The old Livie would have argued a stupid point back to him. However, I deserved all the smart comments and attitude he had to dish out so I took it and soaked it up. I deserved to feel the disappointment of letting him down all over again for as long as it took him to really forgive me.
He had to get it out of his system in order for us to have a chance after this and I had to be strong enough to take it.
I cleared my frown and put on a smile. “Okay, so how do we do this? Is there anything I can do to help?” I asked him, looking down at myself.
He stopped rummaging through my clothes, turning to look at me with bewilderment at my change in attitude. I kept my smile in place. I knew this day was killing him inside and I didn’t want to give him any reason to be angry with me, for now anyway. God only knows what trouble he’s going to get into while I’m gone.
“Yeah, what do you want to wear? You have your jeans, gym sweats and…and shorts.”
I pulled down the covers exposing my legs as much as I could with my good arm. My left leg had two long scars going diagonal while my right leg had a large bandage wrapping around my thigh. I figured that one still had stitches.
It was a shame what I let myself do to my body, but it was all said and done so no point in making a huge fuss about it now. I thought about it before I answered.
“Urr… I think the shorts might be easier with the bandage on my leg… so shorts I guess.”
He stood still, blinking at me a couple times before turning back around to fish out a pair of shorts. He picked out a pair of black ones and a yellow pin striped top, along with a bra and panties.
There was a separate suitcase that he pulled up and opened. Inside were about a dozen pairs of my shoes neatly lined up. Law was amazing. He should seriously consider being a professional life coach because he is too organized for it to be normal.
Ocean picked out a pair of black ankle socks and the black chucks with the long tongue that I loved so much. He set everything aside going back to the other suitcase pulling out deodorant, lotion, and lip-gloss.
I smiled as he worked to get my things ready for me. When finished, he turned around with a wild grin. “Alright Zena, let’s get you naked.”
Chapter Eight
Lawrence
Today was going to officially be the worst day of my life all over again. Not only was I going to have to turn my Sunshine over to people I don’t freaking know but I had to keep a smile on my face for her sake.
Today I would also be losing my right hand man, Ocean, all over again. I had a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach about the devastating road trip we were all about to embark on. The anger and possessiveness Ocean had when it came to Sunshine was not normal.
I mean, if I loved her in the same way he did maybe I’d completely understand, but even then he was still dealing with Stormie’s death and his mom up and bouncing on him.
Right about now, I was missing Stormie myself. I never really got to say goodbye to her so it sucked.
“Lawrence! Lawrence! What’s with you? I’ve been chasing after you since you came off the elevator.”
When I turned around to face my mom, I don’t know what she saw but her eyes instantly watered and she pulled me into a hug.
“Come on Law.” Grabbing me by the hand, she pulled me down the hall before I could get a word out. Four lefts and two rights later I was standing in front of huge window with a front row seat to a room of a bunch of newborns. My mom still had her armed wrapped around mine, I guess in case I took off running away from her.
The woman knew me too well.
“Law, what do you see?”
I rolled my eyes and took a deep breath. “I see a bunch of wrinkled little people wearing blue and pink hats.” I said dryly and extremely amused at myself. “What else is there to see, except for a room full of babies?”
My mom shook her head at me. “Lawrence come on, look closer, what do you see?”
I looked at each baby trying to catch her drift but I wasn’t getting it. “Mom, come on. If this is your sick way of telling me you want to be a grandmother, then this is definitely not the way to go. I don’t have a girlfriend and right now I really don’t want one.”
Her hand came up and I got a slap to the back of the head. “You are so sarcastic when you’re hurting; you get that from me you know, so stop being such an ass.”
“So you’re telling me you act like an ass too?” I couldn’t help it; she set that one up for me. I dodged her hand from slapping me this time.
“No Lawrence, I was asking you to look closer because each one of those precious lives are fighting for something.” She pulled me closer to her and the window nearly smashing my face to the glass. “You see the little guy in the front row with the Mickey blanket. He was born with a hole in his heart and technically, he should have died at birth, but he’s still here. Oh, and the cutie pie with the cleft lip, Madison, she was born with undeveloped lungs and a genetic disease. And the chunky monkey in the back, Shedrick, he was born with his intestines and other internal organs in a sac outside of his body.”
I was officially feeling like shit. If her goal for telling me all of this was for me to realize that other people had it worse, then I’d have to buy her a fucking Oscar.
She turned to me, pushing me even closer to the glass. Each breath I let out fogged up the surface in front of me. “Law, each and every parent of these precious angels were expecting an easy delivery, with a healthy baby boy or girl, and the expectations to take them home right away. Instead, the moms gave birth and had their babies torn away from them without even getting the chance to hold them. Now, weeks later, the parents are praying to God for the news they finally get to take their babies home…if they even pull through. I’m not telling you this to bring you down. I’m telling you this because you, Lawrence Hawthorne, are a fighter just like those little ones in there. You live hard, play hard, and fight hard but you love even harder. You can’t give up on yourself, Ocean, or Livie. All three of you need each other and if these little ones teach you anything today, let it be that you can fight through this. You can make it out whole and back to your family. Before you say something sarcastic to piss me off, you do have a family Law. It might not consist of a father but you have me, your uncle, Ocean, and now Livie.”
I couldn’t help the tears that escaped my guarded prison called pride as she spoke to me. I was a grown man that wasn’t afraid to shed a tear when it was due.
Her tiny hands came up to wipe my tears away. “Law, keep fighting! Don’t you dare let this unfortunate event with Livie take away your fight because that’s all we have left at the end of the day. Our fight is our will and our will is what makes us who we are. It’s what makes you such a wonderful man, my friend, and my son.”
I pulled the tiny woman into my arms and hugged her tight. No wonder she was my number one even though she gave me hell on a daily basis. The woman in my arms was my world. Yeah, I’m a mama’s boy, so what!
Resting my chin on top of her head, I laughed as I watched the little wrinkly people kick and jerk awkwardly in their incubators and bassinets. Even though they were isolated and connected to a maze of tubes going in and out of their tiny bodies, they were all beautiful.
“I love you mom. Thank you for reminding me why I’m the luckiest jerk alive to have such a pain in the ass mom. I cannot live without you.”
She squeezed me tighter for a brief second. I kissed her on the forehead, pulling her back to look at her face. Her eyes were red and puffy and the tip of her nose was red too.
“Mom, I have to go but promise me something too. Promise me you’ll never stop fighting for your own happiness. I know you better than I know myself. I know that you burn yourself out in this hospital trying to save and protect everyone you can. I want you to stop and live for yourself. You have me and you always will. I’ll always be here for you. You don’t have to kill yourself working so hard.”
She frowned at me.
“Mom,
promise me you’ll go on vacation when Sunshine comes home.”
“Lawrence, I can’t do that. I have too much to do and these babies need me.”
“Mom, I need you! Ocean and Livie need you. She lost both parents; she needs a mother in her life. I would step up to the plate but my tits aren’t big enough.”
“Lawrence!” She couldn’t hold the laugh and it broke through her fake frown.
“Promise me Layla Hawthorne. Don’t make me visit the hospital director.”
She shoved me off. “Okay, okay Lawrence. You’re such a brat.”
“Don’t be a drag mom, just be a queen.”
I plastered a sloppy kiss on her cheek, turning to run down the hall before she could smack me. The laughter I heard from her tired soul as I ran down the hallway made my heart smile. I was thankful I had a woman like her in my life.
Before I hit the elevator, I had one last stop to make.
“Hey, Tamara.” She looked up, smiling at me. I swear she was too cute to be a nurse; she should have been an elementary school teacher.
I pulled out my wallet handing her my black American Express card. “Tamara, here’s my credit card. Can you please have a bouquet of flowers and the biggest teddy bears the gift shop has delivered to every parent that has a newborn on this floor?”
She looked at me like I just confessed to her I was an alien and wanted to have her babies.
I placed my card in front of her on her desk. “Please Tamara.” I gave her my winning smile, licking my lips then giving her a wink.
She rolled her eyes at me. “Brat, just like your mother. Of course I’ll do it.” She snatched up my credit card and dialed the gift shop.
I gave her another wink. “Thanks, have my mom sign for them.” I said laughing as I walked away.
Chapter Nine
Livie
It wasn’t until Ocean planted my feet on the floor that I felt the immediate impact of the damage I had done to my body.
My left arm was useless. I couldn’t even think of moving a muscle or a finger without a dizzy spell clouding my mind. My arm felt like dead weight attached to my body.
My right leg, the one with the huge bandage that hugged my thigh all the way around didn’t feel any better. Though nothing was like the pain I felt in my arm, attempting to put weight on my leg felt like sticking it into a scorching fire and then asking for the heat to be turned up some more.
“Easy Liv, Are you sure you don’t want me to call my Aunt?” He was holding me upright with my good arm draped behind his head along his broad shoulders.
I dug my nails into his shoulders just for the extra comfort. His lips were only inches away from mine and all I could do was stare at them, fighting to remember how they felt on my skin and everywhere else he loved to put them.
“Liv.”
“Huh?”
His intense frown brought me back to my painful reality.
“What? I didn’t hear you.” I said a bit too defensively without really meaning to.
“I was asking you if you were sure you don’t want me to call for Aunt Layla. I know you’re in pain Liv, your lips are trembling and your eyes go cross eyed with each step you try and take.”
I looked down at my feet that were covered in pink knee- high compression socks and then up to where the bathroom was. Sure…to a normal person who didn’t butcher their leg open it was a walk in the park but for me, it felt like walking down the hallway to hell’s gates. I’m sure I’d end up there eventually if the devil himself didn’t already own my soul after what I did.
I pulled my lips in biting on them and taking a deep breath in. “I can do this Ocean, just help me get into the bathroom. How did you do this when I was asleep anyway?” I asked, really wanting to know how exactly it was he bathed and kept me clean.
“I used my hands Liv, that’s all you need to know. Come on before Law, the bouncing idiot, comes back all happy and shit.”
I wanted to ask him why he said that, why he was so mad, and why he wasn’t happy. He wanted me to wake up and here I was but he wasn’t happy. He said he was waiting for me to come back but then I remembered him saying something about leaving too.
I looked down at the floor and nodded. “Okay, I’m ready.”
I let Ocean carry me into the small half space of a bathroom without a word or making eye contact. I stayed silent until his hand inched towards the butterfly IV’s decorating my swollen, black and blue forearms.
“Wait. Shouldn’t you call a nurse to have these removed?”
The look of complete annoyance danced smoothly over his forehead. “No. I’ll do it. Me and no one else. Just relax.” He gently removed the IV needles still stuck into my hands and arms.
Ocean used the alcohol pads to rub away the sticky residue from the tape that held my IV’s in place. I looked like a heroin addict. My arms and top of my hands were black and blue with several puncture wounds, I guess from moving the IV’s around.
I could feel the heat from his eyes when he would look at my face trying to read me, but I stood my ground by not making eye contact with him. That resolve I had last night to let him dish out his anger and hate towards me for what I did dissolved and disappeared as soon as he called me Zena this morning.
“Hey, you okay baby?”
At least he still called me baby.
Instead of speaking, I nodded my head. I was afraid of what would come out of my mouth once I opened it.
In absolute silence he cleaned my wounds, washed my entire body, including my lady parts, being extremely thorough. I was afraid to look down because I always kept myself waxed.
I was afraid to see what kind of amazon forest had grown between my legs while I was unconscious. Even if that’s what Ocean saw, it didn’t bother him one bit. He groomed me, brushed my teeth, and dressed me without one complaint, huff or puff.
The soreness in my right leg was calming down the longer I stood up straight. Either that or my tolerance for the pain was building.
By the time Ocean was done with me in the bathroom, I was able to put eighty percent of my own weight on it. When he leaned me up against the wall to clean up and put my gown and things away, I pushed off the wall carefully concentrating on making it to the bed on my own. I was definitely my father’s daughter.
After just one step, I heard Ocean growl behind me feeling the heat from his eyes on my back.
“Liv stop. I’m almost done.”
I ignored him because I had something to prove to myself. In a couple hours, he would be dropping me off in a rehabilitation facility. I had to start learning how to let him go.
I was taking my next step, almost making it completely out of the bathroom, when the sound of Ocean’s phone ringing broke through my concentration. I took too big of a step with my injured leg and my muscles gave out on me.
As I felt myself crashing to the floor, Ocean’s hands grabbed me hard underneath my armpits keeping me from landing face first on the white cold floor.
“Fuck Liv! I told you to wait!”
Tears fell down my face as I felt the fresh wave of pain slam into me again. He picked my body up with his hands still under my arms like I weighed nothing to him and carefully laid me back onto the bed, propping me up so I was sitting up at a comfortable angle.
“What the hell was that for Liv? What the fuck were you trying to prove? What…you don’t want my help? Is that it?”
I refused to answer his questions because no matter what I would end up saying or how many times I apologized, all he would see would be the girl he loved that would rather die than be with him.
He was so wrong.
Chapter Ten
Ocean
I stared down at Liv watching her bottom lip quiver and her eyes water as she refused to answer me. I wondered if she was completely hell bent on showing me that she didn’t want me or need me for that matter. “Livie!”
That did it because her head snapped in my direction, narrowing her exotic fucking eyes at me.
I loved how her dark brown eyes would pierce right through me, shredding through every wall of defense I spend so much time building towards her and the rest of this fucking world.
“That’s not what it meant!” Her voice was still weak but it was no longer a raspy whisper. “I was trying to do it on my own because soon you and everyone else I care about is going to drop me off at a fucking rehab facility. You won’t be there to help me then Ocean! I was doing it for me.”
She balled the fist of her good hand, grabbing at the bed sheets as she cried.
Fuck!
I sat down on the bed facing her. “Come on baby, I’m sorry. Stop crying.”
She turned her head to look at the white wall of empty space.
“Liv please, look at me. I’m sorry. I don’t like seeing you in pain and I know you’re in a lot of fucking pain. I’m not stupid. You don’t fool me. You can’t just start trying to do things on your own just because you want to feel independent again. You’re just going to get yourself hurt.”
“So!” I could have laughed at her just then because her stubbornness shined through at the worst moments.
I watched as the pulse on her neck went wild as she tried to calm herself down. I ran my tongue along my bottom lip in desperate need to feel the one place on her body that gave me peace. “Liv please.”
She huffed out a breath, still refusing to give me what I wanted. Not able to fight the urge any more, I leaned forward brushing her long silky hair away from her neck.
When my lips finally rested on the place that soothed me completely, I scooted myself closer to her closing the distance between my chest and hers bracing my arms on either side of her tiny body. I kissed her neck softly as her crying stopped.
Her little hand ran up the side of my arm resting on my chest where my heart was pounding. She pressed her neck onto my lips and I smiled against her sweet skin. She still smelled like her vanilla conditioner even after spending all this time cooped up in a hospital.
“Ocean?” Her voice came out shaky and breathless.
Oceans Submerged: Book Two, the Oceans Series Page 4