A new burning wetness pop up in my eyes, and the knot in my throat tightens as Riley starts after Coach. Nora. Oh, f**k meeeee, I still need to wait for Nora! I grab Riley back, more tears threatening to unleash when I realize I won’t be able to go with him.
“Riley, my sister! I told her to meet me here.”
He nods in understanding. “I’ll text you the name of the hospital.”
Nodding miserably, I watch him leave, wiping away more tears and not even knowing what to do with the whirlwind of emotions inside me. I desperately want to go with Remington, but I can’t ask Riley to trade places with me. Nora doesn’t know him, might change her mind if she sees him instead of me. I swear it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done, to watch him be taken away, all bloodied, without running after him.
I lean on the door of the women’s restroom, and wait, and wait, restless with worry and haunted by what I just saw.
My mind keeps spinning and I feel I will wake up soon and realize this was just a bad dream, and Remy did not just commit the most painful almost-suicide up on that ring.
But he did.
He had.
My Remy.
The man who played me “Iris.”
The man who laughs with me, runs with me, and says I’m a little firecracker.
The strongest man I’ve ever known, and the one who’s been most gentle to me.
The one who’s a little bit bad, a little bit crazy, a little bit too hard to handle for me.
When three hours pass, I’ve run out of tears, and my hope is gone too. Nora isn’t coming. Remington just let himself be knocked into a concussion, and I’ve been told where they’ve checked him in.
And as I go get a taxi, I’m the one who feels like whatever just got broken inside me will never, ever, heal.
At the hospital, he’s in a private room.
I sit in a chair for the first week and stare at his beautiful face with the tube that helps him breathe, and I cry from anger and frustration and helplessness. Sometimes I put his headphones on his beautiful head and play him every single song of the ones we played to each other, waiting to see if his eyes twitch or there’s some indication of thought in there. Other times, I walk out in the hall just to wake up my legs and arms that have fallen asleep. I haven’t seen Pete, and nobody will tell me where he is. Today Riley peers into the waiting room, where I’m staring down lifelessly at my bag of peanuts. I just didn’t know what to get that would be moderately healthy, and I already finished all the granolas. I think I’ve lost some weight, for my jeans are hanging loose from my hips, but my stomach is about as closed as a fist and the few times it seems to relax enough to let me eat something, my throat is to blame for not letting it past.
“He’s awake,” Riley says.
Blinking, I’m suddenly, immediately, on my feet. I toss the uneaten bag of peanuts into the empty chair next to mine, and then run down the hall only to stop and stare at the door to his room. Afraid to see him. Afraid of what I’m going to say.
I’ve been thinking a lot these few days. That’s all I’ve done, actually. But out of all my thoughts, my mind goes blank as I step inside. A deep, dark anguish overwhelms me as I head for the bed. I thought I was getting numb already, but I realize I’m not. I step slowly forward and fix my eyes on the very spot where my world seems to revolve around. And I see him. His eyes are open. I don’t care what color they are. He’s still Remington Tate, the man I love.
He’s going to be okay and I am not. I don’t think I ever will be.
The tears burst out, and all of a sudden, all my thoughts come rushing back. I have so many things to say I just stand in the middle of the room and tear my guts open. My words are angry, but they’re barely understandable through my sobs. “How d-dare you make m-me watch t-that … how could you stand there and make me watch h-him destroy you! Your bones! Your face! Y-you … were … mine! Mine … to … to … hold… How d-dare you break you! How dare you break me!”
His eyes go red too, and I know I should stop because he can’t even respond to me, but this dam has opened and I can’t stop it, I just can’t. He made me watch and now I have to make him listen to me, to what his stupid f**ked up shit has done to me!
“A-all I wanted was to help my sister and not g-g-get you in trouble. I also wanted to protect you, to take care of you, to be with you. I wanted to ss-stay with you until you were sick of me and didn’t need me. I wanted you to love me because I… I… Oh, god, but you… I … can’t. I can’t anymore. It’s hard to watch you fight, but to watch you suicide yourself is… I won't do it, Remington!”
He makes a pained sound in the bed and tries shifting even with one arm in a cast, and his eyes are burning red and tearing me open.
I can’t stand the way he’s looking at me. The way his eyes claw into me. Destroy me.
Hot tears continue trickling down my cheeks as I yield to the reckless impulse and go to him. I touch his free hand and bend my head to his chest as I lift his fingers and kiss his knuckles feverishly, aware that I’m getting them wet with my tears, but I can’t stop because it’s the last time I’m going to kiss this hand and it hurts.
He groans as he awkwardly places the hand of his casted arm on the back of my head and heavily strokes my hair. His throat is tubed, but when I wipe my tears and look up at him, his eyes are screaming things at me that I can’t bear to listen to. I stand, acting as cowardly as Mel says, and he grabs my hand and won’t let go. I don’t want him to, but I need him to. I pull my hand free with force and grab his forehead and set a kiss at the very center, a kiss that I hope he will feel all the way down to his soul, because that’s from where it’s coming from inside me. He makes a rough sound and starts pulling at the tube on his throat, and the machine makes a beeping noise when he starts succeeding in yanking off all the strings attached to him.