by Dean, Ali
“Just started? I never know what’s going on. It was only luck that I heard about Cruz being here. How am I supposed to feel? How do I deal? You want me to keep pretending I’m Neil’s girlfriend!” She was outright shouting now and I tried tugging her through the doors before anyone in the lobby area heard too much.
Bodhi was still invested in the argument as Moody shoved him through the door. “You’re not pretending. He was your boyfriend. Your real one.”
Ruby shook her head as she pulled away from me. “So that’s it? Now that you don’t need information from me, I’m worthless? Now that I can’t give you anything useful, I have no purpose?”
At least we were outside now, and there didn’t seem to be anyone nearby listening.
Bodhi grabbed her elbows. “Shut up. Stop talking. Just, stop.” He was breathing heavily, and I felt like an intruder. They were oblivious to our presence.
“This is about your safety. Not your value.”
I kind of wanted to smack my cousin for being so clueless. Give the girl some validation already. Instead I gestured to Moody. He looked around, confirming no one was lingering around listening now, and we left them alone on the sidewalk.
Moody glanced at me as we took our seats in the waiting room.
“They’re almost as hard to watch as you and Cruz.”
I sent an elbow to his ribs and he pretended to keel over in pain. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“The torture you all go through in the name of love. I hope like hell that doesn’t ever happen to me.”
I laughed. “We weren’t tortured. Bodhi’s not tortured. He’s living it up just fine. I never knew you were so dramatic, sheesh.”
“I’m not dramatic. But I do have an excellent memory, photographic or not, which means I remember every time you and Cruz snuck peeks at each other over the years when you thought no one was watching, and your reactions when you thought the other had moved on. Even for a guy with a relatively low emotional IQ, it was obvious to me how you felt.”
I crossed my arms and huffed. “Whatever. Wasn’t obvious to me how he felt.”
“Isn’t obvious to Bodhi or Ruby from the looks of it either.”
“It’s complicated.”
“Mm-hmmm,” he said noncommittally.
“It’ll happen to you someday, Moody.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of. I like to think I can prevent it but I’ve seen enough to know that I might not get a choice.”
He sounded so depressed about the prospect of falling in love I had to struggle not to laugh.
Spike and Emmett opened the door from the wing where Cruz was staying. Spike was grinning and rubbing his palms together and when Emmett saw us he did a little jig. “Our boy’s getting discharged, baby!”
“What?” I shot up from my chair, not expecting this news. “But what about his head?” He’d still been sleeping a ton and getting headaches.
Spike rolled back his shoulders. “He’ll need babysitters. So, slumber party at the Spot.”
Emmett was still smiling and Moody was up now too, rocking back on his heels. I knew I should be celebrating too, but… “Less than three days ago he couldn’t even handle responding to our text messages, and now they’re kicking him out?”
Emmett’s smile dropped but Spike took a step forward and placed his hands on my shoulders. “He wasn’t as out of it as he played. Cruz didn’t know how he’d gotten to the hospital or what was happening with the Malone takedown. His cell bit the dust somewhere in the beatdown and he doesn’t have it. He should’ve asked to borrow a nurse’s or something to call one of us, but was trying to get his bearings. Make sure he wasn’t in a room next to Neil and that the nurses weren’t on the Malones’ payroll.”
“And when he cringes from headaches and falls asleep mid-conversation?” I challenged. He hadn’t actually fallen asleep mid-conversation since Tuesday morning, but still.
Emmett stepped closer and put a hand on my lower back. “Cuz, he’s been in and out of consciousness and does have a head injury. He’s going to get headaches and needs to take it easy. But there’s no swelling or whatever, nothing serious enough to keep him here.”
I wasn’t sure why I was resisting it. I guess I’d felt like we had this little safe bubble where we could process and deal with shit for a few days, and now we were headed right back to the real world.
Back to school, where I’d become a spectacle. Back to my email inbox, filled with messages from college coaches and their players. My voicemail, where I had to deal with the way I’d left things with Harvard. Soccer practice, and the team I was supposed to be leading but felt so disconnected from right now.
Moody added, “Jake got discharged a couple days ago too. He doesn’t really seem to remember what happened when Cruz visited him at the hospital on Saturday.”
How could I be thinking about my own mountain of issues when Cruz had to face something much more daunting? Cruz had told us how his dad had shouted at him, told him the fire was his fault, and hadn’t wanted him in his hospital room. Mitch tried to tell Cruz that his dad was better the next day and didn’t remember that episode, but Cruz wasn’t so sure his dad would come back to him.
I was starting to move toward the doors to see him when Bodhi called from behind us. “Reporters are waiting out front. They found us.”
“Found us? Dad made sure we stayed out of the reports he gave them, that our names didn’t come up at all.”
“It’s not us. It’s Cruz,” Moody said. “He put himself in the middle of it with the stunt he pulled.”
“And if the hockey team starts talking,” Spike added, “the rest of us are going to be right in the middle of it too.”
“We need to shut them up,” Bodhi growled.
“Come on,” Emmett said, opening the doors to the corridor. “Let’s get our boy out of here and come up with a plan.”
If they were going to try enforcing a limitation on visitors now, when he was about to get discharged, that was just stupid. So we all went together. But when we got into Cruz’s room, his bed was empty.
Chapter Six
Cruz
At least I got to piss without supervision now. It’d been twenty-four hours of enough normalcy that I’d finally gotten the green light to get out of this place, and I was already making a list in my head of all I wanted to do once I had my freedom. Glancing at myself in the mirror as I washed my hands, shaving was definitely at the top of the list.
When I opened the door and saw Hazel standing over the hospital bed, hands on hips, I decided my first priority was alone time with this woman. Her eyes lifted to mine and she put a hand on her chest.
“Cruz, shit, you scared me.”
“I did? Who else would be coming out of the bathroom?”
“I don’t know. I panicked for a second. We heard you were getting discharged, the reporters are gathering out front, I don’t know.” She shook her head, like she was confused by her overreaction. It wasn’t like her, and it made me want to gather her in my arms. Emmett was already there though, throwing an arm around her.
“Cruz is all good, Haze.”
Hazel’s eyes met mine, and they were a little glassy. She wasn’t the sentimental type and there was an ache in my chest now. She was worried something was going to happen to me. I’d done that. Hazel had enough to worry about already but with this, I’d turned a possibility into reality. Her fear was one I understood, because I’d lived it.
Hazel pushed it away though, rolling her eyes. “So, when do you get to break out of here?”
“I’m good to go. As soon as Mitch gets here to sign some paperwork, we’re headed back to Defiance Falls.”
Hazel’s hair was still wet from a shower, knotted on the top of her head. I was so focused on taking in the woman in front of me it took a second before I heard or saw the rest of the guys.
“Why do you guys look so happy? You know this means you have to go back to school,” I reminded the guys grinning at me.
They looked all eager and excited, like we were about to go into the state finals soccer game. Nope, we were headed to the Spot, where I’d be living for the foreseeable future since my house was gone.
That part of returning to the real world didn’t depress me. What did get me down was the possibility I might not be returning to the soccer field for a while.
But there wasn’t time or space for pity parties.
“We gotta figure out how to smuggle you outta here,” Spike told me. “Reporters got wind of you being here and are crowding the exit.”
“Hang on, we don’t want to use this opportunity, do we?” Emmett asked.
Hazel ducked out from under his arm to come over to me. She couldn’t seem to keep her hands off me whenever she was in this room now. I was down with that sentiment, but didn’t really dig that it came from a place of fear. She wrapped her arms around my waist now and rested her head under my chin. “I’m good, Haze. I’m here.”
Hazel ignored me, confirming for herself I was real, and wasn’t going anywhere.
“What kind of opportunity you talking about?” Bodhi asked his twin. The guys were used to me and Hazel half-blocking them out while they talked around us.
“Instead of letting the media speculate, he could say he got jumped by the hockey team,” Emmett said.
Moody asked, “Yeah, but what about Neil and Keegan Malone ending up in the hospital too? And Easton?”
Emmett said, “Oh yeah. You don’t think anyone would believe him if he said he was able to fight back and it just happened to be those guys he injured. Do you?”
“Uh, no, don’t think so, Em,” Spike answered.
“Can we get back to the Spot before coming up with a plan?” I asked, my chin still resting on top of Hazel’s head.
The guys had kept me up to speed on what was happening with evidence, the charges, the media reports. So far, there was an overload of reporting about the Malones’ enterprises; the hospitalization of myself and two Malones on the same night hadn’t been at the forefront of the news. That was going to change, but I wasn’t real eager to make a decision about how to tackle it.
A few minutes later, Gramps was pulling a car around a back entrance, with Spike behind him in his Hummer, and we were piling in, on our way home.
Home. I wasn’t even sure where that was right now.
Hazel was in the back seat while I took the passenger seat in Gramps’ car. He turned off the exit to Defiance Falls but instead of heading toward the Spot, he took the road toward his house.
“I thought we’d meet up at the Spot.” It was where I kept the most belongings, and since most of my stuff had gone with the fire, that was all I had. I didn’t stay at Gramps’ house much, and only had a few things there.
“I thought you’d want to see your dad.”
A surge rose in my chest. “Oh yeah, how is he?”
Gramps had told me Dad didn’t remember yelling at me Saturday in the hospital, and he hadn’t said anything about me betraying him or trying to take over Braven Pharma. But I hadn’t really asked for more updates. I was scared what the answers would be.
Gramps glanced at me before returning his eyes to the road. He cleared his throat. “He’s doin’ a little better. Happy to be out of the hospital.”
My chest grew tight, and an emotion similar to panic blossomed inside of me. I shook my head. “Gramps, I’m not ready to see him.” I knew I sounded cold, but I just couldn’t right now. “And it might not be good for him to see me. He’ll see the bruises.”
Gramps kept driving, getting closer to his house. “It’s not the first time you’ve come home with a few bruises. He doesn’t know what happened, that you were in the hospital. Just don’t tell him.”
“Gramps, please.” I was getting more desperate as his driveway came into view. “What am I supposed to say? What does he know? Does he know what’s going on with the Malones?”
Even if Dad didn’t remember what he’d accused me of on Saturday, that didn’t mean he’d forgotten we were at war. I didn’t want to lie to Dad, but given I could barely keep up with everything going on right now, there was no way Dad would be able to follow it.
“Just see him. Ask him about his day. Talk about the weather. Hazel. Your mom. Keep him company.”
The house came into view and I finally recognized why I was having trouble breathing. This was fear. Seeing my dad should be the last thing I was afraid of right now, yet I couldn’t deny that was what was taking over my body, my head, my heart as I sat in the passenger seat. The garage door opened and as Mitch pulled his car inside, fight or flight kicked in full force. My eyes snapped shut as I tried to push this absurd reaction away. I hadn’t felt fear like this when ten hockey players attacked me, and yet I was shaking at the thought of talking to my own father.
My nostrils flared as I took in breaths, and then the passenger door opened. Hazel put her hand in mine. The shaking stopped, but I still wanted to run. Get out of this car, away from this house. Maybe Hazel would be down with a little rendezvous in the tree fort instead of going in to talk to Dad.
“Cruz.” Her voice forced me to look at her. “I’ll come with you. I’ll be right at your side.”
I didn’t think there was any way Hazel could know what I was struggling with. Hell, I didn’t understand it myself. But she didn’t judge. And she didn’t ask questions. I was so damn grateful for her.
We found him sitting in an Adirondack chair in the back yard, staring out into the forest.
He didn’t look up when Hazel and I took the chairs on the other side of him.
Minutes ticked by, and no words were spoken. My chest rose and fell with each breath as I struggled not to suffocate in one of my favorite spots.
“Sometimes I wonder, you know?” Dad’s voice was scratchy when he spoke and I turned to look at him. Did he even know he was speaking to me? Had he noticed when we’d sat down?
“What do you wonder?” I prompted.
“If your mom had picked Seamus back in college, if she’d married him instead of me, would that have been better?”
My hand instinctively reached for him across the space between our chairs and I leaned forward. “Dad, no.” I didn’t know what else to say, uncertain where his mind was.
“I miss her.” He turned his face to mine then and I saw tears streaking his cheeks. Suddenly, the tension in my chest slipped away and resolve took its place.
“I miss her too.”
“I thought it would get easier with time.”
I didn’t want to tell him that time was different for him. That memories from years ago might be stronger than those from minutes earlier, days ago. That for him, Mom might feel even closer to him than I was, right here at his side.
So I said what Hazel had been repeating since she found me at the hospital. “I’m here, Dad, and I’m not going anywhere. I’ll be at your side.” And I would be, even when it broke my heart. Because each time I saw him, it broke a little more.
Chapter Seven
Hazel
“How’s your head?” I asked. We were in the tree fort behind Mitch’s house, and Cruz was lying on his back.
I was straddling his waist, mostly so I could be in the best position to look at him, but also to trap him into talking to me.
Cruz, however, licked his bottom lip. “My head is fine.” He thought we’d come up here for something else.
“Talk to me, Cruz,” I urged, trying to convey my intentions were not what he’d assumed.
Music was playing from my phone, but I truly just wanted to hang out with him up here without interruptions, like I’d said.
“All I did in the hospital was talk. I’m tired of talking.” His hands slid under my shirt.
“We talked about your injuries. About the investigation. Nurses and doctors came in every few minutes. We didn’t talk about your dad, not really. Or how you didn’t contact any of us for nearly three days.”
“Two,” he corrected me.
“Semant
ics,” I retorted. “Saturday afternoon to Monday evening. Maybe it was forty-eight hours but that’s a Saturday, Sunday and Monday.” I was getting off track, but I added, “Besides, we don’t know how long that would have gone on if we hadn’t found you.”
“I didn’t do it on purpose,” he said softly.
I wasn’t sure if I believed him. “Did you remember everything? They said you went in and out of consciousness when you first got there. How confused were you?”
Cruz moved his touch from my ribs and reached for my hands instead. I gave him a little smile, thanking him for letting me have this. A conversation about what happened. Not about the medical side of it, but everything else that was going on in his head, his heart. I knew he needed this, even if he’d never admit it.
“It’s not like I forgot my name, who I was, or the general picture of my life. But yeah, it was all a little patchy. Like, at first, I would remember something horrible happened, but then before I could grasp what it was it would slip away. Honestly, I think it was less a matter of brain function and more a subconscious repressing or something. I just didn’t want to deal. I was too tired.”
As I let this confession settle, my hands squeezed his. I bit my bottom lip, trying to decide how hard to push. Who knew when I’d get this chance again?
“Mitch said you wouldn’t open your eyes for him when he first got there.”
His eyes drifted away from mine, like he was trying to remember this. “When did he first get there again?”
“Before I did. He came into your room first.”
He blinked before returning his eyes to me. “I only remember you.”
There was a flash of something in his expression, but I couldn’t quite identify it.
“Okay, last question.” His eyes seem to be growing heavy, and while I wanted to crawl inside his head and understand everything he’d been through, was going through, he needed rest.
“When Spike told you about the Malones, and that we thought you were dead, you like, blacked out or something a second later. What was that?”
He drifted away again for a second, but this time it wasn’t because he was searching his memory. He didn’t want to answer me.