by Taryn Steele
A knock at the door snaps me out of my mini freak out session. Christopher comes charging out of his room yelling, “I got it. I got it,” knowing it was Cole at the door. Christopher and Cole greet each other with big smiles and high fives. I make my way into the kitchen to check on the chuck roast I have prepared for them in the crock pot. I don’t know any guy who doesn’t like meat and potatoes. I can guarantee Christopher will not eat any of the baby carrots. I nervously go over Christopher’s normal routine, show him where everything is that he might need and then proceed to give him the worlds most awkward thank you hug.
Oh my God, what cologne is he wearing? It smells so fucking good. It makes me want to lick his neck!
What the hell is wrong with me? I can’t be thinking like this. I’m a widow and a mother. This is wrong.
“Are you okay Abby? You seem nervous?” Cole asks.
“Yeah, I’m just out of sorts leaving Chris with a stranger.”
“A stranger? I think we’re past that. I promise we’ll be fine. I’ll even send you text messages here and there to prove it,” he tells me with a smile.
“I’m counting on it.”
I give Chris a big and a kiss and remind him to be on his best behavior.
I send Olivia one last text letting her know I’m on my way to the hospital and to wait for me in the locker room. Less than five minutes in to my drive she texts me back that she just finished her rounds with her patients and is already waiting for me.
I’m driving so fast through the hospital parking garage I feel as if I’m in a car drifter movie. I’m haulin’ ass so fast I don’t even have my car in park before I’m already opening the door to get out.
I push through the locker room door with full force. I scan the room for any potential eaves droppers and see that all is clear, it’s just Olivia.
“I kicked everyone out who was spending too long in here,” Olivia tells me with a wink. “Now tell me what the fuck is going on. I’ve been freaking out here.”
“I had a dream that Cole kissed me and I liked it, a lot.”
“Holy fucking shit, Abby! That’s it? I thought this was something serious, like a fucking emergency, like Christopher got his first boner, or someone stole your credit card. You know, serious shit,” Olivia blurts out.
“For fuck’s sake, Olivia, this is serious!”
“I know. I’m fucking with you, sort of,” she grabs me by the hand and sits me down on the fixed bench in front of our nurse’s lockers. “Abby, it is very clear there is an attraction between you and Cole, and there may even be some type of connection. It’s natural with what you have been through to be scared of these feelings. I’ve seen you smile so much this past week with the time Chris and Cole have spent together. It’s great to see a another man in his life. Cole is clearly not trying to replace Dominic, so there’s nothing to be scared of there.”
“I’m a widow, Olivia. These feelings can’t happen,” I confess.
“It’s been almost a year, Abby. It can happen. It is happening and it’s natural. It’s okay. I promise. If anyone knows about the torturous feelings of love and loss it’s not just you but also Cole. Nate told me about Cole’s fiancé and the baby last night. Did you know he hasn’t even gone on a date since it happened? Cole could be just as scared as you are right now.”
My therapist Dr. Pine has repeatedly told me to have faith in my abilities. He reminds me at every session that having confidence in myself and my ability to handle any situation depicted to me. He goes on to say that I must trust and believe that I’ll be able to deal with whatever life throws at me, good or bad. If I know what I want and where I’m going I have confidence.
Dr. Pine has a framed quote in his office from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., that sends a surge of power through me every time I see it and repeat it to myself.
“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at a time of challenge and controversy.”
I don’t know how anyone could not read that message and not feel taller, stronger, or bolder. When I see it I feel ready to take on the world.
I want to start a life here. I want to start over again. I’m on a mission with confidence. I will get my mother out of her abusive marriage and I will win Abby over.
Hopefully babysitting Christopher tonight will prove that I’m trustworthy. I don’t even consider it babysitting since he’s ten years old. I don’t have to bottle feed him or change his diaper. It’s a free night to act like a kid again. I’ll have more fun hanging out with him than I would sitting in the living room watching reruns.
I am thoroughly exhausted from a very busy evening shift but I am currently singing “Chained to the Rhythm” with my girl Katy Perry right now to keep me motivated while I’m driving.
Walking in to my home and it is eerily quiet, and I see no one around. I put my purse and keys down on the end table by the front door and I swear I hear a faint noise, but from where? I make my way thought the living room and down the hallway toward Christopher’s room. The closer I get I can faintly hear his television, and see the glow from the screen with his bedroom door open. I tip toe my way, inching my way closer and closer and peek my head around the door frame.
Gasp!
I swear my heart has stopped beating at the sight in front of my. My eyes flood with tears like a raging sea. A stream of salty tears stream down my face like an open faucet as I stare at Christoper and Cole fast asleep cuddled up together in Chris’s bed. Cole twitches and I quickly twirl my body around the corner in hopes that he didn’t see me. I tip toe my way back around and head toward the kitchen. I need a glass of wine to handle what I just saw. Barefoot moscato has always been my temporary antidote and I need it now more than ever. One large, necessary gulp and the sweet elixir trickling down my throat tastes just like the liquid therapy I need. Before I get a second chance I hear footsteps coming though the hall. I know it’s Cole.
Shit. He fucking saw me in the doorway. Here comes the tears again. Get ahold of yourself Abby!
“Hey. How was work?”
“Oh, you know, bumps, bruises, and bandages,” I respond keeping my back to him but it doesn’t last. Cole steps around standing by my side.
“Abby, you’re crying. Are you okay? Did something happen at the hospital?”
He looks genuinely concerned. I’m trying to think quick on my feet to say something, anything but I can’t come up with a lie quick enough. What is it about him that I feel compelled to be nothing but honest?
“No, nothing happened at work. I’m fine. I’m just tired.”
“Abby, no one cries from just being tired after working unless something shitty happened. You can tell me, maybe I can help.”
I take another absurd gulp of wine from glass for courage and blurt nothing but the God damn truth.
“I was crying because I saw you and Christopher cuddled in bed asleep. He did that a lot with his father, fall asleep watching movies. The sight of you two healed and broke my heart at the same time.”
“Oh Abby, I’m so sorry. I would never want to be responsible for making any part of your heart break. I only want to help piece it back together. I feel like ever since I met you and Chris you’ve been doing just that for me,” he tells me honestly.
Holy shit!
“Abby, please don’t be mad at me for doing this but it felt great in my dream last night,” he says then swiftly cups my face and lightly brushing his lips with mine sending my body into a state of tizzy. “If you want me to stop, tell me now, Abby.”
I don’t say anything. He kisses my cheek. “Now?” He asks. I’m silent. He kisses my neck right underneath my ear. “How about now?” I can’t even think straight, never mind speak. I’m breathless.
Before either one of can do or say anything more Cole’s phone starts ringing in his pants pocket snapping us out of our state of temptation.
It’s after midnight. Who would be calling him at this hour?
I step back and turn back to my glass of liquid courage so Cole can take his call. He quietly apologizes for the interruption, I’m assuming and turns to step out of the room. I’m torn between being respectful for his privacy and wanting to eavesdrop to find out what someone would be calling about at this hour. Just as I take a few steps closer the connection of the living room and kitchen I hear faint mumbling and what I think is Cole ending the call and coming back this way. I quickly shuffle back toward the counter where I last placed my glass of wine.
Cole looks completely distraught and it kills me to see him in such pain right now. How did we go from sharing a kiss to him looking like he wants to kill someone?
“It looks like the tables have turned. Cole, are you okay? You look upset?” I ask genuinely concerned.
“I’m sorry Abby. I have to go. I had a great time with Chris tonight. We had a blast and he was great. You should get some sleep,” he tells me with a swift kiss on the cheek and he leaves.
What the fuck just happened?
Lying in bed staring at my alarm clock waiting for it to sound while I continue to try to figure out last night. It’s what I’ve been doing all night between various twenty minute napping sessions. It’s going to be a long shift at the hospital with little to zero sleep but it’s fine. Chloe’s dad is going to make a full recovery and that is all that matters. I’ll get back on my normal work and sleep schedule by the end of the day today. It’s an occupational hazard I am used to.
Once I’m showered, dressed and packing Christopher’s lunch he finally emerges from his room fully dressed and jumping around with earbuds in playing some ridiculously loud tune from his iPod.
“Christopher!” I shout. “Turn you music down before you blow out your eardrums. I could hear it from twenty feet away.”
“Sorry, Mom. Morning. I was just listening to a song Cole told me about last night that he likes.”
“Oh yeah, what’s it called?”
“It’s called Let’s Go by some guys named Ne-Yo and Calvin Harris. Never heard of them but it’s got me pumped for the day,” he tells me with a brilliant, contagious smile that warms my heart.
I take one of his earbuds and put it to my ear to get a listen for myself. It has a great beat. It sounds kind of like a club song. I didn’t picture Cole as a club goer but I guess I don’t really know him at all so I wouldn’t know either way. The one thing I do know of him is he knows how to kiss a girl. Last nights memories flood my thoughts and I feel warmth throughout my body.
Minutes later we make our way over to Mrs. Humphrey’s so I’m not late to work and she can put Chris on the bus for school. “Oh my, Abigail, your cheeks are quite rosy this morning. You’re practically glowing. What have you been up to?” She giggles as if she already has an idea. I smile and shake my head at her wise mind.
On the drive in to work this morning I keep replaying last night over and over in my head. That kiss did things to me. His words did things to me. The hurt I held inside faded away in the most incomparable way. After all of my illusions and torment, everything finally made sense. I couldn’t hide the way I felt for Cole. I just need some direction from Olivia on where do I go from here because his abrupt exit does not help my thought process right now.
Breezing by the front nurse’s station saying a quick, “good morning,” to Nurse Alice and walk in to the locker room to a singing and dancing Olivia. It’s too early for this type of behavior for Olivia, so that can only mean one thing. She had sex last night.
“You and Nate did it last night, didn’t you?”
“Oh, you betcha,” she admits with a smile that would put Julia Robert’s to shame.
“Great! I’m happy for you but can we please pause your sex story for a minute before I freak out? Cole kissed me last night,” I tell her with a shaky breath.
Olivia has a tight lipped grin and tells me she knows about the kiss. She over heard Nate and Cole talking late last night because something happened with their mom.
“How was it? How did you feel?” she grills.
“I liked it, but after he left so abruptly I cried in the shower out of guilt,” I tell her honestly.
“Abby, as young as you are do you think Dominic would want you and Christopher to be alone forever?”
I know Dominic wouldn’t want that. I explain my thought process last night and the changes in my thoughts this morning the more I replayed it over and over in my head to Olivia.
“Now tell me, how was it?” She continues to probe.
“It was … slow, tender, sensual … I almost forgot how to breathe.”
“Oh my God Abby, you’re blushing,” Olivia shrills.
I can feel my cheeks blushing now for sure.
I change my facial expression immediately to my very serious side and look Olivia directly in her eyes. I ask her what she overheard Nate and Cole say about it. She knows me better than anyone and knows I’m wracking my brain over this. We sit for a few more minutes as she tells me everything she knows from last night. Cole hasn’t kissed anyone since the death of his fiancé and child. He hasn’t even gone on a date. The kiss scared the shit out of him but he thought it was amazing. She went on to say she heard Cole telling Nate about how much he enjoys spending time with me and Chris and wants to keep spending time with us. The last thing she heard was Cole saying he never thought he’d ever be ready for another relationship until now.
Whoa!
Our conversation is cut short when Olivia is paged to a trauma coming in so I move fast to get into my scrubs in case I’m needed to assist. My thoughts are still on everything Cole related. I need to stop that while I’m here. I need to concentrate on work, especially when I find myself trying to put my damn shoes on the wrong feet.
Christ almighty, Abby! Get your shit together.
Once I finally have myself put together, including the shoes on the right feet I make my way out of the locker room and back to the main nurses station to see where sweet old Alice has me going today.
Rounding the corner a short way down the hallway I find myself mere seconds from smacking into Dr. Pierce.
“Sorry about that. I wasn’t looking where I was going,” I tell him honestly, my mind still in the clouds.
“Abby, no apology necessary. You’re looking good, really good,” he tells me with a typical slime ball grin.
Ugh!
Moving onward and upward I tell myself.
Take chances, make mistakes.
That kiss … If I didn’t do it I have a feeling it would have never happened.
I felt every what if lingering in my mind like a revolting disease on my brain wash away.
Is she my cure?
I never thought I would think about having another happily ever after with anyone other than Viktoria. I never thought I would be sitting in a police station with my mother either, yet here I am.
I’m trying to control my anger while I listen to my mother give her statement to the police officer. The look of calm on her face worries me. I’m not sure if it’s because she’s unfortunately so used to the treatment from my father that it no longer phases her, or a calm has come over her for finally having the strength to report it. Regardless, it still makes me want to do to him what he’s done to her all of these years. It’s the least he deserves.
“I wish I would have left, but I didn’t. I met him when I was sixteen years old, and I grew as an adult with him. At that time, I had nothing but excuses for his behavior, for his actions. I kept thinking maybe he had a hard day at work. I tried to make it go away in my head, like it never happened, but it was still there. It changed my demeanor around him. It even changed the way I spoke to him. I was scared to say the wrong things. It eventually changed everything. There was an added element of fear involved. I didn’t tell anyone. I hate that the boys could hear and see it as much as I tried to conceal it from them. I didn’t know what to do. I used to tell myself this was something that happened to other people, and then all of a sudden, it was happenin
g to me. I felt as if I was under some sort of witch’s spell. My mind was flooded with so many different thoughts and questions. It kept me guessing. Maybe it was my fault? Maybe I should leave? Can I support my boys alone? Before I could talk myself in to it guilt would wash over me and I would decide to stay, again.”
I didn’t know until a few years ago that my father hit me once. I don’t remember it, obviously I was far too young. My mom said I was barely one year old. She said I wouldn’t stop crying, my dad was mad and drunk and started hitting me on my back and the back of my head. She swears she threw herself over my body as soon as she saw it happening.
As I got older and I felt tougher I would put myself in front of my mom telling my dad to leave her alone. My knees would shake like leaves, my voice trembling with fear. Nate would cling to my mother’s leg doing what he thought he could to protect her.
My father was no ordinary man. Like many violent men, he was a charmer. He stood six feet four inches tall with shoulders as broad as a buffalo. His eyes drunk and dark as the night sky at midnight. He was also a police officer. I know his fellow officers knew what was going on. They saw the fear in my mother’s eyes, in her actions. They turned the other way. Officers don’t turn on each other. Whenever I happened to be in the same proximity of his fellow men I would be told repeatedly “Your dad Steve is a good man, good police.” Even as a young boy I never responded, never agreed but was wise enough to never disagree either.
Why did she stay? The older I got, the more I understood how wrong it all was. I would get in her face and tell her no man should treat his wife like this. Each time it was the same answer: “Through good times and bad. Through sickness and health. That is what I vowed, besides, I have no where safe to go.” She was right about the safe place to go. My dad would have found her. She had a few close friends, even back when I was a teenager. He knew where they all lived. She had a small living space above the flower shop but she usually rented it out here and there for extra money for Nate and myself. Growing boys in sports constantly needed new gear and ate everything in sight.