Half My Blood

by Lauren Gilley

  He’d learned in the last few weeks that doing nothing was only fun when you were lounging by choice. Being bedridden because a yellow goddamn muscle car had run over you sucked ass.

  Miraculous. That’s what the doctor’s had said. It was a miracle the car had gone over his arm, and not his center of mass. His helmet had saved his life. It had been touch-and-go after surgery, the worry that the internal repairs and patches wouldn’t hold, and that he’d start to bleed again. But it had been miraculous, all things considered, and he would eventually make a full recovery.

  But what about his ink?

  He’d been wearing a t-shirt beneath his cut that evening, and when he’d rolled end over end across the pavement, the asphalt had abraded his bare arms; had sanded off the top layer of skin. The subdermal ink looked jagged and irregular beneath the thick crusty scabs all down his forearms. Thank God the sleeves had protected his shoulders. His roses.

  The TV was on, but he was watching a cable showing of The Dark Knight and the screen was mostly dark, giving him a nice glimpse of his sad-sack sorry self all bundled up in Ava’s guest bed, head tipped back against the headboard, throat knobby, skinny, and nothing like the way he remembered.

  He’d lost twenty pounds during all this.

  He looked like shit and didn’t feel much better than that.

  A light rap at the door preceded Ava’s entrance. She slipped in quickly and quietly, like a thin shadow in black tank top and skinny jeans.

  “Need anything before I go?”

  He needed a lot of things, none of which his sister could provide. She’d been outstanding, he had to give her credit: when he was released from the hospital, it had been apparent to all of them that he couldn’t bunk at the clubhouse or go home to the apartment. Ava didn’t start school until late August, so she’d volunteered the spare bedroom at her house. She and Mags had both looked after him that first week, but without Ava and Mercy – well, he didn’t like to think about not having their help.

  Ava had brought him his pills at the right times and ensured he took them. She’d kept him hydrated, fed him when he could choke stuff down, kept Chapstick and water, magazines and chocolate on the bedside table. In the evenings, Mercy had hooked an ungodly strong arm around his waist and helped him shower. Had washed his hair like he was an infant. This must be how he is with Remy, Aidan had reflected beneath the coursing hot water. That giant hand so gentle as it curved around his skull, working flower-smelling shampoo into his hair.

  They had served as siblings, parents, and hospital staff, never complaining, never acting like he was a burden.

  Through the walls, at night, when the pain meds weren’t strong enough to send him to sleep, he lay in a fuzzy trance and listened to their murmured voices. The low chatter of in-depth conversation. The smoky Cajun rumble of Mercy’s chuckle. Ava’s high, bright laugher. He heard the baby fuss and heard them go to him down the hall. He heard their bed creak and listened to those timeless, unmistakable sounds he’d heard so often on the other side of closed dorm doors; there was a difference in pitch with them, though, something sweet and warm, rather than the desperation he was so used to.

  They were this little family unto themselves, wanting nothing, but acting glad to have him.

  Ava was going back to school this afternoon. Just one class, from two to four, and then she’d pick Remy up from Mags at Dartmoor and be back.

  Aidan was terrified.

  He dampened his lips. “I…” What did he want? For his baby sister to sit home with him? He couldn’t say that. So he said, “Nah, I’m good,” staring at the TV so she wouldn’t see the pleading in his eyes.

  What a pussy.

  She hesitated a moment. “I made you lunch. I’ll bring that and some more Gatorade. Okay?”

  “ ‘Kay.”

  **

  Because she’d called ahead, Sam found the back door of the Lécuyer house unlocked when she arrived. She let herself in, turned the deadbolt behind her, and walked into the kitchen in search of Ava.

  There was a wooden tray perched on the table holding someone’s lunch. Ava stood at the fridge, putting a casserole dish away on the shelf. Remy was crying in his swing on the floor.

  “Remy, Remy, Remy,” Ava said as she pushed the fridge door shut with her hip. To Sam: “I’m sorry, I’m ready to go, but I’m gonna have to change him first.”

  “That’s fine.” Sam hooked her purse on the back of a chair. “No rush.”

  They’d decided to carpool today, since it was the first day, and since parking would be such a nightmare. After the first week of class, the dropouts and the class-skippers would stop coming to class, and the lots would be thinned. But for today, they were taking Ava’s truck together. In case they had to park in a median.

  “Great. Sorry,” Ava said again, bending over the swing and unhooking Remy’s straps. “Oh, hey, would you mind running that tray back to my brother? I told him I’d bring him lunch before I left.”

  Just like that, there was a fist tightening around her stomach.

  Sam swallowed, throat suddenly dry, gorge suddenly rising. All those old physical manifestations of nerves. Aidan Teague – who she had lusted over, been morose over, who hadn’t remembered her – would surely remember their last run-in, when she’d called him a jackass and cut him down hard. She didn’t want him. The last of her romantic notions had been blasted to bits by his forgetfulness. But she wasn’t keen on being in the same room with him after their last awkward encounter.

  And then she remembered that he’d nearly died in a motorcycle crash, and shame heated her cheeks.

  “Sure.” She picked up the tray. “The second bedroom?”

  “Uh-huh.” Ava was already headed into the living room with Remy and the diaper bag.

  Sam took a deep, steadying breath, and went down the hall.

  Ava was by no means a chef, but her cooking had improved just in the time that Sam had known her. On the tray for Aidan’s lunch she’d put together a club sandwich packed with cold cuts and real skillet-fried bacon, lettuce, tomato, mustard dribbling down the sides. Instead of chips there were sweet potato fries. A bowl of steamed broccoli. A small dessert plate with a fat chocolate chip brownie. And two white pills beside the Coke: his pain meds.

  The bedroom door was ajar and on the other side of it she could hear the dim rumble of the TV. She hesitated a moment, unsure what to expect. Then she eased the door open with her elbow and stepped in.

  It was a small spare bedroom, but there was room for a double bed against one wall, and a low-slung bureau across from it that held the TV. The bedside table was covered with water and Gatorade bottles, prescription bottles, magazines, scraps of tissue, a Dove chocolates sampler. On either side of the TV, the bureau was loaded with nasal spray, eye drops, body lotion, boxes of gauze, bandages and bottles of antiseptic. The blinds were open, but with the sun so high overhead, the light stayed on the other side of the window, almost as if it were afraid to pierce the gloom with even the thinnest fingers. The room smelled like rubbing alcohol, and clammy sheets, and illness.

  And there was Aidan, propped up on a stack of pillows against the headboard, head tipped back like it was too heavy to hold up, his left arm in a cast and sling.

  For the first time, she understood the true meaning of the phrase “death warmed over.”

  The weight loss was the most shocking part, the way he was all angles, his t-shirt too loose, his features startling in this new, narrower face. His glossy curly hair was dull. The right arm, the one that hadn’t been run over, was a mess of cracked dark scabs, all the vivid ink hidden beneath them. When she first stepped in, his eyes were closed, and the flesh around them looked dark, bruised.

  She was struck suddenly by the knowledge that she’d never seen her father after his accident. The one that had killed him. Her mother had identified the body at the morgue while Sam was at work, and she’d only seen him later, when the funeral home had dressed and made him up for the viewing. He’d
looked almost alive then. It was amazing what they could do with cosmetics.

  He’d looked more alive than Aidan did now.

  Her hands started to shake, and the plates clicked together on the tray.

  Aidan’s eyes opened and slid toward her, brows drawing low when he saw that she wasn’t his sister.

  “Ava needed to change the baby before we left,” she explained, “and she asked me to bring you this.”

  He stared at her one long, unreadable moment, then his eyes went to the TV. “ ‘Kay. Thanks.”

  Was he unhappy to see her? Or was this simply about his condition? His truly awful condition.

  The tray was the kind intended to go over a lap, so she stepped up to the bed and set the tray carefully over the shapes of his legs beneath the covers.

  “You don’t have to–” he protested, hitching himself up higher against the headboard.

  “It’s no problem.” She made sure the tray was stable and not about to tip over, and then she straightened, not wanting to linger in his personal space. She wasn’t his family or his friend.

  He cleared his throat as he stared down at the food. “I’m not all that hungry.”

  “Maybe you will be when you start eating,” she suggested.

  No comment.

  “You probably shouldn’t take those pills on an empty stomach.” What the hell was she doing? Just get out of the room!

  A frown twitched at the corners of his mouth. “Won’t matter. Not like I can operate heavy machinery or anything.”

  “It might upset your stomach.”

  “I’ve got a trash can to puke in.”

  He was lifeless. And it was heartbreaking.

  The contrast between the swaggering, cocky bastard who’d walked into Ava’s kitchen a week ago and this dull shadow of a man stirred a strange ache inside her. Aidan may have been indifferent, and cruel in the way that all beautiful men were cruel – but to see him laid so low brought her no pleasure.

  “I think you should eat,” she said, recognizing her tone as the cajoling one she always used with her sister. “You’ll feel better.”

  He looked toward her again, and she thought, for a second, that he almost smiled. “What do you care if a jackass feels better?”

  She pressed her lips together to keep from groaning, her face heating. “That was a regrettable choice of words.”

  “Regrettable.” His derisive snort sounded tired, a shade of his usual attitude. “You sound like my sister.”

  She was grateful for the sudden prickling of irritation; it eased her guilt. “That’s probably why we’re friends. We’re both writers.”

  “Right.” He let his head flop back onto the pillow but was still holding eye contact. “I don’t get that. Why would anybody wanna spend all that time writing stuff down?”

  It sounded curious, rather than caustic.

  Sam shrugged and folded her arms. “It’s not really something you wake up one day and choose to do. It’s a calling. It sings to you, and you have to answer.”

  A thoughtful face from him that was worlds more attractive than all his venomous snark.

  “What about you?” she asked. “Doesn’t the open road call to you, or something like that?” Humorless chuckle. “Because why would anybody wanna spend all that time picking bugs out of his teeth?”

  He grinned, and despite the pallor and the thinness, the expression transformed his face, revived him a little. “Alright, fair play.” He shifted, and then he looked more comfortable, more relaxed. His eyes came to her face and stayed there, longer than she would have liked, long enough to make her want to squirm inside her clothes.

  “You were really quiet,” Aidan said after a while. “And you always wore that huge sweater. And your glasses were round instead of that shape.” He gestured toward the chic rectangular frames that perched on top of her nose.

  Sam nodded, and felt her pulse flutter, a small beating of wings at the base of her throat. “Yeah.”

  Thoughtful face again. “You grew up.” And the phrase meant so many things all at once, she didn’t know which to latch onto. “I didn’t recognize you the other day, honest to God. I wasn’t trying to be a dick.”

  She managed a faint smile. “You do it so well though.”

  When he laughed it sounded like it hurt his chest, the low rattle deep beneath his ribs.

  The softening she felt was dangerous. She did not need to allow herself to feel tenderness and sympathy for this man…and yet she couldn’t help it. He was beyond pathetic right now.

  And he’d remembered her after all.

  “Do you need anything else before we leave?” she asked, and hated the way she sounded worried. Hated it a little, anyway.

  “Nah, I’m good.” He sounded surer of himself now. “Most days I can go take a leak by myself.” When she didn’t respond, he said, “I’m kidding. I can at least do that.” His eyes skittered away, though, like maybe a day or so ago, he’d needed help with that most basic human function.

  “We won’t be gone that long.”

  “It’s fine. Go. Be nerds. Write shit.” He gave her another of those almost-normal grins. “Sing back to it, or whatever the hell.”

  She smiled. “Wow. That was poetic. You sure you don’t want to come?”

  He shuddered dramatically. “There’s a reason I never got my GED.”

  Yes, and a stupid one at that.

  “Okay.” She needed to take a step back, but didn’t. Not yet. “I’ll…see you later then. Eat your lunch, if you can.”

  His gaze dropped to his plate. “Yeah. Ava doesn’t turn everything into an old shoe anymore. It’s eatable.”

  Edible, she corrected silently in her head.

  “Sam!” Ava called from down the hall. “I’m done with the baby.”

  Really no reason to linger any longer.

  “I should go,” she said, and turned for the door.

  “See ya,” Aidan said behind her, and she heard the plates clinking around as he contemplated his food.

  And then he added, “Sam.”

  As it turned out, he wasn’t alone for very long.

  The problem with eating was, it sounded terrible, until he actually started eating. And then he realized he was starving. And sometimes, he bolted his food like a hungry chocolate Lab and then puked it all back up. So he’d learned his lesson. The club sandwich turned out to be exactly what he wanted, but he made himself take it slow, small dainty bites like he was some kind of goddamn princess, and was more than halfway through when he heard a bike outside. He knew all his brothers’ bikes, because he’d done most of the work on them. A clear audio of the ringing tailpipes, and he could place each bike and each Dog.

  This was Tango.

  For ease of visiting during his recovery, Ava had hidden a key under a broken flowerpot by the back door, so visitors could come and go if she wasn’t at home. Aidan listened to the bike shut off; to the scrape of the key in the lock, the door opening and closing, Tango’s light, ballerina footfalls as he moved through the house.

  “Hey,” his voice said on the other side of the door before it was pushed inward.

  “Hey,” Aidan echoed, slammed again by the shame he felt each time one of his club brothers saw him in this bed.

  Tango left the door open as he stepped into the room and dropped into the recliner Mercy had set up beside the dresser. It was a ratty, hand-me-down thing, angled toward the bed. His first few nights at home, Ava had slept there, watching over him, worrying, being better than a half-sister had ever been in the history of half-sisters.

  “Lunch?” Tango asked.

  “You look like you could use it more than me.”

  Tango shrugged. He’d always been thin; he had one of those long, slender physiques. A dancer’s build, Maggie had called it, before she knew the horrible ironic truth of the words. But now, today, he looked the thinnest Aidan had ever seen him. Skinny like when he’d finally broken away from his old profession and he’d still had veins choked w
ith heroin. The baggy clothes could only hide it so well. He was like a scarecrow beneath his t-shirt. Everything about the graceful way he walked was hidden inside the wide legs of his jeans.

  “You look like shit, man,” Aidan said.

  “Coming from you, that is an insult.”

  “Hey, I was a douchebag’s hood ornament. What’s your excuse?”

  Tango attempted a smile…but it got the best of him, and he wound up studying the dominoes on his fingers, chewing at the inside of his cheek.

  “Bro, what’s wrong?”

  He shook his head. “Nothing. Just tired.”

  “It’s hot as hell outside; everyone’s tired.”

  Tango stretched out his hand, turned it over, held it to the light. His fingers were skinny as matchsticks, and looked just as brittle. He’d brought a heaviness into the room with him; there was something he wanted to say, but he couldn’t bring himself to do so yet.

  “How’s Jazz doing?” Aidan asked, to change the subject.

  Going by the way Tango’s brow crimped, Jazz was somehow a part of the burden. “She’s good,” he said, curling his hand into a fist and tucking it into his lap alongside the other one.

  “The bruises are gone, yeah?” Aidan prodded.

  “Yeah, for a while now. She’s alright. She’s kinda jumpy when somebody walks up behind her.”

  “Gettin’ strangled’ll do that.”

  “Yeah.”

  “She’s not still trying to set you up with anybody is she?”

  Tango shook his head. “No. I think she…I think she figured out that wasn’t ever going to work.”

  “It could work.”

  Tango shot him a withering glance. “How?”

  Aidan shrugged and almost tipped his lunch tray over. He grabbed at it with one hand and gestured vaguely with the other. “I dunno–”

  “You’re not exactly the one to be giving advice on that front.”

  “Hey, I never said I was.” He scowled. “But you could…shit, you could try to meet somebody. A real chick, and not a groupie. And, maybe…ease her into things slow.”