by Nancy Adams
At that moment, I noticed blood dripping from Holman’s hand as it tugged on the steering wheel.
“You’re hurt,” I stated in my trembling voice.
“I’ll live. They weren’t too crazy about letting him go with me, especially after I’d brought most of their bar down, but I can be pretty persuasive when I want.”
“Aye to that,” my dad muttered from the back.
“I’m glad you remember, Roy,” Holman stated into the back.
“Yes,” my father replied in a grumbling, indignant tone. “Who wouldn’t remember being lifted up by their throat and chucked down a flight of stairs?”
“You had fucked the man’s wife,” Holman put to him coldly.
“I was attempting to apologize at the time.”
“You were attempting to—”
“Okay, enough of this,” I cried out, interrupting Holman’s flow.
The two men looked at me, their faces softening, argument ended, silence allowed to reign over us while the truck screeched along the night’s streets.
Within fifteen minutes, we were at the hospital and I was jogging after Holman along the corridors as his burly frame cascaded through the building.
“They got him up here,” he cried out as we reached the Intensive Ward.
Holman turned and swung through some doors into a room. Inside, we found several nurses surrounding an empty bed and my mind froze at the sight of its vacant, bloodied sheets. The space that lay upon it cracked open my grief and I once again found my knees crumbling underneath me. Holman sprung to my aid and caught me just in time, lifting me up with ease and placing me in a chair, where I threw my head into my hands and fell into hysterical sobbing.
“Where’s the kid?” Holman screamed frantically at the nurses once I was seated.
“You mean, Josh Kelly?” one of them said.
“Who else? Is he dead? Is that why he ain’t here?”
“No. He’s in surgery.”
A wave of relief spread over me and I felt myself laughing within my sobs, feeling stupid for having thought only a second ago that the empty bed denoted his death.
“How long’s he gonna be?” was Holman’s next desperate question. “Is he gonna be okay?”
“I couldn't answer either of those questions,” the nurse replied. “He has some very serious swelling of the brain and the surgeon is having to remove a piece of his skull to help relieve it. I’ll send our consultant in to see you soon.”
I merely sank into the chair as my father arrived in the room.
“Where is he?” Dad asked the moment he saw the empty, blood-smeared bed.
“He’s in surgery,” Holman informed him.
“Thank God for that,” my father responded, crossing himself as he did.
After that, we sat glumly in the room, not a word transpiring between us, our three dejected faces gazing into an abyss of thought, Dad sitting next to me, his arm placed around my trembling shoulders. The consultant came in after ten minutes and explained that Josh was still in a serious condition but the surgery had been a success. “He’s not out of the woods yet,” came the echo of the woman’s voice. And this was what I held close to my rapidly aging heart: that he wasn’t out of danger; that he could still die.
Again the three of us were left behind like remnants from an explosion; three desolate figures weighing up a whole eternity of terrible thoughts in our heads. When I would occasionally glance at Holman, I would see tears glistening upon his cheeks and a look of supreme worry creasing his otherwise rigid appearance. I saw a father’s concern in him then, the blood still dripping from his hand.
“You know you really should get that checked over,” I advised him.
In reply, he merely gave me a crooked smile and nodded, as though he only heard the general sound of my voice and not the actual words. I decided to leave it at that.
Two barren hours were spent in that empty room until the nurses came back. The moment they entered, we desolate objects rose as one and began hurriedly asking about Josh. “We were told to remove the bed so they could bring him in on the gurney,” was all the information we were given. The nurses soon left with the bed, and, not long after, they brought Josh in. I rushed to the door the second it opened and watched frozen to the spot as they pushed him past me. I let out a wretched cry as my eyes took in his mangled form, flinging myself into my father’s arms and sobbing into him. Almost all of Josh’s bloated head was bandaged, blood seeping through the dressing. His right eye was exposed and it looked more like a swollen red boil than an actual eye, the lid closed over and puffing out. His mouth was filled with a ventilator, its lips covered in stitches where they had been ripped with various blows and one of his cheekbones sunken in. His left hand was heavily bandaged, its forearm in a plaster cast, and this too was stained with blood. Apart from those horrifying injuries, his body was covered in blankets, and a whole host of monitors were quickly set up around him, the ventilator being wheeled in with him. With my face buried in my father, I heard the nurses set him up in the room and the doctor speak a few words in answer to Holman’s questions, only giving us a vague idea whether Josh would survive.
Once they’d left, I finally found the courage to pull my face away from my father’s protective shield. The only sound existing in the room was that of the ventilator and the beeping heart monitor, their combined din terrifying me. Their sounds gave me the sensation that his life was delicately held in the balance and that if one of those sounds changed in any way, he would be lost forever.
Releasing myself from my father, I wandered across the room and took a seat next to Josh, my eyes fixed on his battered, sleeping face. Even with all his horrific injuries, he appeared at peace as he lay there with machines keeping him alive.
“You’re going to be okay,” I muttered through tears once I was sitting down. “You’re going to be okay.”
I took his right hand, which was laying motionless at his side, and entwined my fingers in it. Holman took the seat on the other side of him and gazed forlornly at the mess that was once Josh, the old man’s tears still running down his cheeks, my father seated at the other end of the room, his own face full of pity.
And there we sat for an eternity, waiting.
JOSH
My eyes opened and I thought that I’d awoken into some kind of heaven. Above my face shimmered the beautiful green emeralds of Sarah, bloodshot and tearstained. A smile creased the pretty features of her face and she called out to someone. I tried to sit up, but couldn’t. I began moving, but she cooled my movements with soothing words.
“Don’t move, baby,” came her quivering voice. “You’re okay. You’re okay.” Then turning her head away, she called for the nurse again.
“I’m so sorry,” I mumbled up to her. “Can you ever forgive me?”
She turned back to me and placed her hand delicately on my forehead, tears sprinkling down from her face.
“You don’t have to say anything,” she said softly.
Medical staff came piling into the room and began checking me over. They shone a pencil torch into my eyes and asked me some questions about who I was and what I remembered, the whole time my hand held within Sarah’s. I answered all the questions and even managed to recall how I’d gotten this hurt. My voice was very hoarse, from both the painkillers I was on and the fact that my mouth felt odd as a result of losing several teeth. Once they’d gathered that I was okay, I was left alone with Sarah.
“How did I get out of there?” I asked her weakly.
“Holman rescued you.”
“Holman! Really?”
“Yeah, he rammed the front of the bar with a truck and pulled you out. Then he came and got me.”
I smiled and it made me wince, my face and mouth seizing with pain the moment I moved.
“Where is he now?”
“He’ll be here the moment I call him.”
“How long have I been out?” I wanted to know next.
“Two days. They’ve
kept you in a chemically induced coma, but you’re a fighter. This morning they took you off of your ventilator and eased the drugs.”
“My head,” I muttered and attempted to touch it.
But Sarah took ahold of my hand and stopped me.
“They had to remove a piece of your skull,” she informed me in a soothing voice. “But they say you’ll make a full recovery.”
“A part of my skull?”
“Yes, but they’ll replace it. You had a compound fracture. You nearly died.”
“I thought I did. Thank God for Holman.”
“Thank God indeed.”
And here she bent down and kissed my forehead. With my fingers wrapped warmly in her own, I lay there for some time with her compassionate face gazing down at me. I felt lost in the glittering emeralds of her eyes and felt the need to say something to her.
“You know,” I began, “when I was down there and presumed I was dead, I could only think of one thing: you.”
A shivering smile crept across her lips and fresh teardrops emerged from her shimmering eyes. She brought my hand up to her lips and kissed it before holding it to her cheek.
“What I did to you,” I continued, “was terrible, Sarah. I blame myself fully and I hate myself for it. You’re the only real thing I’ve ever had in my life and I ruined it.”
“You haven’t ruined it,” she argued in a gentle tone.
“Yes, I have. You were right about the casino; you were right to call me a brat; and you were right to compare me to my father.”
“I wasn’t, though. I had no right. You were just trying to get the money for college, money that was cruelly taken from you.”
“But what right did I have to cheat on you?”
“None.”
“Exactly. And for that I’ll feel guilt for the rest of my life.”
“Josh, I forgive you. Sure, I hated you at first. But who wouldn’t when they’re sent a video of their boyfriend having sex with another girl? I was mad at you, but when Holman showed up and said you were in the hospital, all that hatred was instantly washed away. All I could feel was that no matter what I couldn’t lose you. I knew in that second that I loved you with all my heart. As much as it still hurts what you did, I love you and forgive you.”
“So you still want to be with me?”
“Of course.”
“And you’ll come back to the apartment when I’m out?”
“I will.”
“And you’ll let me spend the rest of my life working off the terrible thing I did to you?”
“I will.”
“And you’ll marry me?”
A smile broke through the clouds of her forlorn countenance and she nodded, “I will. I will.”
She swooped down and kissed my ripped and swollen lips, teardrops dripping from her eyes onto my face. The love that traveled though me then was so strong that the pain in my mouth never even registered, and I enjoyed that kiss as I’d enjoyed every other tender moment between us. Her acceptance of my proposal made me feel so joyous then that if my body had been willing, I would have jumped out of that bed and danced all over the room.
After that, she called Holman and a few minutes later, he came swinging through the doors. The moment our eyes met, his face melted into complete benevolence and I witnessed a tear roll down his cheek as he stormed up to me. Sarah let go of my hand and I offered it to Holman. He took it and squeezed the fingers gently before seating himself on the other side of me.
“Thank you,” I let out softly.
“It’s nothing, kid,” were his shaky words.
“How’d you get me out of there?”
A gentle smile showed up on his tight lips.
“I drove a truck through the front of the place,” he answered. “Before I could do anything, they’d locked the doors, so I hot-wired some four-by-four in the lot and smashed it through the front. Then I jumped out, threatened them with a gun, and that’s when they started shooting. I took cover round the back of the truck and shot a couple of them.”
“You didn’t kill anyone?” Sarah asked.
“No, I just winged them. Despite what you may think, I ain’t much for killing if I can get away with it. All I did was warn them that I’d be willing to shoot the lot of them if they didn’t let Josh go. I even got grazed by a bullet myself. But once they realized I weren’t leaving without you, they ran off out back and I took ahold of you and drove you here.”
“You were following me then?” I inquired of him.
“Yeah. Which is pretty lucky for you, huh?”
“Pretty lucky,” I agreed.
“What are the docs saying?” he asked Sarah.
“They say he’ll be fine,” she answered. “He’ll need a few more operations on his face to correct the damage and he’ll likely be in here another week. But after that he’ll be okay.”
The expression of relief that flooded Holman’s face overwhelmed me and I almost burst into tears to see his love for me. He squeezed my hand a little more and I saw him mutter the words “Thank God.”
“No. Thank you,” I put to him. “I really thought I was dead in there.”
I observed a shudder move through Sarah when I said this.
“Well, the cops wanna speak to your friends Terry and Kane,” Holman went on. “They ran the moment the bullets started flying. Well, your guy Kane limped anyway. Looked like someone had planted a knife in his leg.”
My eyes cast themselves in Sarah’s direction, but she made no sign that this bothered her. Still, I felt the need to explain myself.
“I shouldn’t’ve stabbed him,” I said.
“It’s okay, baby,” she replied.
“No, I was mad at the time and there was the whole bar on me.”
“You ain’t gotta explain jack,” Holman retorted. “You’re lucky you’re a fighter and managed to survive long enough for me to retrieve you. If it hadn’t been for the fighter in you, we’d probably be doing this in a morgue.”
“Does Dad know?”
Holman sighed a little here and merely said, “Yeah.”
“What’d he say?”
“He just thanked me, asked if you’d live, and then appeared grateful for that.”
“But he couldn’t be bothered to make a personal appearance.”
“He’s a stubborn bastard, you know that. But that don’t mean he ain’t glad that you’re still alive.”
“Do you think he’ll accept an invitation to my wedding?” I asked him.
“Your what!?” Holman said with widening eyes.
“Sarah and I, we’re going to be married.”
I was a little concerned as to what his reaction would be—after all, he was my father’s man. But his face showed not one iota of disappointment and he simply beamed a wide smile.
“Kid,” he let out, “that’s great news. Congratulations. This girl here will make you the happiest guy on Earth. I mean that from the bottom of my heart. The way she’s stayed here these past days and not moved an inch from your side has shown me that the love existing between you two is exceptional. If there’s one person in this world that can get you right, it’s her. You’ve made the right choice.”
Overwhelmed by the kindness of his words, I felt my eyes go moist.
“Thank you, old man,” I said in a shivering voice. “Thank you.”
“It’s okay, kid. And if you’re getting married, then I guess you can call this a wedding gift. If you refuse it this time, then I’ll just give it to Sarah. Because this is for your future.”
He dipped his hand into the inside of his suit jacket and pulled out the familiar brown paper envelope, laying it carefully on my chest.
“What is it?” Sarah inquired.
“It’s his college fees,” Holman answered. “He needs to give it to them by the end of the week, so that they’ll accept him back on his course.”
A huge smile lit up on Sarah’s face.
“Do you hear that, Josh?” she said excitedly. “You’re go
ing back to college.”
I glanced over at Holman. This time instead of ingratitude, I offered him a smile.
“Thank you,” I said to him.
“Does that mean you accept it this time?”
“Yes, it does.”
“Oh, Josh!” Sarah beamed, and she came down on top of me, pressing her lips to mine and making me wince from the pressure.
I could have never guessed when I was led into that bar having lost my job that I’d wake up two days later, battered, bruised, but ultimately saved. The two things that had cast a huge shadow over me then—the loss of Sarah and the end of my college studies—would be resolved. I felt in that moment, with the two most important people in the world on either side of me, what the apostles must have meant when they talked of being in the presence of Christ. I sensed that I was in the presence of something divine and the world presented itself to me with the veil of clouds parted, showing me nothing but a road of sunshine; a road to salvation.
BOOK FOUR – COMING SOON!
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