by Marla Monroe
Heath pulled on his hair, wishing he could remember so he’d know what to say to make it right. Going in blind was asking for more trouble, but he’d promised Abby that he’d go and convince Kermit that nothing had happened.
By the time he’d settled down enough to drive the thirty minutes it took to reach the hospital, Heath had managed to slip back into his usually “couldn’t care less” attitude everyone knew him for. Well, everyone except Kermit and Abby. They alone knew his loneliness and didn’t tease or use it against him.
When he walked up the steps to the hospital, he found the hallways busy with visitors coming and going as well as the usual medical personnel milling around. Despite his resolve to make things right, Heath found himself dragging his feet as he meandered down the halls. He didn’t want to see his friend like this. It was degrading for someone as active as Kermit, with that larger-than-life attitude to be reduced to slumping in a bed in a darkened room looking like something the cat had dragged in.
“Can I help you?” a male nurse asked, standing several feet away.
“No. Thanks. I’m here to see a buddy. Guess it’s harder than I thought it would be,” he said.
The nurse nodded and seemed to relax a bit. Maybe the man had thought he might be dangerous or delusional. More than likely he dealt with that all the time working at a veteran’s hospital.
“The best thing for him is for you to act normal and not treat him like a patient. Don’t be insensitive, just be yourself.” The nurse smiled and continued down the hall.
“That’s probably what the hell got me in trouble in the first place. Hell.” Heath stood up a bit straighter and strode the rest of the way to Kermit’s room.
The sound of a tray hitting the floor had him ducking for cover. Heath recognized it for what it was, but had to fight to stay in the present. An orderly who’d just come out of the room across from Kermit’s had heard the tray as well and hurried over to where Heath was plastered to the wall with his hands covering his head.
“It’s okay. You’re at Walter Reed in Bethesda, Maryland. Do you understand?” the orderly asked.
Heath struggled to hear him, but the noise of the tray hitting the floor reverberated in his head like the drone of an incoming mortar round. The man continued telling him over and over where he was until it finally sank in and Heath was able to relax and allow the orderly to help him up.
“You okay now?” the man asked. His dark mahogany skin contrasted with the slightly greener than hazel eyes that peered at him.
“Yeah. Thanks.” Shame filled him as the other man nodded and turned away.
He knocked on the door wishing it would drown out the pounding of his heart. He wanted to forget that had happened, but the cold sweat trickling down his back wouldn’t cooperate. It was a very uncomfortable reminder that he’d just lost it again.
No answer greeted him, but Heath pushed open the door anyway. The tray he’d heard hitting the floor lay among the mess of his friend’s evening meal. Without looking at the hospital bed where Kermit would be, he carefully skirted the mess and stepped over to the side of the bed. He didn’t let himself second-guess his plans. Instead, Heath unhooked the combination call button and TV remote from the side rails and tossed it over on the chair next to the bed.
“What the hell did you do that for?” Kermit demanded.
“We need to talk.”
The other man glowered at him and turned away. “Got nothing to talk to you or anyone else about. Go the fuck away.”
Heath sighed. Somehow he figured this was the same thing he’d gotten from him before. He needed to be careful or the same thing would catch him off guard and lead to another episode.
“We’ll I’ve got a hell of a lot to talk to you about. You can just sit there and listen.”
“Fuck you! I don’t want you here.” Kermit glared at him again then yelled out. “Nurse! Get him out of here! I don’t want visitors.”
When the door opened, Heath felt his stomach drop. They would kick him out and he hadn’t had time to set things straight with his friend yet. To his surprise, it was the same orderly who’d helped him up only minutes before.
“What’s going on?” he asked in a deep voice.
“I don’t want visitors. Get him out of here.” Kermit pointed at Heath.
The orderly looked at him and sympathy shown in his eyes. The man turned to Kermit and smiled before turning to open the door. He looked over his shoulder at them.
“Son. This man just survived a bombing in order to come see you. That’s a true friend. I think you might want to listen to what he’s got to say. If you still want him gone by the time I finish my rounds, I’ll show him out.” The orderly stepped through the door and allowed it to close softly behind him.
“What the hell is he talking about?” Kermit demanded.
“Doesn’t matter. I made it here. What does matter is what the hell is going on with you and Abby. She’s a basket case because you said that I told her we had slept together. That’s not true. Where did you get that idea?” Heath asked.
Kermit’s face twisted into something full of rage and pain. Heath prepared himself for the worse. But it didn’t help.
“You told me, fucker! You told me you loved her and couldn’t help yourself!”
Chapter Three
Kermit panted through the pain that consumed him just saying those words. The disbelief followed by guilt that washed over his ex-friend’s face nearly tore what little was left of his heart apart. How could they have done this to him? Look at him. He wasn’t even able to fight for her and his best fucking friend had stolen his woman, the most perfect thing in his life.
He could see the struggle Heath went through trying to figure out how to get out of what he’d said. Why didn’t the bastard remember? It had only been a day. Looking closer at the other man, he saw the tell-tale signs of a mother of a hangover. The fucker had gotten wasted after they’d had their little chat the day before. He hoped the pounding in the other man’s head was as bad as the throbbing in his lower legs that weren’t even there anymore.
“It didn’t happen, man. I didn’t sleep with her.”
“Don’t you think I fucking know that? There wasn’t any sleep involved. You fucked her, plain and simple!” he yelled.
“No! We didn’t have sex. We didn’t, Kermit. I’d never disrespect you like that. Never! The two of you belong together. She loves you more than anything in this world. Everything!” Heath’s knuckles turned white as he gripped the bedrails.
“Then why would you tell me if you hadn’t done it? You were feeling guilty. You told me yourself you felt guilty as hell. You can’t talk yourself out of this one, Heath. I know you. Remember?” Kermit wanted to hit him. He’d never wanted to hit his best friend before, even when he’d done some pretty stupid stuff. But he wanted to pulverize the man now.
The real killer of it all was that he was losing the two most important people in his life now—his best friend and his fiancée, the love of his life. What was the use in fighting anymore?
“Tell me exactly what I said, Kermit, because I’ve never lied to you and I don’t believe I’ve started now. You’ve got it all wrong.”
“Been drinking a little much?” Kermit snarled. “That why your eyes look like road maps and you can’t remember telling your best fucking friend that you’d been screwing his fiancée?”
“I didn’t have sex with Abby!” Heath yelled back.
“That’s not what you said yesterday,” Kermit almost whispered as he let his head fall back against the pillow. He was tired, so fucking tired of everything.
“Then tell me what I said, because I know I didn’t tell you that Abby and I had sex.”
Kermit turned and looked up into the man’s eyes who he’d once thought was the brother he’d always wanted and blinked back the tears he told himself were from anger and not from betrayal. He opened his mouth to repeat the words that had been taunting him ever since the other man had left the day be
fore, but Heath held up one hand to stop him.
“Start from the beginning, when I first walked in.” Heath grabbed the lounge chair next to the bed and jerked it around so that he could sit down and still face him. After dropping the call button and remote to the floor, he sank down and stared at him, waiting.
“You seemed nervous when you walked in. You looked everywhere but at me. When you finally did, I thought you were going to fucking faint, but you didn’t. Instead you walked over and hugged me like you were glad to see me. Then you pulled the chair over like you did just now and sat down.” Kermit’s throat had dried out. He reached over to the tray on the opposite side of the bed as Heath and grabbed the oversized plastic mug and sipped the watered down juice they kept there for him.
“We talked about crap for a few minutes. Then I mentioned how I’d thought the weekend I’d ended up separated from my team would be my last days, and how all I could think about was that I missed Abby and wanted to hold her just one more time. I hadn’t been hurt, but with the stress of being discovered hanging over my head, I was scared spit less to move or do anything. I was lucky I had enough water and rations to last me the four days I was missing. Otherwise I’d have died of dehydration for sure. Going without food would have taken longer,” Kermit said, watching the other man closely. A strange look came over Heath’s face just like the day before, but this time Heath lunged to his feet and started pacing.
“Don’t stop. Keep going,” he said through clenched teeth.
Kermit watched him pace, opening and closing his hands as if he wanted to hit something. He knew exactly how the bastard felt. He wanted to hit someone more than anything right then.
“You got a little strange while I was talking about it. I’d just gotten to the part where another team found me, and after securing the three insurgents that had me trapped, helped me back to my unit. I told you that I thought I’d bit the bullet that time, but once I was back with my men, I figured I’d had my bad time and would be fine from then on out. Hell, I only had another four months,” Kermit said, then stopped. He drew in a deep breath and looked up at the muted TV to get his thoughts together. “That’s when you broke in and started talking again. You sat there staring at where my fucking legs should have been and told me you loved Abby and always had. You said that sitting there right then, you felt guilty as hell and didn’t know what to do.”
“What else did I say?” Heath demanded as he walked over to the end of the bed and leaned against the wall.
“You said that while I was missing, worrying about getting caught by the enemy, you and Abby had gotten drunk.”
“Did I tell you why we were drunk?” Heath interrupted.
“No.”
“We were drunk because your mom had called her and told her you were gone. She told her that they thought you’d been captured. Abby called me and we got drunk talking about you. We kept praying that you’d come back to us and that you were okay,” he said staring up at the ceiling.
“You said that you hugged her and that you couldn’t help yourself. You kissed her and when she tried to pull away, you wrapped your arms around her and didn’t let go.”
Kermit felt as if he was going to throw up. Rehashing it had the same damn effect on him that it had the day before. Nothing had changed and the pain wasn’t any less. Was this going to be his Groundhog Day? Was he going to relive his best friend’s revelation about screwing his fiancée over and over until he fucking went crazy?
“What else did I say?” Heath asked. Looking at the man, Kermit could almost feel sorry for him. Hell no! He’d fucked his woman.
“You didn’t say much else. You just said that now here I was and you felt guilty as hell for what you were thinking about and you left. You just walked out of the room without even bothering to say you were sorry. Did you enjoy going over it again as much as you enjoyed telling me yesterday? Well it better fucking do you for a while because you aren’t welcome back. I never want to see either of you again. Hope you both have a miserable life together. Now get the hell out!”
Kermit felt the hot burn of tears scorching the back of his eyeballs. The bastard needed to leave before he humiliated himself even more and cried in front of the man who’d taken everything he’d had left in his life.
Before he realized what Heath was going to do, the other man had pushed away from the wall and was on the bed, kneeling over him with two handfuls of Kermit’s shirt in his tight fists. It startled him so much that he just stared up at the man as if he were a stranger.
What. The. Fuck?
“You listen to me, Kermit. I did not have sex with your woman. We never fucked. We never made love. We didn’t even do the fucking horizontal bop.” He spoke so low that Kermit would have had to lean up to hear him if he hadn’t been practically kissing the man already.
“She’s never even acted like she was interested in me. That girl worships the ground you walk on and loves you even more. She never once flirted with me or acted in the least bit inappropriately the entire time she rode my ass to get back into the game. I treated her like dirt those first few weeks, just like you are now, but she’s like a fucking pit bull when it comes to making you see reality.” Heath sat back some, releasing the iron hold he’d had on Kermit’s shirt.
“That woman is priceless, Kermit, and you don’t deserve to grovel at her feet, but you better do it anyway. Yes, I fucking love her. I’ve loved her since the first time I laid eyes on her. Seeing how she is with you only made it worse over time, but as God is my witness, I have not taken advantage of her and that is what it would have been because she’s so in love with you it’s almost sickening.”
“You said she kissed you but that you took advantage of her,” Kermit said, almost too tired to even care anymore.
“No. She broke down and cried to the point I thought she was going to make herself sick. I pulled her into my arms and rocked her, trying to stop the tears. She was killing me and I was just as devastated about you as she was. When she finally looked up at me with so much pain and hopelessness in her eyes, it broke me. I’ve never seen her really cry, much less look like her entire world had crumbled. I kissed her. Yes. I fucking kissed her and when she tried to pull away, I almost didn’t let her. We. Did. Not. Fuck!” Heath leaned back on his legs and rubbed both hands over his face.
Kermit wanted to scream at him for bringing back all the hurt again, but most of all he wanted to tear out his heart for giving him the tiny amount of hope that started to break free inside of him. He fought it, knowing that if he let himself even think there was a chance that it would all be okay he’d end up a pussy whipped, cuckolded son of a bitch the rest of his life.
He looked up at the other man, remembering how he kept saying the guilt was eating at him. It had to be about more than just kissing his fiancée. Heath was a cocky son of a bitch. He wouldn’t feel that guilty over kissing Abby. If anything, he’d feel embarrassed at having been caught.
“Then what in the hell is all the guilt for, Heath? You don’t feel guilty for shit and we both know it. You’ve screwed every piece of ass you could get your hands on, so why do you suddenly feel guilty over just a kiss?” he asked, his voice dripping in sarcasm.
Heath looked at him once again and shook his head, his eyes glittered as if he was about to cry, but Kermit didn’t believe one second that the man was close to tears.
“Because once they said you were going to make it despite losing both of your legs, I was relieved that you were going to be okay. Then when we were all being thankful that you were alive, everyone agreed that it was fucked up that even though you were going to live, you had lost the ability to swim, the one thing you loved just as much or maybe even more than Abby. We all said it should have been one of us, not you of all people.” He shook his head, and Kermit realized that the man was crying.
Kermit watched as one solitary tear rolled down Heath’s cheek to hang for a second on his chin before dropping to the bed sheets. This wasn’t the Heath he kn
ew. That man would never cry over anything, not even him. He wasn’t the asshole that didn’t give a rat’s ass about anyone other than himself like most people saw him, but he didn’t cry over someone either. Or at least that was how it had been before.
“All the time we all agreed that it should have been one of us, all I could think inside was how relieved I was that it hadn’t been me.” He looked at Kermit, staring directly into his eyes. “How fucked up is that? You’re my best friend and I was fucking relieved that it had been you and not me. That’s what I’ve been feeling so fucking guilty about. I didn’t have sex with Abby, man. I left my best friend to his fate instead of offering to take your place.”
He looked down and seemed to realize he was kneeling where Kermit’s lower legs should have been. It freaked him out and he scrambled back so fast, he flipped over the end of the bed and hit the floor hard.
“Heath!” Kermit grabbed the trapeze bar over his bed and pulled up to try and see if Heath was okay. “Heath. Say something, man.”
“Fuck! I think I busted my head open.”
“Can you get up?” Kermit asked.
“Hell, I don’t know. Give me a second. My head already hurt like a mother,” the other man said.
“Damn it man, you left my fucking call button on the floor where I can’t get it. How am I going to get help if I can’t reach the button?” Kermit banged his hands on the side rails.
The scrape of the door opening had him jerking his head in that direction. To his relief, the orderly from earlier stood in the doorway.
“Huh. Looks like you aren’t as helpless as you’ve been claiming. You knocked the man on his ass and busted his head in the process,” he said with a deep chuckle. “Sir. Do you need some help up?”
“Yeah. If you don’t mind. I think I’m bleeding all over the floor.” Heath’s voice held humor but it was shaky at best.
“You’re bleeding? Why the hell didn’t you say you were bleeding, Heath.” Kermit cursed his useless legs once more.
“I wasn’t exactly thinking clearly at the time, man.” Heath’s voice broke as he struggled to stand up with the orderly’s help.