by S. L. Scott
THE FOOD WAS delivered and from the bedroom, Jude heard the rustle of the plastic coming from the kitchen. She didn’t hear Hazel though. He was eerily quiet and it bothered her, twisting her stomach in knots.
With her eyes open, she watched as he opened the bedroom door slowly and paused, his dark body silhouetted by the light from the kitchen. Her words got stuck in her throat. She so desperately wanted him to speak first, to tell her everything’s going to be okay. But as the bed dipped and she felt Hazel’s body against hers, she also felt more than his weight. She felt his burden. In the dark room, he sat there, not moving, not attempting to wake her. He sat there next to her drowning in his pain.
“Hazel?” She rubbed his lower back, but he didn’t turn. “Let me in. Please.”
“You have so much shit to deal with. You don’t need mine.”
“I want your… shit.” She laughed softly. “That sounds bad, but you know what I mean.”
He didn’t laugh, but whispered, “I do.”
Her hand continued to touch him. “Don’t hide things from me. Everyone hides things from me. To me, you’re honesty and trust. Please let me be the same for you.”
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
She sat up. “You can’t. You won’t. Don’t you see? You heal me.” She had felt his pain before but when their eyes connected, she saw his pain for the first time.
“I’m going to die, Jude. It could be ten years from now.”
She could feel the weight of the universe through the tense muscles of his shoulders and she rubbed to ease them. A silence hung between them and she started to wonder if he would ever fully share his burdens with her. He had given himself so selflessly to her, to be the strong one for her. What he didn’t realize was that she could be that for him. She would be his comfort, his lover, his companion, and his wife for life. “It could be seventy.”
Sliding around, she was across his lap and caressing his neck when he said, “Tell me you’ll love me no matter what?”
“I’ll show you.” She kissed him as she pushed him back on the bed.
“I thought you were hungry?”
“I am,” she said, straddling him. “Ravenous.” And kissed him.
The Chinese food was room temperature when they wandered into the kitchen an hour later. They ate at the bar as the sun set. The apartment was peacefully quiet, both of them content for the time being.
With full bellies, they got up and cleaned, put the extra food in the fridge, and went into the living room. She sat on the couch, he at the drafting table. After picking up a ruler, he watched his hand as he pressed it to the paper, waiting to see if it would shake or not. It didn’t, so with a pencil in his right, he completed a line since his hands were cooperating.
Jude opened a book from the case and pretended to read, but when he wasn’t looking, her eyes were on Hazel. His glasses were on, his hair a mess, shirtless, boxer shorts, and like a god from ancient histories past, he was too good for this world. A cruel fate would reclaim him and one day she would be alone again. Alone didn’t bother her as much as his death did.
“Do you love what you do? Creating? Architecting?” she asked with a smile as she lay down lengthwise.
With a smile already on his face, he said, “I love what I do. It’s one of the few professions that uses both sides of your brain—the creative and the analytical. I can feed my moods.”
“What mood are you in right now?”
“Analytical.” Turning back to his house on paper. “I need order, logic.”
“How bad is it, Hazel? Tell me.”
He knew what she was asking, but it wasn’t that easy to answer. “Telling you means I’ve come to accept it and I haven’t. So I’m just going to keep working on this project.” He peeked over at her. “I’m sorry.”
Their conversations had been full of words like sorry and I love you. But she realized that sorry only came to be because the I love yous existed. She preferred the latter though she understood they must grieve through a process of guilt and gratefulness.
“You don’t have to be.” Jude, of all people, understood the power of denial. She just hoped his denial didn’t end in his death. She opened her book and picked up where she had left off a few days earlier.
The day had been exhausting for both of them, but they lay in bed together after midnight wide awake. They tried for sleep, but it was hard sought and restlessly eluded them. Finally Jude gave into reality. “I can’t sleep.”
“I can’t either. What are you thinking about?”
“What am I not thinking about?” She rolled toward him and asked, “Make me forget.”
“If one day you’ll help me remember.” He wrapped his arm under her neck and she moved closer. “I’m scared I’ll forget how to control my hands and draw, or sketch, or touch you the way I want, the way you like.”
“You’ll not forget, my love. If you do, I’ll be your hands. I will. You can teach me.”
“How to touch you?” he asked.
Jude moved on top of him, took his hand, and placed it on her breast. “Teach me everything.”
His hand squeezed and she closed her eyes, her body stimulated awake from his touch. Sitting up, he kissed her collarbone and felt her—the dip of her waist right before it meets her hips, the roundness of her bottom, and then back up to her firm breasts. Her body was a compass to his life’s journey and he planned to explore and conquer.
With his mouth on her skin, he tasted her sweetest valley and hills. His hands rolled over her stomach and between her legs, which opened for him like the petals of a flower. “You like this,” he whispered, then kissed the top of one of her breasts.
“I do.” She shivered under his words.
He lifted up until her eyes met his, holding her gaze while he moved down her body. He kissed her where the secrets she only shared with him were hidden, like treasures.
She smiled and let her mind and body relax back. Rain started hitting the windows and she turned just to catch the beginning of the storm outside. While her body was revered into its own brewing storm, she let her thoughts thunder toward tomorrow. Taylor straightened over her and thrust inside her, no patience for the weather inside or out.
The temperature rose in the room, their bodies melting from the heat. She reached above her, her fingers grappling for leverage. When she kissed his shoulder, she fell back, lightning striking. “Taylor!” she cried out as his own tornado ripped through him. “Jude!”
They watched the raindrops hit the window until they fell asleep in the early hours of a new day.
The storm got louder throughout the night, the sky lighting up from booming lightning. Jude woke up just before when sunrise should have happened. She moved to the chair and watched the weather taunt her as if it could predict her future.
When Taylor stirred, his arm reached out, feeling for her. She said, “Is it a sign?”
He opened his eyes and she was the first thing he saw, making him smile his sexiest, most peaceful smile. “We don’t need signs. We have love and truth on our side.”
“I was told by the doctors I can’t have children.” She just said it. Like his disease, this fact picked at her bones, eating her alive.
Taylor sat up slowly not sure if he should go to her or give her space. “Which doctors?”
“Bleekman’s. They said the drugs have done damage to my insides. Do you think you can heal my body like you’ve healed my soul?”
Afraid to look at her, to let her see his sadness, he stared out the window at the rain. “I don’t think you should have kids with a man who won’t be there to help you raise them anyway.”
His tone was flat and she hated it. “You can’t be consumed with death when we have so much life to live. A baby of yours…” she looked away from him, “would be a gift.”
Anger surged over his grim reality of a future. “Those doctors would tell you anything to hurt you.”
“We’ve never used birth control and I’ve not gotte
n pregnant. I think they were right.”
“Jude,” he started, shaking his head ever so slightly. “I’ll do this if you need me to, but I don’t think we need to talk about something we can’t control before our appointment this morning. We can pick it up later tonight if you want.”
She pulled out a cigarette and lit it while staring out at the city on the other side of their glass refuge. “I started smoking because my uncle hated cigarette smoke.”
Another piece of the puzzle clicked into place, the rounded edges of her confession sharp with pain on his already beaten heart. “What if I asked you not to?”
Exhaling smoke, she then replied, “I’d quit for you.”
“I want you to stop smoking. I don’t ask much of you, but this I ask because I love you and even if I can’t live a long life, I want you to.”
Jude dropped it in a glass of water on the floor. “For you, anything.” Standing up, she said, “I’ll make breakfast.”
With all the talk of what they couldn’t do, he wanted to focus on what they could. Tucking his hands behind his head, he watched her naked body walk by and into the kitchen. He just hoped the shades were drawn in the living room. Getting up, he went to take a shower. He wrapped a towel around his waist before joining her in the kitchen.
He formed around her back, encompassing her. She stopped scrambling the eggs and leaned her cheek against his. He whispered, “It’s going to be okay.”
“You’re not mad at me about the birth control?”
“How can I be mad when I didn’t use any either.”
She moved the spatula around the skillet, then turned off the flame. “Living dangerously, Mr. Barrett?”
“Is there any other way to live these days?”
“Yes! Safely.”
“I guess I didn’t mind being tied to you before we tied the knot.”
Jude’s body stilled and she turned in his arms. “What are you saying, you crazy man?”
“Don’t call me crazy,” he teased.
Her fist lightly pounded his chest. “Never,” she replied with a smile. “But you’re saying you would have had a baby with me?”
“I still will if you play your cards right.” He waggled his eyebrows for extra emphasis.
“But I can’t.”
“I don’t think you should believe anything those doctors told you. You can find a doctor here in the city. We can do tests to see, but I’m not going to believe you can’t just because those psychos said it.”
She kissed his chin and then his lips. “Thank you. Now let’s get you fed and we’ll start getting ready.”
Taylor settled on the barstool with a plate and fork in front of him. Jude poured two glasses of juice and set one down for him. “Thank you for taking care of me.”
“I will always take care of you.”
Just before he had a chance to take a bite, a knock on the door surprised them. Their eyes met, panic setting in. Taylor stood and whispered, “Don’t worry. I’ll answer it. Go to the bedroom and get dressed. He watched her hurry into the bedroom and checked the time. 8:08. Too early for company. He tightened his towel around him and looked through the peephole. Two police officers stood on the other side of the door. “Hello?” Taylor called.
“Mr. Barrett, please open the door.”
“What’s this regarding?”
“Again, please open the door so we don’t have to disturb your neighbors.”
Red flags were firing with every receiving synapse, but he had no choice. One way or the other, the police had rights as much as he did. He slowly unbolted the main locks and opened the door just enough to see each other’s faces. The cop closest said, “We have a court order for Ms. Boehler to be returned to her guardians.”
“It’s Mrs. Barrett. We’re married. She’s twenty-two. Legally old enough to make her own choices. She’s choosing not to return to them.”
“She doesn’t have that right, legally,” he stated firmly, but the softening around the edges of his eyes belied the sternness of his words.
“We’re married.”
“But her guardians are still her parents and they have filed for her return.”
“They’re abusive. She can’t go back. We have a meeting with our lawyer at ten. He’s filing. Just pretend we weren’t here and let us go to that appointment.”
The officer sighed and looked down. When he looked up again, Taylor saw the sympathy in his eyes. “Hey, Mac. I may not understand the details of this case, but I have to follow orders. Ramirez here has to follow orders as well. We’ll have to arrest you if you keep us from our job.”
Taylor was not going to let her go without a fight, again. “Officers, let me ask you this: if someone had been drugging your wife, emotionally torturing her, physically abusing her, would you just step aside for her to be taken back to those people?”
They stared at Taylor a good, hard thirty seconds, then the cop said, “You’re in a towel. I have no idea how she’s dressed, but here’s what I’m going to do. We’re gonna step back, a few feet down this hall and pretend we haven’t had this conversation. You’re gonna get dressed, make sure she’s dressed, and open this door in five minutes when we knock. You seem like a nice enough guy, so we’ll extend you that courtesy, but we can’t walk away without Ms. Boe… Barrett in our custody. If you fail to open this door in five minutes, we’ll bust it open and arrest you and your wife for obstructing justice.”
Like rats—they were trapped. He started to shut the door, but the police officer added, “I’d also spend that time calling your lawyer, Mr. Barrett.”
The door shut and he locked one of the bolts. When he turned around, he saw Jude standing there in a pair of pants, a sweater, and sneakers. Her gaze lowered to the floor and she said, “Call your lawyer and go into the bedroom and wait until I’m gone.”
“No.” His eyes, like his tone, were defiant. “I’m not letting them take you.”
“You have no choice, Hazel. Please. You can’t help me if you’re in jail.”
He went to her, taking her by the arms, his eyes pleaded as his hands squeezed. “I’m not giving up. Don’t you give up either!”
“I’m not giving up. I’m playing by their rules. It’s poker and they have a better hand this round. We’ll have the better hand next deal. I’m going with them. You’re not going to stop this. You can’t. All you can do is help me through the legal system. Please, Hazel, I beg of you. Go into the bedroom, get dressed, and call the lawyer.”
He shook his head. “I can’t just let them take you.”
“Then come with me. Follow them to the station. They can’t just deliver me back home. There’s a paper trail they have to deal with. Go get dressed.”
They stole seconds together and stared into each other’s eyes. He touched her face and said, “Don’t open the door yet. I’ll follow you to the station.” Taylor wasn’t going to give up this time. He had failed her two days ago. Never again. She was his, and he will defend her from those determined to make her powerless.
Jude had accepted her fate this early morning and went to the door while her destiny stayed firmly wrapped up in the man in the bedroom. One bolt. Her hand shook, but unlocked it. When she opened the door, the two officers straightened themselves after having been leaning on the wall. She stepped out, and whispered, “Please don’t hurt him.”
They nodded. The deception of what was happening might not have been understood by the cops, but the gravity of ripping two people in love apart was. “I’ve got a wife at home. So does Ramirez.”
Jude nodded this time and lowered her head as she shut the door. The three of them walked to the elevator and were safely on it when she heard Hazel calling for her.
Inches remained when he caught sight of her while he pushed the button erratically to stop the door from closing. “Jude! Don’t go! Fight!”
An inch left before the door closed, blocking him. She said, “I love you. Always.” She heard the slam of his fists on the outside of the elev
ator as they started to descend. With her back to the officers, she glanced at them in the reflection of the doors. “We need to hurry. He’ll fight for me.”
The tall man standing directly behind her said, “I’d do the same for my wife.”
She found some comfort in the fact that he shared that with her, and she smiled.
TAYLOR JUMPED TO his feet when his lawyer, Caleb Monroe, walked into the police precinct. “Are you getting her out?”
“She’s not in jail, Taylor.” He walked with purpose to the counter, but added, “We’ll find out where she is, but right now, you need to calm down or they won’t tell us shit. Now go sit down and let me handle this.”
“Caleb—”
“Go.”
Taylor’s hands fisted and his teeth were grinding together, but he did what Caleb told him to do because he wanted to know where Jude was and everything, other than going to her family’s home—which he was threatened by Caleb not to do—he had tried had failed so far. From his chair he saw his lawyer discussing what seemed like the weather from the way they laughed and were so relaxed. After a few minutes, Caleb came over to Taylor, and said, “Let’s go.”
“Where is she?”
“We’ll discuss it outside.”
They walked out onto the busy sidewalk and down half a block before Caleb stopped and said, “She’s with her parents. We could have assumed that since she wasn’t under arrest. That leaves us to file papers on her behalf if you feel she still wants to pursue her rights at this point.”
“What are you talking about?” Taylor asked, crossing his arms over his chest. “Why wouldn’t she?”
“Because she went willingly. She returned to these apparent monsters on her own.”
“No, she didn’t. They were going to arrest me. I would have fought for her. She knows that. She went to protect me.”
“But right now, we don’t have a statement from her saying that or to back that as her claim. We only have that she returned to their home willingly.”
“We need to go. They’ll send her right back to Bleekman’s.”