The nurse took the flashlight and peeled open Dre’s eyelids, shining it into each pupil. She gave Dre two injections into the port on the back of her hand.
“Nothing good that’s for sure. It’s that same shit that kills celebrities when they take it to help them sleep and realize it’s good for a coma and maybe a little death, but it’s not exactly Tylenol fucking PM. We don’t even use that shit here. Haven’t for years.”
“How much is in her system?” King asked.
The nurse shook her head and grabbed Dre’s wrist to take her pulse. She gently lowered it back onto the bed and sighed. “I’m not sure. I gave her something that should counteract it, but it depends how much she was given and how long ago. If he’s been giving her smaller doses to make it seem less suspicious when her heart stopped then we have a better shot at her recovering, than if he’s just injected her full of this shit.”
“How long will it take to find out?” Bear asked and thank God he did because for the first time in my entire life I couldn’t find the words. Panic. Fear. Physical pain from every nerve in my body. She glanced up at him. “If this works, it should only be a matter of minutes before she wakes up.”
We were all silent for five long minutes. My heart died a little more with each tick of the clock on the wall.
And then we waited ten more minutes.
And then I was screaming in Dre’s face, slapping her cheeks, demanding she wake up. “You can’t fucking die! You can’t!” I screamed, pounding my fist against the mattress beside her head. King rounded the bed and pulled me out of the chair, putting his arm around my shoulder. I lowered my voice. My words came out broken, only every other syllable made a sound. “She can’t fucking die,” I repeated. “There wasn’t enough time. We didn’t have enough time. She promised me she’d never leave me. She fucking promised.”
King and Bear tugged me back while the nurse shot me a look. THE look. She glanced at the clock and my eyes followed.
Twenty fucking minutes.
Dre
“Wake up. Wake up!” The voice is soft and feminine. Reassuring and loving.
“Grandma?” I ask, although I can’t see a thing.
I’m tired. I want to go back to wherever I just was. Dreamless rest. “Wake up! Wake up!” I hear again.
“Grandma it’s too early,” I groan, trying to roll over on my side but I’m stopped by something invisible. Something tethering my arms in place. “Come back later. It’s summer. No school today,” I tell her.
“Wake the fuck up!” The voice is now masculine and desperate. “Please, come back to me. Come back to us! Bo needs you. I fucking need you!” I recognize that voice and I realize that I’m not in my room at Grandma’s. I’m standing alone in complete darkness with no sign of an exit. Preppy needs me. Bo needs me. I need to go to them. I start to panic. My throat grows tight and my heart beats uncontrollably.
“I don’t know where to find you! Where do I go?” I shout back. A light appears as if it’s the answer to my question and it’s the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. One side of the room is blanketed in beautiful brightness and the other side is cloaked in the dark. I reach out for it with my hand. I take a step closer. I’m about to touch it when I come to a halt and shake my head, pulling back my hand. “What am I doing?” I whisper. I slowly take a few steps back before turning around and sprinting away to the opposite side.
The light was beautiful, but I chose instead to run blindly into the dark because I knew, without a doubt, that’s where Preppy would be.
“Thank fuck. There you are,” Preppy said softly, looking down at me with concern etched into his forehead and tear stains down his cheeks. He looked tired. One of his suspenders was hanging loose from his shoulder. His bow tie hung open around his collar. His beard, normally well groomed, was unruly and long. He smoothed the hair away from my face. “Took you long enough, Doc.”
“I knew I’d find you here,” I whispered.
“I knew you’d come back to me.”
“What what…happened?” I asked groggily, my throat sore and dry. The second I asked the question I remembered the answer on my own.
Eric.
I gasped and looked to Preppy who flashed me a small smile. Tears welled up in his eyes. He cleared his throat and leaned in close so that his cheek was touching mine. “Okay, I’ll tell you.” He sighed. “Your injuries are the product of a horrible sex swing accident. The nurse said it was the worst one the hospital has ever seen. Don’t you worry your pretty head though. They’ve successfully retrieved the gerbil. He’s a bit shaken up, but they think he’s going to pull through.”
I laughed, because it was Preppy and impossible not to. However, it didn’t last long because sharp pain sliced through my shoulder. I hissed through my teeth. “Don’t make me laugh,” I choked out.
“That might be impossible. I’m a really, really funny guy,” Preppy said, wagging his eyebrows. He took my hand and pressed it against his face. I reached out two of my fingers and stroked the hair free patch of skin from his eye to where his beard starts.
“I know,” I said. “You’re also really, really mine.”
“Don’t you fucking forget it.” A lone tear spilled from the side of his eye and rolled down his cheek into his beard. He sniffled and wiped his nose with the back of his hand. His other arm in a sling.
“Did you finish it?” I asked. “Is he…”
“Yeah. He’s gone.”
“Good,” I whispered, my eyes growing heavy. “Where’s Bo?”
“He’s fine. He’s playing with Ray and the kids. Didn’t want to bring him here until I knew you were going to be okay.”
“Good,” I said, willing my eyes not to close. I needed to see him more. To know he was okay. To know that the life we were planning together was no longer going to be cut short.
“You can rest now. I’ll be here when you wake up, Doc,” Preppy said.
I nodded, unable to argue or put up much of a fight. My limbs joining my eyes in feeling weighed down and tired. But before I could close my eyes I spotted something in the corner of the room. King and Bear, along with a nurse in dark scrubs. They were lifting a big grey bag onto a gurney. “One more question,” I said, turning back to Preppy who kissed the back of my hand.
“Yeah.”
“Who’s in the bag?” I asked, pointing with my eyes to the scene in the corner.
“Hmmmmm…J. Edgar Hoover?” Preppy answered, a ridiculous fake smile plastered on his face that exposed both his top and bottom teeth.
“Try again.”
He sighed. “How about I promise to tell you all about it later. For now, just know that it’s a really bad guy who did really bad things, who is going to a really, really hot place.”
“Hell?”
“The incinerator at the morgue,” Preppy whispered. He placed his other hand over my cheek gently, stroking my skin with his thumb. “Now rest, Doc.”
“Okay,” I agreed, drifting off. This time my sleep was anything but dreamless. All night I dreamt of home. Bo. Preppy.
My family.
22
Preppy
It was eight in the morning. Kevin took Bo back home with him under the strict guidelines of keeping an eye on him at all times and instructions to ‘keep him away from the kitchen knives or anything sharp’. At least until I had a chance to have a real talk with him about the pros and cons of becoming a real life axe murderer. King and Bear had a body to dispose of. Ray and Thia were with the kids but they both called to tell me they’d be by later on in the day.
I was sitting out in the hallway so Dre’s dad could visit with her alone. When he came back out he told me she’d finally fallen asleep and plopped down across the hall from me on the only other chair. The fluorescent light buzzed overhead, making the bags under his eyes look just as bad as mine probably did.
“You gonna tell me, son?” Mr. Capulet asked, leaning forward.
“She didn’t tell you what happened?”
I’d never cared what anyone thought of me, but Dre cared about her father and his opinion, which made me wary of telling him anything because I didn’t want his opinion of me to change from tolerant to WTF.
“So? Go on,” he prompted.
“Now?”
“She’s sleeping. I’m too tired and wired to do the same and from the looks of it you’re in the same boat. We got time and there’s no time like the present,” he said, rubbing his hands together.
I blew out a long breath. “I don’t even know what Dre’s already told you about me,” I started, rubbing my weary eyes.
“She’s told me some things, but I have a feeling there’s a lot more.” He rested his elbows on his knees and pointed at me. “So why don’t you tell me? Tell me who you are so I know who it is my daughter’s so in love with. Go on, son.” It was the first time the use of the word son didn’t make me cringe.
“You won’t like it,” I said flatly.
“Guarantee I won’t. But why don’t you just tell me anyway,” he said, raising his eyebrows.
I glanced at Dre through the glass and checked the steady rhythm of the monitor above her bed before turning back to face her dad and gave him the honesty he wanted, but after I was done I would be pretty sure it would be added to his list of life regrets. “I’m everything you shouldn’t want for your daughter. Loud. Rude. Crude. I’m sure this is the part where I’m supposed to confess to you that I’ve done things I’m not proud of, but that’s the thing, I’m pretty fucking proud of everything I’ve done. The good. The bad. The bloody. The only thing I ever did that I regretted was pushing Dre away and now I’m regretting bringing her back to this town because then maybe she wouldn’t be here right now.”
“Go on,” he said, leaning back and crossing his ankle over his knee. “I’m listening.”
I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly and figured the man had a right to know exactly who I was. Figured it was like ripping off a Band-Aid, so I decided that direct and fast was the best way to go about this little getting-to-know-you session. “I’m just me. Samuel Clearwater. I was born in this shit hole town.”
“You don’t like Logan’s Beach?” he asked, sounding confused.
“No! I fucking love this town. Doesn’t mean it’s not a shit hole,” I clarified.
“Continue.”
“My favorite word is any variation of FUCK. I like my whiskey with a side of blow and maybe a little weed. I have a running theme song in my head for pretty much every occasion and I like to sing it at the top of my lungs, regardless of who is around or where I am. One of my most favorite things to do in this life is to give my friend Bear shit ‘cause the look on his face is fucking priceless. I love all kinds of movies and I cried like a little bitch during the entire two hours of PS I Love You. I dig all kinds music. Country. Folk. Pop. Blues. Rap. Everything from Tupac to Taylor Swift. I have an unnatural obsession with making perfect pancakes.” I lowered my gaze to the floor and dug deeper. “Before Dre, there were a lot of girls. A lot. I partied hard. Watched a shit ton of porn, the crazier shit the better. Fucked around with anyone willing, and some who weren’t. I didn’t care about the consequences when I did things to them they never asked for. Sometimes I hurt them pretty bad. Looking back, I think I was just punishing them. Taking my shit out on them I couldn’t take out on my mom. I wanted to hurt them because I wanted to hurt her. For running out on me and making me think she was dead when she wasn’t. For making me care when I shouldn’t of fucking cared. For leaving me with my shit bag stepdad who must have taken a master class in pedophilia because after my mom left…” I looked up to Dre’s dad who had an unreadable expression on his face. “He liked to switch between beating me and raping me,” I clarified. “Guess it kept shit interesting for him. I don’t want sympathy. Never have,” I said.
“Good. Because I ain’t giving you any,” Dre’s dad said. When I looked at him again there was a smile pulling at the corner of his mouth. “And?”
“And… and I grow weed in the guest bedrooms of elderly women’s houses in exchange for helping them with their mortgage payments. And honestly? Those ladies are some of the coolest chicks I know. Florida just legalized medical marijuana, we might never legalize it recreationally because we’re some pretty backward ass folk down here, but I’ve already purchased the fields and a warehouse for the medical part. Got a doctor ready to back it and the business licenses and cooperation paperwork have already been filed. Should be in production within a few months. Also, I died at one point. Thought I did anyway because I was kept in a hole below the ground by a lunatic who tortured me day in and day out for the sole reason because he could.” I looked up at Mr. Capulet. “How am I doing so far?”
“So far I want to shove my foot up your ass, but part of me wants to give you a hug, and since that’s not happening, by all means, continue.” He waved me on.
“You sure? Cause this next part…” I grimaced.
“Yeah, I’m sure. Go on,” he ordered.
“You remember Conner?”
He nodded. “Of course. He and Andrea went off the rails together after my stepdaughter died.”
“You know what happened to him?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Went missing, probably OD’d somewhere. That’s what we assumed anyway.”
“It’s a good assumption. I mean, that’s probably what WOULD have happened to him…had I not shot and killed him first.”
I felt him freeze. He uncrossed his legs and planted them firmly on the floor.
“You see,” I scratched my chin beneath my beard, “Conner stole from me, which is only done if you are really wanting a bullet hole in your body. He was going to die anyway, but the dumb shit decided to give me more reasons to take him out when I found him in a dirty motel room about to rape your daughter.” The words made my stomach turn to say them, never mind remember seeing him stand over her, trying to pull her panties down her lifeless limbs.
Dre’s dad’s mouth dropped open. “So I dragged him into the bathroom and we had a conversation that ended in him pissing himself and me putting a bullet in his brain. Honestly? I’d do it all over again, especially after I found out that Conner and his buddy Eric decided that a nice gang bang against her will would be a super fun way to steal Dre’s virginity.”
Mr. Capulet paled.
“Last night it was Eric. We thought he was dead but he was the one responsible for what happened tonight. He got himself clean. Found Jesus, and took everything that was fucked up in his life out on Dre, but it was me he wanted to get to for killing Conner. Revenge and all that. Dre was just a tool to get to me,” I said, feeling spent, emotionally and physically. I leaned back in my chair, propped my elbow on the armrest and dropped my forehead onto my fist.
“Where is Eric now?” he asked, like if he wasn’t dead he’d bring him back to life and kill him all over again.
Our eyes locked. “Hell.”
He coughed and covered his mouth with his closed fist. “Andrea knows all this? About Eric, about you?”
“Every damn thing. And the thing is that she’s never asked me to change or be anyone else other than exactly who I am. Which is good because in some ways I’ll always be the same, but in other ways I see things differently. Clearer. And I think it’s all because of her. It’s funny. I changed not because she wanted me to, but…”
“Because she didn’t need you to,” Mr. Capulet finished for me.
He didn’t react. Didn’t say a word. He glanced from floor to ceiling. From Dre to me, seemingly lost in his own thoughts.
The silence between us seemed to go on forever.
The beeping of the monitors a
nd the occasional footsteps of passing hospital staff were the only sounds echoing throughout the tiny hospital room.
I must have drifted off because when I opened my eyes I was still in the hospital. Dre was still in the bed. The only thing that had changed was that Mr. Capulet was now standing above my chair, looking down at me with a pained expression on his face.
Without saying a word, he pulled me up into a forceful hug. One so hard it was almost like he was kicking my ass and embracing me at the same time. He finally let me go and sat back down.
“I totally get it if you fucking hate me. I failed her.” I lowered my face into my hands and spoke through my fingers. “More than once. I should have just let her go. Let her stay and have a normal life. Find a normal guy,” I said, but even as the words left my mouth they felt wrong. She was mine. Even if she’d left and found a normal guy, she would still be mine.
“You didn’t fail me or her, son. Quite the opposite,” Mr. Capulet said.
“How can you say that?” I glanced up. “This is all my fault. I’m the reason she’s in this place. I’m the reason she’s in a world of hurt. I’m the reason why she wound up in the hospital the first time. I’m even the reason why she can’t get…why we can’t…” I stopped and clenched my fists.
“Why she can’t get pregnant?”
“Yeah,” I said softly.
He shook his head. “No son, you’re not the reason, although I still owe you a swift kick to the nuts for knocking up my daughter, I truly believe everything happens for a reason. If it wasn’t for that incident. That moment in her life. If you would never have met her and she never lost the baby, she might never have gotten clean. Plus, she’s told me what you’ve done for her. How you saved her on more than one occasion. And I don’t hate you, son. I far from hate you. Andrea and I spoke a lot while she was back home. She’s a strong girl and she’s capable of making her own choices. She chose you for a reason. I’m not saying there is an excuse for what she’s done in the past. I don’t even think being an addict is really a proper term to describe her.”
Preppy, The Life & Death of Samuel Clearwater: A King Series Trilogy Page 57