Infraction

by K. I. Lynn

  I felt a kick in my stomach and my hand flew to the spot. Nathan noticed the motion and turned to me, placing his hand on my skin. “My little girl wants to play with her siblings, huh?” He leaned down and kissed my stomach. “You’re not quite done yet, little one. Soon.”

  I reached up and began playing with his hair. It was so silky in my fingers. I sighed in contentment, looking at what my life had become—what Nathan and I had evolved into.

  It was beautiful. We were a family, a real one. My heart was soaring at the thought.

  Beep.

  Beep? I wondered, my hands still playing with his locks.

  The strange beeping became incessant, steady. It pulled me away from the beautiful vision in front of me. I held onto Nathan’s hair, refusing to let go. It was everything my heart desired.

  Beep.

  A bright light began to envelope everything, our children fading away. I began to panic, hearing the beeping increase as I called out for them to come back. It was so bright, enveloping everything. Taking away what I’d always wished for.

  And then there was nothing but pain for a few seconds.

  My eyes began to open, fighting against the glue that seemed to be keeping them shut. The morning light seeped through the windows. My hand twitched, and I felt something between my fingers. I looked down to find Nathan’s familiar hair beneath my palm. His head was lying on his arm, his other hand draped on my stomach. He was asleep.

  I’d been dreaming.

  I studied him. There were dark circles under his eyes, and his face was gaunt. He seemed thinner, too. I hadn’t noticed how terrible he looked because I refused to really take a good look at him. I didn’t want to.

  The dream resurfaced, and in my mind I remembered how good, how healthy, he looked. I also remembered the family we had. I had dreamed of him, dreamed of us, and what we could be.

  My walls were cracking. I wanted it. I wanted it so badly. I wanted him.

  My fingers combed through his hair, and I wondered if I’d been doing that in my sleep? Had I known he was there and reached out to him?

  It wouldn’t surprise me. I never could deny the draw I had to him. The more I thought about letting him in, the more my chest constricted, my breathing more labored.

  It would be up to him. If he wanted me as much as he claimed, he would have to show me.

  Everything.

  Nothing less would allow me to open back up to him. No more hiding. He would have to let it all out before I even considered.

  He stirred and my fingers stilled. His eyes opened, and I stared down at him. They closed again, and his head pushed up into my hand as he let out a sigh of contentment.

  “Hi,” he croaked. I didn’t respond. I was muted as his blue eyes gazed up at me in reverence. “How are you feeling?” His hand rose from my stomach and moved a strand of hair from my face.

  “You really want an answer to that?” Just because he brought me food and movies, did not mean everything was wonderful.

  “That bad, huh?”

  I shrugged as best I could. “Broken heart, broken body, and broken soul. Not sure I can get more broken than that.”

  He cringed against my words. “I’m going to work on fixing all those things.”

  “You have a plan for that?”

  “It’s formulating. Slowly, but it’s coming.”

  I quirked my brow at him. “Are you sure about that?”

  “It’s a twelve-step program.”

  My lips twitched. “Really? What’s step number one?”

  “Admitting I’m in love with you…to you and myself.”

  I stared at him, unable to respond, but my heart was beating at a furious pace and, thanks to the heart monitor, Nathan was aware of it, as well. “Step two?”

  He let out a hard breath and sat up, my hand falling from his hair, and he took it in his. “Gather the strength to tell you about, well, everything.”

  “How long will that step take, do you think?”

  “I’m hoping by the time you’re released I’ll have a plan in place.”

  “That doesn’t give you much time.”

  He shook his head, lips pressed together. “No.”

  “That’s only two steps.”

  “Well, I’m thinking groveling will come into play somewhere,” he said as he stared off into the distance, lost in thought. “I’m going to push my fears down, if step two works, so we can move onto step three.”

  “I wish I knew what your fears are,” I whispered.

  He lifted my hand to his mouth and kissed my knuckles. “Soon. As soon as we get you home.” He glanced up at the clock on the far wall and looked back to me. It was almost eight. “I have to get to the office.” He scooted back from the bed. It was then I noticed he was dressed in a different suit from yesterday.

  My brow scrunched, and even that hurt. “How long have you been here?”

  “A few hours,” he admitted. “You have surgery prep soon, and then Caroline will be in around lunch. That should be around the time you wake up. After that, my mom and Erin are going to keep you company until I get out of work.”

  I winced, not wanting to think about being under for surgery. Especially knowing I would be facing it alone. No one would be right outside the surgery doors praying, pacing, or waiting. I swallowed the fear down like a cold, hard lump. My eyes slid closed for a moment, to brace myself, buoy my courage back, and keep it surfaced long enough to get through the ordeal of more trauma on my poor mangled body.

  I opened my eyes and tried to focus on the strong, striking features of his handsome face. What if this was the last time I saw it? What if I died on the operating table? No, I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. And it didn’t help to let these morbid thoughts be entertained for even a second. I will see you again!

  “Oh, okay,” I responded. It was all I could say. I didn’t want to break down.

  He leaned down and kissed my forehead, then with hesitance, moved down to my lips. He thought better of it before we connected and slid to my cheek instead.

  “I love you,” he whispered in my ear.

  He turned and walked out the door, glancing back at me before disappearing.

  Tears welled in my eyes as everything we talked about looped through my mind. I wanted to say “I love you, too,” but that wouldn’t do either of us any good. I wanted the dream.

  Soon after, a nurse entered my room and began talking to me about my upcoming surgery. I could hear what she was saying, but I didn’t comprehend most of it.

  I was too scared to think straight—I’d never had surgery before.

  Nathan, our children… I focused on the dream I had. I needed to go to a happy place and the dream was my new fantasyland. Surgery was too overwhelming to think about. In order to keep from crying, I said my phantom family’s names over and over again.

  Anna.

  Jackson.

  Baby girl in my tummy, whom I loved as much as the ones running circles around my beach ball belly.

  And Nathan… Always Nathan.

  Would they wait for me, and be my future someday?

  It was all too terrifying to think of, but the warmth, the love I felt on that beach in my dream was so real. More real than these harsh hospital walls I was staring at.

  The nurse said something about calming down and taking some deep breaths. That was when I realized I was borderline hyperventilating.

  It all became a blur after that. Before I knew it, I was in the operating room and the anesthesiologist was telling me to count to ten.

  I only made it to seven.

  CHAPTER 5

  I awoke groggy, my head swimming, eyes unfocused.

  “Nathan…” I mumbled. My eyes refused to stay open, my head lolling back and forth. “Nate!”

  My breathing was hard. Where was he? I needed him.

  “Shhh, I’m here, baby,” he called, his voice rough. I felt his hand on my cheek and then sighed, leaning into the warmth.

  “Take me home,” I s
aid weakly.

  “What?”

  “I want to go home.”

  “Oh, Honeybear, soon.”

  “Please.” Tears began to stream down my face. “I want to go home. Take me home.”

  My eyes opened a tiny bit, and his brow was scrunched up, sadness etched in his features. He looked up at something, and a voice chimed in letting me know we were not alone.

  “It’s the drugs,” Dr. Morgenson’s familiar voice said.

  Dr. Morgenson had been in and out during my stay. We had mini sessions together. To most, it would look like a normal conversation, but what was actually going on was Dr. Morgenson playing his Jedi mind tricks on me. Some worked, others didn’t, and I was always left feeling emotionally drained. He was taking advantage of my drugged state, I thought, planting seeds and pulling weeds.

  At least that was how I looked at it.

  “Okay,” I said, answering the unasked question.

  “Okay?” Nathan asked, confused.

  “Okay. I’m okaying the schedule.”

  Nathan’s face lit up and a smile began to spread before quickly fading. “You don’t know what you’re saying right now. We’ll talk about it when it wears off.”

  My anger spiked, and I unleashed it upon Nathan. “I fucking said I want you to take care of me, and that’s your response? After everything? I’m agreeing, so you better fucking accept it before I take it back!”

  “Nathan, it’s not the right moment to start arguing with her. She’s not lying. She may be loopy and out of it, but she means it. Let her be,” Dr. Morgenson said.

  My head spun a little. I knew what I was saying, but it was coming out all wrong. Nothing made sense in my head except what I was trying to say.

  His eyes were wide, and I could tell he didn’t know what to do with me. Hell, at that moment I didn’t know what to do with me.

  I sniffled; my emotions were everywhere. “Don’t you want me? You said you wanted me.”

  “That’s not it, baby. I just want to make sure it’s what you want.”

  I pulled him to me, as close as possible. I had an overwhelming need to be close to him. I felt disconnected from myself in some ways. Tears streamed from my eyes, and his arms wrapped around my torso, his head buried into my neck.

  “I love you,” I said, my breath hitching. “I love you so much. Please, please take me home. I don’t want to be here anymore.”

  He pulled back to look at me. It hit me what had slipped past all the walls in my mind and heart, and through my lips. The deepest feelings I kept from him. Words I was afraid to tell him, the feelings that tore me to shreds and broke me to pieces when he left.

  He buried his face back into my neck. “I love you, and I’ll wait. I know you’re saying things due to all the meds in your system right now. I’ll wait until the day you want to say them on your own terms.”

  We stayed like that for a few minutes, and as the time passed, my mind began to clear. I froze with realization. Nathan’s arms stayed wrapped around me, unwilling to let me go.

  He pulled back and moved the chair closer, touching me the entire time. “I want to take care of you; I want you to come home with me. We’ll go at whatever pace you want, though.”

  His finger made soothing circles on my skin, and I couldn’t take my eyes off him. The world fell away, and it was only Nathan and me, at least until Dr. Morgenson cleared his throat.

  “Now that I have your attention, both of you, there are some things we need to go over,” he began. The doctor was in. “I’ve drawn out a schedule for the both of you. I think it would be a good idea, considering all that has happened between the two of you, that you have a joint session, once a week, on top of your own.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Getting you both back into therapy is a necessity right now. You two need to communicate everything if you ever want to try to be together again. Otherwise I’m afraid of what could happen down the line.”

  “Darren, she’s not even out of the hospital, so maybe we should wait on the therapy.”

  Anger flashed across Dr. Morgenson’s face for a brief moment. “No, Nathan. We’ve all coddled you for far too long and it’s done you no good. I’m not making that mistake again. You have to bring it all into the open so you can move on and heal. You will never heal like this; you can’t even talk about her or the accident four years later! It’s the only way you two can ever be together.”

  “I…ugh!” Nathan let out a strangled cry.

  “Please, stop.” I couldn’t stand to see him in pain.

  “He wasn’t the only one to suffer from that mass of metal and glass,” Darren said, shaking his head. “You weren’t the only one who lost that night. They lost you as well, Nathan. Your whole family has mourned your loss for the last four years. Your mother has been fighting severe depression, but you don’t see that because you never see her anymore. Erin has nightmares of seeing your bloody, broken body with your heart barely beating. You were in a coma and didn’t see the devastation it caused your family, and I’m including her side when I say family. When you woke, they had to relive it all to tell you what had happened. Horrific memories haunted them every day as they helped you during your rehabilitation. That night tore your family apart, and only you can put them back together. I believe Lila is the key to that healing.”

  Nathan’s eyes were squeezed tight. “Darren, please, no, I can’t deal with this right now.”

  “Have you told her how it affected you to see her on the stretcher, her car a crumpled heap?” Darren turned and asked Nathan, his voice holding an edge I had never heard before.

  Nathan shook his head. “Please,” he begged in a low voice.

  “This is what I’m talking about. If you want her back, then you need to start talking to her. Tell her about your panic attack, tell her about your dead wife, tell her what she does to you.” The pain and frustration was visible in his eyes. It wasn’t Dr. Morgenson I was looking at. It was Darren; Nathan’s close friend.

  “Darren, I…”

  “Show her the box. It’s the best way for you to tell her. Let her in; let her know you and the truth. It’ll help you both.” Darren’s face was filled with genuine care and concern as he stared at Nathan. “If, after all she learns, she still wants to be with you, you’ll have to not only accept and embrace it, but you’ll have to let go of your fears. See how this works? There has to be some vulnerability for her to trust you again. Otherwise you will hold your relationship back. Let go. It’s time to live.”

  With that, Darren walked up to Nathan and squeezed his shoulder before leaving us alone. Silence prevailed as he mulled over what to say.

  “I promise I’m going to tell you. Just give me a little time,” he said softly.

  I nodded in response, having nothing left to say.

  It was in the late afternoon three days later that I was released. Nathan helped me into the car, and as we drove away I waved goodbye to the gathering of people who had come to see me off.

  The ride home was silent; I was lost in my thoughts. We were about halfway home when my hand twitched, and I realized at some point I had grabbed for Nathan’s. He didn’t say anything, didn’t move, but his thumb was drawing lazy circles on mine.

  When we arrived, he left me to get the wheel chair out of the trunk before helping me onto my new mode of transportation for at least the next week. My other injuries prevented the use of crutches for a while.

  The familiar static charge was in the air when we rode on the elevator, and I was very happy I wasn’t standing next to him. Instead, I fidgeted with the hospital tag I was still wearing around my wrist.

  “I want to tell you,” he said as he wheeled me down the hall to my condo.

  “Okay.” My eyes stayed trained straight ahead.

  “Now.”

  I nodded and swallowed hard.

  He found something to prop the door open as he helped me in. We moved to my bedroom.

  True to her word, Erin had indeed
cleaned up. The blankets were gone from the couch in the living room and were returned to the spare bedroom. My own bed was made with new sheets, the floor clear of any debris.

  Nathan picked me up, placed me on the bed, and began positioning the pillows around me. He helped prop me up against the headboard, making sure my leg was elevated and then he headed out to the kitchen, returning with a glass of water that he placed on the night stand next to me.

  “I’ll be right back,” he said, and I nodded.

  In his absence, my eyes drifted around the room. Nothing had changed, but so much had. I waited in silence, not moving. Moving was painful.

  It didn’t take long for him to return, and when he did, he was carrying a wooden chest about half the size of the carry-on sized suitcase he rolled in behind him.

  He climbed on the bed next to me—the box was in his hand and his eyes were locked on the clasp. I heard him swallow hard, and the butterflies in my stomach multiplied. That was what Darren had been talking about.

  “I h-haven’t opened this in over three years.”

  “What’s in it?” I asked in a whisper.

  His hand moved over the lid, his voice a whisper. “Ghosts.”

  With trembling hands he flicked the clasps and tilted it back, opening the contents to the world.

  My jaw dropped when my eyes landed on the picture that lay on top. It was the first thing I noticed because I recognized the photo in question. It resided in Jack Holloway’s office. Well, most of it did. Jack had hidden the third person in the picture. It wasn’t only his daughter and him; it included Nathan.

  “That’s Grace Holloway, Jack’s daughter.”

  “Yes,” he agreed and swallowed hard once more, “but, her gravestone reads Grace Thorne.”

  My eyes snapped to his. “Oh, my God.”

  “There are a few at the office who know, those who have been around long enough. They know, but have been asked not to say anything about it.”

  I couldn’t speak. Shock shut my mind down.

  Things Jack said came back to my mind. I was still new when his daughter had died in an accident. He had grieved heavily for her, and I remembered being confused by some of his behavior due to my own experiences with my dad.