lame.”

He looked at her with wide-eyed astonishment; he thought she’d love it. “You don’t like it?”

“I love the thought behind it, but it looks like someone started something and it’s not finished.”

George used his thumb to stroke her hand. “First of all, I could never have a tattoo as badass as yours.” They both laughed. “You have an actual bullet hole through where your heart is supposed to be. How can I match that?”

Stella ran her hand down Cooper’s back and stared at the waves.

George reached out and took her hand, kissing her knuckles. “It’s not finished, Love. You and I aren’t finished.”

The next morning, Stella’s eyes opened hesitantly. It took a few minutes to realize where she was. George must’ve gotten up early again. Her long raven locks covered her face. Light shimmered through the closed burlap curtain; the bright green of the walls reminded her of the Jell-O they served in the hospital. All the artwork in the room she was sharing with George was happy, palm trees and sunsets on beaches. She knew it was meant to be relaxing. It was a beach house after all, but it was so cheery it made her want to vomit. Hate curled around her, nuzzling her neck. The past weeks had been full of doctors, physical therapists, and people talking in hushed voices. Hushed voices pissed her off. All the doctors and nurses had walked on eggshells around her. She was alive. She’d been poked, prodded, talked about, and basically degraded for weeks. Her bitterness was difficult to hide, but she was trying.
The least they could do was talk honestly
.

As she rolled onto her back, the dull pain in her chest made her rake her hand over the battered skin above her breasts. Her chest ached; she’d been told it may always ache.
Just another thing to make it impossible to get that motherfucker out of my mind
. The stitches and staples that had once covered her chest had either disintegrated or been removed, but the jagged scars and the feeling of being ripped apart remained. It might never go away. She was reminded on a daily basis, often multiple times a day.
Hate.

She was getting better at smiling, laughing, and talking about normal things. It was hard work to push away the feelings she felt toward
him
. The betrayal and the hatred threatened to smother her and invaded her thoughts on an hourly basis, sometimes more. Stella was trying; she was working on perfecting her fake smile. It had come a long way since waking up after weeks in a drug-induced coma.

She’d opened her eyes and felt a weight in the palm of her hand; someone was clutching her fingers. Not quite able to see clearly, it took several minutes to take in the room. There was someone on her left and that person was most definitely holding her hand. There were two more dark figures in the room, but her vision was hazy. Someone was pacing at the foot of her bed. She heard the low rumbling of music off to her right. The level of light coming through the window kept the room in shadows, showing it was daybreak or sunset.
Where was she?
Opening her mouth to speak, she was stunned to find that she couldn’t. Then she realized there was something down her throat and she started to choke on it. Choking, she involuntarily squeezed her hands and the person on her left yelled.

“El? Oh God, get the nurse. El!”

The person at her feet ran out, the one on the right started crying. She tried speak again, but couldn’t. Panic started to set in.
What the fuck
? Her mouth felt as if someone had poured an entire sandbox into it and then banned her from drinking water. The room suddenly came into view, her eyes clearing substantially.

George was leaning over her, clutching her hand. He looked as if he was going to cry or had been crying, his eyes red-rimmed and bloodshot. There was so much exhaustion in his eyes that the familiar green flecks were barely noticeable.

Her mother was standing on the right and blubbering, her hair disheveled, which never happened. She tried to say “Mom.” She couldn’t.

“Stella, baby!” her father yelled as he bounded back into the room. “Holy shit, I ...”

Nurses and doctors swarmed her bedside, pushing everyone else out of the room. Tubes were pulled, her throat opened and she took a huge gasp of air. She began coughing uncontrollably, which made her entire body fill with a weird sensation.
Pain.
Her gown was pulled down as the doctors and nurses examined her entire body. Stella was mortified.

“Stella, I’m Dr. Houston. I’ve been watching over you for the past couple of weeks. We’re going to check some of your vitals and other parts of you and then I’ll allow your loved ones back in. Okay?”

When she didn’t respond, the doctor asked again. “Okay?”

Stella nodded. She couldn’t talk; her throat felt like sandpaper. A nurse finally offered her a plastic cup with a straw and put it to her lips. Stella took a long drink of the cool liquid. It tasted like a watered down sports drink, but was like heaven and soothed her parched throat.

As the doctors and nurses went through the routine of checking all of her vitals, she looked around the room. She tried to remember how she got here or how long she’d been here; anything. Her brain couldn’t think of anything except Jamie’s eyes as he pulled the trigger, making her entire life veer in a different direction, again. Her stomach turned at the thought that Jamie, the person she’d once thought was the love of her life, had shot her while looking into her eyes. She felt a tiny growth in her gut, an unfamiliar feeling she couldn’t quite place.

All the memories came rushing back and she dry heaved. A nurse held a plastic bowl in front of her in case she threw up. The memory that this person she’d followed to DC and who she had planned to marry, faked his own death to go undercover with the ATF, reverberated throughout her body. She heaved again. And then the fucker came back from the dead and shot her. Angry tears sprang from her eyes. He did this to her. She was ripped to shreds, literally and figuratively.