I frowned and swallowed through the ache in my throat at him calling us a mistake. Was that what he really thought? Offering no further explanation, his silence became all-consuming, and my confusion evolved into anger. My body tensed as it engulfed me and had me gritting my teeth from the pain it caused my healing body.
“You told me you loved me, I heard you, and now you’re leaving me?” My voice sounded raspy and pitiful, and I cleared my throat as I struggled to sit up. “What I did saved your sisters life; and I almost died, but I’m just a f**king mistake to you? You a**hole!” My voice rose with my anger, ending with a shout that echoed satisfyingly off the walls of the hospital room.
Grabbing the nearest object, a bottle of water, I pegged it at his head, but my body was weak and sore, and it fell pathetically short of the mark. I watched the lid break off and water spill out everywhere, and right at that moment I felt like that bottle of water was me.
I was starting to wonder if the paramedics that worked rapidly at saving my life a week ago, shouldn’t have tried so hard. Their frantic movements and voices were still fresh in my mind.
“What have we got?” A female barked the question as they set their bags down and started undoing clips and zippers.
“Gunshot wound to the chest and stomach,” Jared replied.
“Move. Now,” Another man instructed. I felt something press at my chest, hands fluttering over me.
“How old is she?” the man asked.
“Twenty-four,” Mac replied.
“Any allergies? On any medications?”
“No, nothing,” Mac muttered.
“How’s the breathing?”
“Shallow. Blood pressure bottoming out, and she’s turning blue. Collapsed lung.”
“Crap. Starting decompression now. How long ago was she shot?”
“Maybe about fifteen minutes ago,” Jared said.
“We need her in ER yesterday.”
I had come to again when they were loading me into the ambulance. I could feel the jolt of being guided to the waiting doors.
“Evie!” I’d heard Henry’s anguished shout from far away.
“Step back,” the curt voice of the female paramedic ordered.
“Damn you, Jared. How the f**k did this happen?” Coby’s distraught voice was close, and I felt a hand brush down the side of my face.
The paramedic spoke again. “Just one goes with her.”
At the time, I couldn’t open my eyes to see what the fuss was about. I was floating high. It felt amazing.
I buzzed for the nurse. She needed to take me back to the floating place. STAT.
“I don’t understand why you’re doing this.” I choked out the words as I slumped back in my bed. I didn’t want to look at him, but I couldn’t look away. He stood there, so beautiful, almost close enough to touch in the small room, but the distance was now a living thing that pulsed between us.
He cursed and shoved his hands in his pockets, making no move to pick up the bottle leaking water all over the floor.
“Remember both those a**holes that almost got you killed? All I wanted to do was keep you safe, but it turned out I was the biggest one of all. I didn’t plan on being another a**hole in your life, Evie. I never wanted to be that person to you.” Jared’s shoulders slumped as he stared out the window, the wall propping his weight. He looked defeated and pain lined his eyes, sending a pang through my body.
I looked away quickly, closing eyes so tired they burned. “All I know is that you’re leaving me. Just like everyone else who mattered that came before you.” I opened my eyes and glared at him. “Despite our misunderstandings, I thought you were so far beyond doing something like this that I actually trusted you. In your eyes, I saw strength and courage and fearlessness, but I guess I saw wrong. I never figured you for a coward. I always thought that was my department, but obviously I’m not…I've never been the best judge of character have I?”
His shoulders slumped further at the words that left a bitter taste in my mouth. I felt the urge to escape the confines of my hospital bed and run away from this new nightmare.
I knew I’d been scared and cautious, but in the end I’d given him my heart, and now the warmth that once flooded my body from feeling treasured by this man was now a cold chill of rejection. I remembered being in my car after I picked him up from hospital, when he’d said that when I wasn’t with him it was like someone had turned out the lights, and here he hadn’t even left, and it was so dark I thought I’d never see daylight again.
Where was that damn nurse? I pressed the buzzer impatiently, biting down on my lip so I wouldn’t beg him to stay.
“Get out.” My hoarse shout ripped through the silence and he flinched at the words as though I’d hit him.
Swallowing hard, he nodded, his chest expanding as he drew in a deep, shaky breath.
“I’m sorry, Evie.” His deep voice was rough, cracking on the apology, and he spared one more glance at me, his eyes trailing slowly over my face as though to memorise every feature, before he turned and left the room. The door closed with a soft click behind him.
The fight left me as I heard his heavy footsteps recede down the hall. I turned my head, my face pressing into the pillow as the tears came, heavy in my throat and spilling over to slide down my face. I could hear my own choking sobs in the empty room and cradled my arms over my stomach, never feeling more empty or alone in my entire life, than I did right at that moment.
When the nurse arrived she stood at the end of my bed, checked my chart, and informed me that she couldn’t give me anything more for at least another hour.
My eyes were bruised from tears, my body ached from head to toe, and my voice was thick and raspy. “But it hurts so much.”
She glanced up from the page she was busy scribbling a note on. I didn’t know what she was writing. I imagined it was something like patient acting irrationally, proceed with caution, yet her eyes on me softened with concern. “Do you need the doctor?”
Not unless his or her speciality was in the practice of life reassignment. I shook my head and waited for sleep to give me some peace.
* * *
When I woke again, I welcomed the return of the blessed floaty feeling with a loving hug and a warning not to leave like that again. I didn’t feel better, I didn’t feel worse, but I also didn’t feel happy or broken. I just didn’t feel. At least for a moment, until, not opening my eyes, I focused on what appeared to be an argument in progress.
Henry growled. “I say we play the song.”
“No way!” Mac hissed. “We’ve been sitting on this for years, asshead, and you’re not ruining it for me now.”
“Come on. She gets that song out on repeat every time she’s suffering through something really bad. It’ll help.”
I felt then. I felt an ”oh shit” moment.
“Have you ever listened to the words of that song?”
A pause. “Um…no.”
“Maybe it might be too much for her. I mean, how many times has she seen him walk away from her? The song bloody sings about how nothing a hundred men or more could do to take me away from you.”
Jesus, Henry. Thanks for making me sound like a pathetic dishrag.
Another pause. “Well…we can’t control what she listens to, can we? Why don’t we just pack her iPod for next time.”
Henry sounded frustrated. “Mac, she’s just been shot and you’re worried over blackmail material.”
“Henry, don’t you see? If we start acting all retarded around her and try to be something we think she needs when all she needs is for us to be ourselves, she’ll bloody well fall apart.”
Upon the realisation I would have to oust my obsession with Toto's Africa before it could be used against me, I tuned out, willing them both to leave and take their argument with them.
* * *
The next two weeks followed the news that Jared made good on his words and left. The news extinguished the last small piece of hope that maybe he’d stayed, and losing it was like another blow. Casey had moved in with Travis, and Peter moved back to our place. It probably wasn’t a moment too soon because although Peter was admirably passionate in all his endeavours, it could be wearing on some. Henry was busy helping Mac with the Jamieson obligations while she dealt with the press, and believe me, the press was huge. If we thought touring with Sins of Descent would help our rise to success, then the lead singer of Jamieson getting shot gained us international fame. Gary from Jettison was riding a wave of excitement so high he automatically added an extra zero to the dollar figure on our record contract. Journalists were apparently frothing rabidly to win the all-important first interview. Perhaps I should’ve thought of getting shot sooner. Who knew?
Eventually I left the hospital, unnaturally quiet and subdued. The only consolation was that it appeared I had the constitution of a Terminator. I’d survived through so much. War could rain down, leaving devastation and destruction in its wake, and I would walk out the other side. That boded well for me in facing the wrath of Coby. If I thought the fires of hell were going to swallow me up and spit me out after the drugging fiasco, busting out and going all Quentin Tarantino on Jimmy’s ass was enough to unleash the unholy hounds of hell.
* * *
The next three months passed by as though I was in a repetitive dream. Wake up, physical therapy, write songs, go to bed. Intersperse that with interviews, meetings with Jettison Records, and counselling sessions with Jude, and there was my life. I was continually exhausted from being unable to sleep. Every time I closed my eyes, I felt the jerk of bullets hitting my body, I saw Jimmy grinning at me, and I saw blood. Rivers of it. Sometimes I would see it without closing my eyes, and the anxiety had my heart fluttering in my chest and me sucking in short, tight breaths that never seemed to reach my lungs. The anger at Jared for not being there when I needed him most was a slow burning ember that I welcomed. I wanted to hate him, and I wanted to feel it. I wanted to shake with the rage, but then I would remember the sweet plea in his eyes and his voice when he begged me to be with him. I remembered the way his lips would curl up and his eyes crinkle when I sassed him. Most of all, I remembered lying on the floor of Jimmy’s house and seeing the agony in his eyes as he bent over me, and the fierce desperation in his words when he told me he loved me while tears spilled over and ran down his face. Then my anger would fade to despair, knowing that no one would ever matter to me the way he did. That no man would ever find their way through the broken pieces left behind from a love I’d never have again. Despite all of it, a breathless anticipation would cut through the void whenever my phone rang.
I shouldn’t have wanted to hear from him, but I did.
And it hurt.
Each day that passed by without hearing his voice pierced my heart until I had to fist my hands together and dig sharp nails into my skin to direct the pain elsewhere.
“Hey!”
A voice cut through the fog and someone splashed water in my face. I turned to confront the threat, putting my hand in the ocean and flicking water in retaliation with a smile that was forced.