Hung

by Holly Hart

  "I want to be the best daddy in the world," I whispered under my breath, gently laying my hand on Liss's stomach. She stirred in her sleep, and a warm, contented smile slowly appeared on her face. "But I'm scared, kid, so fucking scared."

  My hand was trembling, and I had to exert myself to stop the tremors. The truth was, I was terrified – terrified that I'd screw up like I'd screwed up everything good that had ever happened to me, terrified that Liss would see who I really was and wouldn't like it, and worst of all – terrified that this kid would be cruelly snatched away from me, like Sarah and the nephew I never knew.

  That was what kept me up at night and woke me early in the morning – an overwhelming, inhibiting fear that I was powerless to affect. I couldn't stop whatever fate decided to throw my baby – only stop myself from making it worse. And sometimes, it seemed like I couldn't even do that.

  I knew the smart thing to do would be to call Mike. If there was anyone who knew what I was going through right now, it was him. But I still remembered how I treated him in the days after Sarah's death, and the memory embarrassed me. He'd been hurting just as much as me – hell, probably more.

  He hadn't just lost a wife, he'd lost a kid, too. And yet he'd never fallen off the rails, not like I did. He'd held himself together, grieved in private, and given everything to stop me from losing myself to grief completely.

  "You deserve better than me," I whispered to both of them this time. To everyone who I'd ever disappointed, and everyone I'd ever let down. I stroked Liss's beautiful, soft stomach one last time and crept out of bed. I threw on a pair of jeans, held the belt buckle tight so that I didn't wake my beautiful lover with the noise, and shrugged on a plain white T-shirt.

  I slid open the door of the walk-in closet, stepped in, and went straight to a spot that I hadn't visited in a year. It almost felt like a betrayal of Sarah's memory, but I couldn't do it myself more often than that – it was too hard. Perhaps I was too weak. Perhaps it was both.

  I picked up the gorgeous, aged green leather photo box from where it sat, undisturbed on a shelf, shifting a thin layer of dust that danced in the air and sparkled in the sunlight streaming in through cracks in the curtains.

  The box felt heavy in my hands – far heavier than the contents justified. It was the weight of a life – two lives. I carried it respectfully, like a pallbearer, taking slow and measured steps until I was downstairs and sitting by the kitchen island. I gently unfastened the bronze catch that held the box shut and paused to wipe a tear from my eye. It was hard to keep going after that. Every fiber of my body was screaming at me to stop, crying out that I didn't need to relive the memory, but I shut them all out.

  Sarah was my sister, even if she wasn't here with me, and I owed her at least that much.

  I opened the box, and as soon as I did I was assaulted by memories – some good, some bad, but all laced with an overwhelming sense of loss. I picked up an old, frayed photograph that lay on top – an image that was burned into my mind from the countless hours I'd spent staring at it over the years, stained from all the drinks I'd nearly spilled on it, wrinkled from all the times I'd fall asleep clutching it.

  A twelve-year-old Sarah in stained dungarees only buttoned on one side stared back at me, smiling for the camera. I felt a tear falling from my eye and pulled the photo away just in time to avoid the huge wet droplet falling on it. I was on the other side of the scene in my hands, standing on the beach and looking for all the world a mirror image of my twin sister – the same blond hair, though mine was cut short, and the same ice blue eyes, and of course the same damn dungarees.

  Mine, though, were buttoned up fully. Back then, she was always the bad one.

  I put the photo down, smiling through my tears at the memory of that day. We'd both begged Mom to buy us an ice cream, badgered her for hours until she finally gave in. Of course, after spending half an hour standing in line under the baking hot sun, it didn't take five minutes before Sarah dropped it all over her front. The photo must have been taken earlier in the day.

  I looked through the rest of the box, fingering through photos one by one, and every time, I was rocked by another happy, yet equally painful memory. In one corner, my mother's old wedding ring – an unadorned gold band – lay tangled in the simple silver chain it was looped through.

  My mother left the band to Sarah in her will when she passed, and my sister had worn it around her neck for years. I remembered the moment that Mike gave it back to me like it was yesterday – the way he'd brushed away a tear, told me that it wasn't his to keep, and pushed across the table.

  I toyed briefly with the idea of giving it to Alicia, and even through the pain, the thought brought a smile to my lips. I daydreamed of getting down on one knee on a beach, somewhere tropical, because my Liss deserved nothing but the best. I dreamt of a backdrop of lit torches flickering in the darkness and reflecting off her warm, rich chocolate skin as I proposed.

  I knew I had to do it.

  After all, we'd been living a lie for months – telling the world we were already engaged to be married, when really it was just a selfish plan I'd formulated without ever asking for Alicia's input. It wasn't fair, especially not now she was bearing my child. I picked up the necklace with my little finger and lifted it up to the light to study it for any imperfections, and – reassured, returned it to my pocket.

  I heard Liss waking up upstairs and hastily began packing away the assembled photographs. I didn't want her to see me like this – emotional, teary. I needed to be a rock for her, and I didn't know how I could possibly open up to her about the darkest part of my life without cracking.

  I didn't mean to delve further into the box, but it was as though I was drawn to it by some outside force. I hadn't seen the scan in years, but as I was packing the photos away, I saw the corner sticking out and my hand leapt towards it unbidden.

  I pulled it out, the other photographs shifting and moving out of its way. It was dated 1996, and the name read Sarah Hunt.

  It was her five-month ultrasound scan.

  It hit me like nothing else had, and tears that I thought I'd beaten back flew back to my eyes with gusto, building like a bursting dam, ready to overflow at the slightest excuse. Perhaps it was because I'd just learned I was going to be a father, perhaps the last couple of months of bliss with Liss had somehow opened me up emotionally and allowed me to connect with part of my memory that I'd locked away for years. Whatever the cause, I held it to my breast and began to sob uncontrollably.

  A decade's worth of grief was pouring out in one horrific moment, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.

  "Clay?"

  I heard Alicia's worried voice behind me, and knew that I couldn't let her see me like this. I grabbed the ultrasound, my back still turned to my beautiful lover, folded it and stuffed in my pocket.

  "I'm going out," I somehow said over the sobs racking through my body, "for a drive…"

  I couldn't look at her, just brushed past and shut out her concerned pleas for me to tell her what was wrong.

  I ran down to the basement, grabbed the first set of keys that fell into my hands and almost fell into the car that responded as I pushed the buttons on the remote control.

  I threw the contents of my pockets down on the passenger seat, saw but didn't register my cellphone disappearing off under the seats, and climbed in. The engine roared to life and I stepped on the gas, barely slowing down enough to let the automatic garage door open and let me out.

  I didn't check the mirror. There was no need – I knew exactly what I'd see: Alicia.

  There were two places on my mind – one that would help me remember, and the other would help me forget. I went to the second one first – a small, seedy looking liquor store. I grabbed a handle of bourbon from the shelf without bothering to look at the label, slammed a fist full of notes down onto the counter and left without collecting my change.

  "Sir!" I heard the surprised Hispanic cashier call out behind me. "You haven't�
��"

  The rest of his sentence was lost as the store's heavy glass security doors swung closed, air hissing out as they met the door frame. I had no conception of how much I paid, and I didn't care. The bottle of bourbon landed on the car's passenger seat with the contents of my pockets, and the dark amber liquid gurgled as the car eased into drive.

  The next place on my list was somewhere I'd avoided visiting for almost ten years – St. Thomas's Hospital on the outskirts of town.

  I drove fast, but in every direction but the hospital, my brain entirely unwilling to face up to the pain of going back to the place where Sarah had died, and the place that still regularly haunted my dreams. I drove for hours, aimlessly, racing cars that didn't know they were being competed against and speeding down empty backstreets in the warehouse district.

  By the time I finally steeled myself to visit, the lights were already beginning to flicker on in the vast visitors’ parking lot in anticipation of the sunlight beginning to fade. I drove around for what felt like hours, trying to pick out the perfect spot – a space where I wouldn't be seen drinking, and grieving, but from which I could also stare at the huge, forbidding, monolithic hospital. For a place of life, it looked an awful lot like a prison…

  The expensive supercar's tires screeched to a halt as I finally chose my spot – far enough from the nearest streetlight that it was unlikely I'd be noticed, but close enough to the covered awning where ambulances pulled up to the Emergency Department that I could watch, to some extent at least, what was going on – even if the characters involved looked no bigger than ants.

  It was where they'd brought Sarah a decade before. It was the entrance she should have left by – not the back. She didn't deserve that. Nor did my nephew.

  Seeing the hospital again brought back a nauseating wave of emotion, and my shivering hands reached directly for the bottle on the seat beside me. I wasn't an alcoholic, far from it – but right now, I could have drunk any follower of the twelve-step program under the table. The bottle was calling me, singing a siren song to tempt me into breaking the seal. There was only one thing that held me back from cracking it immediately – Alicia's disapproving face in my mind's eye.

  "Why are you doing this, Clay?" I imagined her saying. "Don't you care about me? Don't you care about your son?"

  I did – more than anything, and that was the only reason that this bottle wasn't already half drunk. The whole duration of my drive, I'd seen it gazing up at me and heard the amber liquid gurgling every time I turned the steering wheel, and I'd somehow avoided cracking the seal. I wanted nothing more than to feel the whiskey burn its way down my throat and warm my belly before dispelling the demons of grief that still haunted my memory – and yet.

  And yet I hadn't touched a drop, the better angels that laid buried somewhere in the dark morass I called a conscience somehow holding me back from the brink. I picked up the bottle and stroked it, my finger tracing the outline of the letters that spelled out – Evan Williams Bourbon.

  And there it was again – Alicia's face in my mind. And then, as the glass bottle's contents shifted from side to side in my trembling hands, I heard my child's laughter.

  And that made my mind up for me.

  I couldn't do this.

  I was better than this. And Alicia deserved better. My child deserved better, and I was going to live up to those expectations, even if it killed me.

  "You've got this, Clay," I muttered, pressing the start button that fired up the keyless ignition.

  The moment I did, my heart sank. The screen in the center of the console lit up, displaying a dozen missed calls and more than twenty texts. The most recent was from Mike.

  Clay – it's urgent. Get to the hospital. Now.

  24

  Alicia

  Seeing Clay looking vulnerable and hurt like that shocked me to the core. Of course, I knew that there was more to him than just the image he'd so carefully constructed – the philandering bad boy who didn't let any girl close enough to tie him down, because I was living proof that that was a lie.

  But even so, I was suddenly reminded that, in truth, we'd only been dating for a few short months, regardless of the fact that the whole world thought we were engaged. Worse, I realized that I was guilty of treating Clay like the man in the magazines – the guy with the huge cock and without a care in the world. But he was so much more than that – he was a person with feelings, emotions that ran deeper than I'd ever have imagined.

  I needed to find him, and I needed to prove to him that I could be more than just arm candy – I could be the kind of girl who was there for him in his darkest moments. More than that, I knew that I wanted to be at his side when he needed me most.

  I grabbed my phone and dialed his number, but there was no response. Almost frantically, I tried it again, and again – but every time, the call was sent straight to voicemail. I couldn't imagine that he was intentionally ignoring me, but I was soon frantic with worry that he'd gone and done something stupid or got himself hurt.

  I didn't care if he wrecked what remained of his career – and mine with it. I just wanted him back alive and in one piece. But if I knew one thing about Clay, it was that when he was hurting, he did stupid shit.

  I called the only person I knew who'd been through this before and had dealt with Clay when he was in this kind of frame of mind.

  "Mike?" I panted, my voice ragged with worry.

  "Alicia, great of you to call. I was actually just about to ring you guys."

  "You were?" I asked, knocked off balance by Mike's unexpectedly cheery tone. I was so confused by the contrast with his carefree happiness and the state of sheer, unadulterated panic that was beginning to overcome my rational mind that for a moment, I was shocked into silence.

  "Of course – I wanted to personally give you two the good news. The launch is going better than we'd ever expected. We leaked it early to a couple of pirate music sites, and that gave it the kind of buzz money can't buy. We launched it on iTunes and Spotify as well as a couple of other places, and if you're not first in the streaming charts already, you will be by the time your head hits the pillow this evening! Congratulations!"

  "Uh, thanks Mike," I said less than graciously.

  "Are you okay, Alicia?" he asked, sounding a little disappointed. "I thought you'd be – well, more enthusiastic…"

  "To be honest, Mike," I replied fretfully, "I wasn't really calling about the record."

  "No?" He sounded surprised.

  "No. But it does knock one possibility off the list," I mused to myself, realizing that at least I could cross off the record failing as a reason for Clay's disappearance.

  "Alicia – what the hell are you talking about?" Mike snapped, clearly beginning to tire of me talking around him, rather than to him.

  "Sorry, Mike – I'm just so worried. Clay stormed out of here looking like his dog was sick or something. I've never seen him cry before, but he looked like he'd been sobbing all morning…"

  "Oh, shit," Mike muttered. "I should have known."

  "What's going on Mike?" I demanded, fed up of the fact that everyone else seemed to know what was going on except me – and I was supposed to be Clay's fiancée!

  "It's the anniversary of Sarah's death," he said sadly. "I should have told you."

  "Oh my God, Mike, I'm so sorry," I said. "Today must be so hard for you. Are you holding it together?" I wanted to reach through the phone and give him a hug.

  "I'm fine, Alicia. It's been ten years, and I've moved on, remarried. Of course it's hard sometimes, but Sarah had so much life in her, she would never have wanted me to grieve for the rest of my life. I tried to tell Clay that, but he coped in a very different way. Until he met you, that is."

  I flushed, suddenly overcome with emotion. I knew I shouldn't feel good about that, certainly not in this situation, but I couldn't help it. It was like a tap had been turned on my brain, and every pregnancy hormone had been turned up to ten. A tear creased my eye, and then floods star
ted pouring out.

  "Are you okay, Alicia? Don't worry – we'll find him," Mike said reassuringly. "Clay knows how to take care of himself, even when he's on a bender."

  "It's not that," I sobbed. "I don't know what's going on. Argh!" I shrieked, a pain from somewhere deep within my gut suddenly stabbing into me like a knife.

  "Alicia, what's wrong?" Mike asked urgently. "Is it something to do with the baby?"

  "How do you know about the baby?" I gasped through the pain. "Clay wasn’t supposed to…"

  I broke off, hands wrapped around my stomach.

  "It doesn't matter. I'm calling an ambulance now. I'll meet you at the hospital, okay?"

  "Mike…" I moaned through the pain.

  "Yeah?"

  "Find Clay for me." I needed him now, more than I'd ever needed him before.

  "I'll do what I can."

  * * *

  I must've lost consciousness, because the next thing I knew, two EMT's were crouching over me, talking to me in professional but urgent and concerned tones.

  "Miss Hudson, Miss Hudson – are you okay?"

  I stirred. "It hurts…" was all I could moan. I was lucid, but the stabbing pains from my stomach were almost overwhelming, as was the fear that was beginning to creep through me that after riding the emotional high of learning I was finally pregnant after spending seven years believing I'd never have a child of my own, I was about to lose it all.

  "Miss Hudson, have you been drinking? Smoking? Taking any drugs?"

  "No," I moaned through the agonizing stabbing pain in my gut, "just Clomid, to conceive. Nothing else."

  "You have to be honest with us, Miss Hudson," the male EMT said disapprovingly, as though he suspected that I was lying to him.

  I don't know whether the fear prompted my response, or maybe the pain, but I snapped back, interrupting his holier than thou monologue. "I am being fucking honest." I paused to grunt in pain. "I haven't had a drink since I found out I was pregnant."