Losing Us

by Jen McLaughlin

  Not me.

  Chin up, sweetheart. Life isn’t so bad.

  Lifting my head, I dragged my hands across my cheeks and rose to my feet unsteadily. My father’s voice still echoed in my head. He was right, and always had been. Enough crying and pouting. It was time to stiffen that upper lip and get back to being me. Yes, it ached that he’d hurt me, but I wasn’t a little girl anymore. And like Fergie once said… Big girls don’t cry.

  I flicked on the bedroom light switch at the same time a bolt of lightning shook the house. With a pop and a whir, the lights went out. Closing my eyes, I muttered, “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  Why hadn’t I brought my purse upstairs? If I had it, I could use the flashlight on my phone to see. But alas, I hadn’t. I’d been too busy running away from Austin.

  Shaking my head, I felt my way across the room, trying to reach my bed. I had a flashlight in my nightstand drawer, so if I could get there, I’d be able to see again. A flash of lightning hit again, and it illuminated the room for a split second. I bolted across the room, taking advantage of it while I could. But as nature provides the light, it also takes it away all too quickly. I banged my toe on the chair next to my dresser.

  Howling, I hopped on one foot and clutched my shoeless foot in my hand. I’d kicked off my heels mid-cry earlier. “Ow!”

  “Shit! Are you okay?” Austin shouted out from somewhere downstairs. “Mac!”

  Pettily, I didn’t want to answer him. But I knew he’d come up if I didn’t, so I swallowed my pride and called out, “I-I’m fine.”

  “Stay where you are.” His voice sounded closer now. “I’ll come get you.”

  Pressing my lips together, I fought the urge to tell him to go kiss his own ass. “No. Stay down there.”

  “What? I—” A crash, followed by a muffled cry…and a thump.

  “Austin?” I called out, my heart pounding loudly in my ears. “Are you okay?”

  He didn’t answer, making my heart accelerate even more. He might have cheated on me, and he’d broken my heart and my trust, but that didn’t change the fact that I loved him with all of mine. And he might be hurt down there.

  “Austin?” Nothing. “Crap.”

  Fumbling across the room, I managed to find my nightstand without any more bodily injury. When I pushed the button on the bottom of the flashlight, nothing happened. Dead batteries.

  “Son of a bitch whoreson,” I snarled, stealing one of Austin’s most commonly used phrases when he was pissed off. I wasn’t much for swearing myself, so I didn’t have my own to pull out of my head. Tossing the useless thing on my bed, I held my arms out in front of me and moved through the darkness as quickly as I could.

  “I’m coming!” I called out, even though he wasn’t answering me. Why wasn’t he answering me? “Austin!”

  I finally reached the door, and opened it. The hallway was even darker than my room, since there were no windows. Stretching my arms to either side, I felt my way down the hallway, swallowing hard. If Austin was being quiet, he might be hurt. Like, actually hurt. “Austin?” I whispered.

  Nothing.

  When I reached the top of the stairs, I gripped the railing and went down, one careful step at a time. My palms began to sweat, because I knew if he wasn’t answering me, if he was letting me worry like this, then it could mean something bad. Really bad. I reached the bottom of the stairs…

  And I tripped.

  Hitting the hardwood floor hard with both hands, I groaned and rolled over, feeling around for what I’d caught my foot on. When I touched warm flesh, I cried out.

  I’d tripped over Austin.

  My hand came back wet, and I held it up to my face. Had the roof leaked, or rain somehow gotten in? Or was it…?

  The lightning flashed, and I stared at my hand in horror.

  It was red.

  My heart wrenched painfully. Austin was unconscious and bleeding, and I couldn’t even see him to discern how bad it was. I had to do something to help him.

  Or he might…

  “No. No, no, no, no.”

  AS I opened my eyes, the light hurt like hell. Slamming them shut instantly, I groaned. The second thing I realized was that groaning hurt too. And the third, I was lying at the bottom of the stairs. Why was I…?

  With almost as much pain, my memory came crashing back to me.

  Mac had cried out, and I’d been trying to get to her. But it had been dark, and I’d tripped over a damn cord, slamming my head on one of the wooden stairs. Turned out my head wasn’t as hard as I liked to think, or as everyone told me.

  I’d lost consciousness.

  The wind whipped outside furiously, and it sounded as if something flew against the front door. What the hell was going on out there? A fucking tornado?

  “Mac,” I whispered, lifting a hand and pressing it to my throbbing head. It didn’t matter. I had to get to her. Had to make sure she was okay. “I’m coming.”

  Forcing my eyes open, I blinked against the light again. Wait…light? Where was it coming from? I forced myself to focus. Candles. Lots of candles. If there were candles lit, then Mac must have come down and found me like this, which meant she was okay. I sagged back against the floor. “Mac?”

  I lowered my hand and blinked at it. Blood.

  Oh. Fucking great.

  My angel came around the corner, a flashlight in her mouth and a first-aid kit in her arms. She looked pale, and her mouth was pinched tight with worry. When she saw me watching her, she jumped a tiny bit, and hurried over. “You’re awake,” she said softly, falling to my side on her knees.

  “Yeah.” I touched my forehead again and flinched. “My head hurts like a bitch, though. I fell.”

  “Yeah, I know. And I’m sure it does. Stop touching it,” she said, ripping open the kit. She’d placed the flashlight on the floor, face up. “I’m going to bandage it up, but we’ll have to watch you for any signs of a concussion.”

  “I’ve had tons of those,” I muttered, closing my eyes. “I don’t have one.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Yeah, I pretty much do. Even if I have one, like I said, I’ve had tons, so I wouldn’t worry too much. I survived them all. I’d probably survive this one.”

  She looked at me out of the corner of her eye. “Tons?”

  “Yeah.” I hesitated. This wasn’t a subject I generally opened up about, but this was my Mac. She deserved an explanation. “My dad liked hitting my face. Said I was too pretty for my own good, and I needed a few scars to ‘man me up.’”

  A small sound escaped her, and she rested a hand on my chest. “Austin…”

  “Yeah?”

  “Look at me,” she said, her voice soft and tender.

  I squared my jaw and opened my eyes, meeting hers without shame or embarrassment. I’d once been too prideful to admit such things, but she’d changed me for the better. She’d saved me, and now I accepted that it wasn’t my fault my father had been a dick.

  But now I might be losing her.

  I could take a million beatings from my asshole dad, but I’d never survive life without her at my side. So I refused to lose her. “I am looking at you. Believe me, I am.”

  She pressed a finger to an old scar under my chin. “This one?” She touched the light scar under my left eye. “And this one? Both from him?”

  I nodded once. “All of them.”

  “God.” She swallowed hard and averted her eyes. “Your dad was an asshole.”

  “No argument here. That’s where I get it from.”

  “Don’t say that,” she snapped, her movements jerky. “Don’t ever say that. You’re nothing like him.”

  “But I—” I tried to cock my brow, but it hurt like hell. Hissing, I slammed my brow back down. “Shit, that hurt.”

  “I know. Here.” She rummaged behind her and a wrapper crinkled. “Eat this.”

  I glanced down at her hand. It was three crackers. “Why?”

  “I’m going to give you pain pi
lls, but I don’t want it to hurt your stomach.”

  Not taking the crackers, I shook my head. I didn’t want my brain to be foggy. I needed to be on point tonight. “I’m fine. I don’t need—”

  “Austin.” She shoved them beneath my nose. “Eat. Them. Now.”

  I took them, kind of liking this bossy side of her. It was hot. “Yes, ma’am.”

  As I munched on the crackers while surreptitiously watching her, she pulled out hydrogen peroxide. I’d never used the shit before. When Dad had hit me, I’d just cleaned myself up the best I could, then crawled under my blanket and hid from the world, in case he came back for seconds. I’d bring Rachel with me and we’d hide and pretend we were other people.

  Anyone but us. Anything but reality.

  I wanted to do that again, but with Mac in my arms.

  Mac faced me, her face even paler than before. The soft candlelight highlighted her soft curves and cheekbones. The red lips I loved so damn much were pursed in concentration. She smoothed her hair off her face. It was brown again.

  How had I not noticed that earlier?

  “Your hair is brown again.”

  She glanced at me before turning her attention back to the peroxide. “Yeah. It’s been a year, so I thought it would be fun.”

  When I’d met her, her hair had been brown. She’d been trying to fit in with the crowds and be normal. I’d known who she was right away, but I hadn’t told her.

  It had almost made me lose her before I even had her.

  “I like it. You look pretty. You always do.”

  Her grip tightened on the bottle. “Thanks. I’m sorry, but this is going to hurt.”

  “It can’t be that bad.”

  She opened the cap. “Surely you used this a lot, too, as a kid?”

  “Nope. Never.” I ate my last cracker and swallowed. “All done eating. Do I get a cookie now, for good behavior?”

  “No. You get pills.” Taking a deep breath, she handed me two capsules. “Take these.”

  I did. After she handed me a bottle of water, I swallowed them and lifted my head, trying to see what she had behind her. She had a little makeshift hospital there. “You’re not planning on stitching me up on your own, are you?”

  “No. God, no.” She looked a little green at the mere suggestion. “The wound isn’t deep, so I think it’ll heal on its own. It’s mostly superficial, but head wounds bleed a lot. At least, I think they do. It’ll scar, though.”

  I shrugged as best as I could. She was acting so steady and calm. I wasn’t sure what that meant, but I didn’t like it. I was a fucking mess, and she was tending my wounds as if she’d gone to med school instead of the fucking Grammys. “My dad would be happy. He’s probably laughing, wherever he is right now.”

  In hell, more than likely.

  “I’m sure he would,” she muttered.

  Turning my head to the side, I saw my hat in a puddle of blood. It wasn’t just a hat to me. It was a symbol of all I’d accomplished when I’d taken over as Rachel’s guardian. It was us. Our life together. And now it was covered in blood…again.

  “Shit.” I reached for it but couldn’t touch it. “My hat. I need my hat.”

  “Leave it there. I’ll wash it once the power comes back,” she said quickly, still opening things and ripping open packages of gauze. “It’ll be fine, and if not, you can buy another one.”

  “I can’t. It’ll stain.”

  She scooted closer, peroxide and cotton swab in hand. “It’s just a hat.”

  “No, it’s not just a hat.” I swallowed hard, my eyes locked on the stuff in her hand. It looked dangerous. It was in a dark bottle that had all sorts of weird labels on it. “Rachel bought it for me when she was fourteen, after...”

  Right after our father had tried to kill her.

  Mac’s hand trembled a little bit. She knew exactly what that meant, even if I hadn’t finished the sentence. I didn’t need to. “Oh. I see. Well, after we’re finished here, I’ll wash it.”

  “Thank you,” I said, my voice a lot softer than I’d intended. After clearing my throat, I asked, “What are you going to do with that stuff, anyway?”

  “Clean the wound,” she said, tipping the bottle upside down on the swab. “Technically, we should pour it over the wound and keep doing so until it stops bubbling, but I don’t want to make you move yet, and I don’t want to get it in your eyes and hair. Again, sorry, but this is going to hurt.”

  It bubbled? Well, shit, if it bubbled, it couldn’t be bad. Bubbles were never scary. Hell, kids loved them. “It’s fine. Do it.”

  “Sorry,” she whispered again. The second she touched the cotton ball to my head, it felt as if she’d poured scalding liquid into the wound. “So sorry.”

  “Jesus fucking Christ,” I growled, slamming my eyes shut. “Mother fucker son of a bitch whore son fuck.”

  A small sound escaped her, and I couldn’t tell if it was a laugh or a groan. Maybe both. “I used some of your curses earlier when I stubbed my toe.”

  I gritted my teeth. Slow breaths in, slow breaths out. “Did it help?”

  “No.” She paused. “Did it help you?”

  “No.” She took her hand away, and I sagged against the stairs. “Damn, if my dad knew how much that shit hurt, he would have made me use it instead of telling me to wash the blood off of myself with soap and water.”

  Her leg stiffened next to my arm. “What a—”

  “Asshole. I know.” I opened my eyes. “Are we done here?”

  “No. We need to do it again.”

  “Shiiiiit.”

  “Sorry,” she whispered again. “So sorry.”

  It didn’t stop her from doing it, though. She pressed another wet ball against the wound, but this time I was prepared for the pain. I didn’t make a sound. “It’s fine. I deserve it,” I said through my clenched teeth. “For hurting you. This is only one of my punishments to come, I’m sure.”

  She swiped the cotton ball across my forehead. I expected her to shut me out. Tell me to stop talking, but she didn’t. “Tell me the truth. Please…I need the truth, no matter how hard it might be to say. Did you…did you…cheat on me with that girl?”

  I caught her wrist. It was so small in my hand. “No. I swear it on everything I’ve ever held dear in my life, I did not cheat on you. I couldn’t have.”

  “You couldn’t have?” she asked, biting down on her tongue like she always did when she was thinking way too hard. “Or you didn’t? Do you even remember that night? Everything you did and said?”

  Damn it, she had to ask that, didn’t she? It seeded that small kernel of doubt that I’d been trying to ignore. The one that pointed out that I had been drunk off my ass.

  “I don’t remember everything,” I admitted, knowing I was screwing myself over with my complete honesty, but she didn’t deserve half-truths. “But I know me, and I wouldn’t have done that to you. Not in a million years.”

  “But you…you remember talking with that girl. Intimately.”

  “Yes.” I let go of her and dropped my arm back to my side. “I’d been drinking. Though at the time, it hadn’t seemed like I had that much. And I had a headache. And I hadn’t talked to you in a while, so I was feeling sentimental. And I opened up to the wrong person, yes, but I didn’t sleep with her. I couldn’t have.”

  “You keep saying that,” she said, tossing the cotton ball back down. “But you can’t remember everything, and you were unhappy and drunk. So really, anything could have happened. Because I was gone, and you were missing me so much. And you wanted more.”

  “Yes. Exactly.” I nodded, but it hurt too much, so I stopped. “It wasn’t that I was saying I wanted more from her. I wanted more of you. That’s it. It’s just because I love you so much, and I was frustrated because I never see you, but I’ll be fine. It was a weak night. That’s all.”

  For some reason, that didn’t seem to make her feel better. “How long have you known this girl?” She pulled out another cotton ball
and soaked it in peroxide. Jesus. “A week? A month? A year?”

  I scanned my brain for an answer, but it wasn’t being very helpful right now. All I could think, and feel, was my pain. And it wasn’t only from my head. I gritted my teeth. “She comes to all of my shows, and has since I toured with you. She’s always there. I guess she’s a groupie of sorts…”

  She set the cotton ball on the wound, swiping it gently, her jaw tight. “So a few months.”

  “Yes.” I forced myself to relax and ignore the pain. “She’s always there…”

  “And I’m not,” she said hollowly.

  “That’s not what I meant. I’m okay with you being busy, and you know it.” I caught her hand again. She didn’t pull away. “I knew what I was getting into when we fell in love. You’re a busy woman, and that’s awesome.”

  She tossed the third ball aside. When she capped the peroxide, I let out a sigh of relief. That form of torture was over, at least. “The thing is, it’s easy to say you are okay with it, and a different thing to actually be okay with it.”

  “But I am. Okay. With it.”

  She pulled out a bandage that looked like a butterfly Band-Aid. I’d used those a lot as a kid. “Yeah. Sure.”

  “Mac—”

  “No. Enough talking about this,” she said, her voice not even wobbling the littlest bit. “The truth is, you’re not okay with it, and you want more. You even told a groupie as much.”

  I reached for her, but she moved away. “But—”

  “Want to know the worst part about all of this? You don’t even realize why I don’t like talking to the media. Why I asked you to keep our personal life personal.”