by Lila Felix
And just as she predicted she was out within seconds.
I hadn’t left her side but for a few minutes at a time. Silver had tried to make me leave but I couldn’t. Even Owen had been sent in to intercede—somehow try to convince me to go home, change clothes, shower—but none of those things could pull me from her.
“Nixon, honey, I need to talk to you,” She stayed against the wall. It was cheating really-sending Aunt Sylvia in.
“There’s nothing you can say to make me leave her,” I said as firmly yet respectfully as I could.
She cleared her throat and I felt like I should throw up my defenses, inherently I knew she would break me. There was a reason she commanded so much respect from the family, she earned it.
“What’s going to happen when she’s released?”
No question in my mind, “She’s coming home with me so I can take care of her.”
“She’s going to be weak,” she had crossed the room to a chair and was getting way too comfortable.
“I will help her.”
She stood and took Journey’s other hand and smoothed her sunburst tresses with the other. “The weak can’t help the weak.”
“I’m not weak.” I growled back at her. It was a grave mistake. She slapped me back with a look that would cause armies to halt.
“You listen to me Nixon Black and you listen well. You’re not eating. You haven’t showered in days.” She pointed to the fold out couch which hadn’t been touched, “You’re not sleeping. From where I stand—not the makings of a man who is dead set on taking care of his woman. Sounds like a man who’s trying to punish himself. So I’m not asking here. I’m telling you. If you want to help her—you have to help yourself first.”
I took a moment to let her words erode my thoughts. Staring at Journey’s hand, I counted the freckles on her thumb. I knew there were sixty four—I’d counted them over and over sitting there, waiting for her to wake up next.
“I’ll go shower, change clothes, pick up some stuff, and eat. Will you stay with her Aunt Sylvia?”
“Of course. You’re mine too, you know that Nixon?”
I looked at her with as much admiration as I could muster, “Yes ma’am. I could never thank you enough for being there for Scout and for this. I could never repay you.”
She smiled and continued to stroke Journey’s hair, “You know, Nixon, I have given birth to two boys, but I have five sons. You all repay me every day. When I see you make honorable decisions, when I see how you love without end. That’s how I know I’ve done a decent job. Now, go before I call in your brothers to pull you out. That was Plan B, by the way. They’re all on call in case I needed them. I told them you’d see the light once I got ahold of you.”
I got up, my legs revolted against the movement, “Thanks, Aunt Syl, I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“I know,” she used her hand to shoo me away.
I walked down the corridor and realized I didn’t have a way home. Owen had driven me. I decided to take a cab. But as I exited those infamous double doors, Falcon stood against the wall and bounced his shoulders at me.
“They pulled some kind of roach and Spock motions. Whatever happened to rock, paper, scissors? And roach beats everything. Oh, and Owen tried to pull this atom bomb one—it didn’t fly well, Rex popped him in the back of the head—and then before I knew it they were all wrestling on the floor. I decided your stinky ass couldn’t put up with them anyway. So, I drove over to pick you up. How’s she doing?”
“She’s ok. She’s got a long road ahead of her, but we’re gonna make it,” I hugged him.
“Oh, God, you do need a shower. Let’s go.”
We left the hospital and went back to the house. Everything was done. That’s all I cared about. I didn’t give it too much of an inspection though, because I couldn’t. I had to get back to my girl.
The clothes peeled from my skin, and shoes shucked in the corner, I showered. I scoured my skin until it was clean again and toweled off in a hurry. I pushed my legs into a clean pair of jeans and grabbed the first shirt my fingers touched. A bag was filled with clothes, a toothbrush and deodorant—and before I knew it, I was out the door again. Before I went back, I needed to spend some time with Scout. Or maybe she could come with me.
Chapter 21
Journey
Even in a half-lucid state, I knew he was with me.
I couldn’t feel my lips. The pain killers they were giving me gave me cotton mouth. And I smelled like hospital—like disinfectant and gauze.
“Are you hungry, Journey,” Sylvia asked. Somehow she’d managed to push my bullheaded man from the room. But then again, maybe that was his choice. Maybe he’d chosen to cut his losses—I wouldn’t blame him one bit.
“No ma’am, that stuff makes my stomach sick. And it’s hard to eat when I feel this—gross.”
“Well, you should be able to take a shower. Nixon can help you with that when he gets back.” At the no nonsense tone in her voice, I flushed red from my head to my wiggling toes beneath the bleach smelling sheet.
“Don’t blush dear, I wouldn’t be surprised if that boy brought a preacher back with him. Can we talk?”
“Yes, ma’am. She stood and sidled up to the hospital bed and leaned her hip on the side.
“I just wanted to warn you a little. When you marry Nixon, you get us all too. You are family now, no matter what. Yes, we fight and we bicker and sometimes my boys get downright rowdy. But we always come back to each other. I’m here if you need me, good or bad. And so is everyone else. And,” she paused, picking her words carefully, “I have all the faith in the world in you just from what Nixon has told me. But Scout is a handful and we have all raised her. Don’t try to do it all alone. I swear, I need a three hour nap after just shopping with her. Just know that we love you and we understand if you need help. You’ve got a good man.”
“I do. And thank you. I’ve never known any family like yours.”
And as if he’d heard her, he came into the room but hesitated with the door still open.
He mouthed to me, “Scout’s here.”
“Will I scare her,” I questioned back. The last thing in the world I ever wanted to do was scare her.
He rolled his eyes and dropped down to pick her up and brought her in. She was wearing the jeans with the holes in them, her Ramones shirt and some pink tiny Dr. Martens.
“Scout, you have to be really gentle with Journey. Her leg is broken and she’s still sore.”
She grabbed his face, “Daddy, I’m not gonna punch her.”
I hoped he chose to stay, because from my eyes, in front of me was my family.
“Scout, come here, I’ve missed you.” She put her tiny backpack by my bed and put out her arms to be picked up. Nixon propped her on the side of the bed and she simply studied me for a few minutes.
“What’s that?” She pointed to my IV.
“It’s a tube in my arm so they can take blood and give me medicine without sticking me with a needle every time.”
“Grody! Can I touch it?” she shouted.
I laughed and let her touch the tubes. I noticed a scrape on her face and could’ve punched myself in the throat for not thinking to ask about Scout or Storey—after all, I did push them into blazing asphalt.
“Does it hurt, Scout. I’m sorry, sweet girl.”
She touched the scrape, “It barely bleeded. Honey has one on her arm, too. We match.”
I looked to Nixon, my lip quivering, he knew my thoughts, “How did you get that scrape, Scout?” He took her hands in his to get her full attention.
She rolled her eyes, just as he’d done earlier, “Duh, Daddy. Ms. Journey saved us. She’s like Iron Man.”
He took my hand and winked at me. In all my life I’d never wanted to live up to a title as much as I did hers for me. They stayed for a while, Scout filling me in on all the spoiling she’d received.
Sylvia clapped and got up from her chair in the corner, “All right, Scouty girl
, I have to make lots of cheesecake. And I have no one to lick the bowl. Do you know anyone that could help me with that?”
“I’m gonna do this,” She picked up an invisible bowl and stuck out her tongue, licking pretend cheesecake leftovers from it.
“Oh, good, I can always use another dishwasher. Let’s get going. Tell everyone goodbye.”
“Bye, Daddy,” she kissed his forehead and then blew a raspberry on his cheek.
“Bye,” she crawled up stealthily and kissed my cheek. Nixon got her down and handed her to Sylvia who waved to us.
But before she reached the door she goosenecked around Sylvia’s hold, “I love you Ms. Journey!”
I didn’t answer—couldn’t. Some kind of anvil had taken up residence in my throat.
Nixon kissed my hand and I was reminded how I must smell. But it was hard to ask for help. But I truly stunk, so I had to.
“Nix?”
“Hmmm,” he responded.
“I need a big favor.”
He curbed a smile, “There’s no big favors between you and me.”
“I need a shower, I can feel the film of ick growing.”
“Did they say you could? Hold on, let me go ask.”
There was no hesitation, no second guessing—I’d have to learn to accept what he gave me again, just as I’d learned to accept his love.
He bolted from the room and after about ten minutes, came back with a smirk and an armful of towels.
“Let me know when you’re ready, they said you can’t walk, of course, but I can carry you and they gave me on hell of a weird bag to put on your cast.”
“I’m ready right now.”
“Just hold on, they’re going to take some of these tubes off.”
True to their word, minutes later, a nurse popped in and pulled and taped things so that I wouldn’t fall apart. She winked at me before she left—she wished she was getting showered by Nixon.
That’s right, keep moving, lady. He’s all mine.
He pulled the sheets back carefully. I fought to sit up so he could slide his arm behind me and one under both of my legs. I hissed through my teeth, but it wasn’t necessarily pain, it was muscle atrophy and soreness. He guided me and him into the bathroom like a contractor finagling lumber into a doorway.
He sat me on the sink and reached behind me. This wasn’t anything resembling lust or sex. This was Nixon, my best friend and the man who made my heart skip, doing his damndest to take care of me. Iris to iris he pulled the ties one at a time, and then pulled the blue cloth from my body, letting it slither down my arms as gently as he could. Then he wrapped my cast in that plastic bag that resembled a see through garbage bag.
“Ready?” he whispered to me and I painfully reached up and removed my hair from the band I’d somehow wrangled it into the day before.
“I am now.”
He picked me up again, moving me to the chair in the shower. He turned the showerhead away from me and played with the faucet until the water turned warm.
I thought he’d shut the shower curtain and let me wash what I could and forgo the rest. I was wrong.
“Hold on,” he flashed to the other room and back, holding a pair of gym shorts. He pulled his t-shirt over his head and let the jeans fall so the legs were accordions on the floor after taking his shoes and socks off. He stepped into the gym shorts and put one foot in the shower.
“What are you doing?”
“You can barely move without groaning. It’s just me, darlin’. Pretend it’s anatomy in high school.”
“I blushed all hour, every hour in anatomy, Nixon.”
“I know,” he brushed his fingers over my cheek, “I missed that blush while you were still out of it. I can’t wait to see it on our wedding night.”
“You’re not helping.”
“It doesn’t matter. Remember what I told you about package deals? Scout and I are a package deal and now you and I are. There are things that aren’t sold separately. Like in have and in want, and worse and better. And this is part of the deal, in sickness and in health. I’ll always take care of you. You never have to be embarrassed or shy with me.”
I bent my head in submission. He was right. If it was him, I wouldn’t even think twice about it. So I stuck out my arms, “Scrub away.”
He went to work and he was very thorough and somehow during the process I’d given up being modest.
Instead, I took the opportunity to study him, shirtless and dripping wet in front of me. I reevaluated his tattoos, not just any ink, but depictions of the depth of his love. And those new piercings, I couldn’t wait to explore them, play with them with my fingers, my lips, my tongue.
I ran a hand through his hair, it reminded me how sore I was, but the look the act granted me was worth it.
“What about your job,” I asked him.
“I have money in the bank. We’re fine.”
“What about school?”
“I’ll take an incomplete. Start again next semester—or whenever.”
“What about roller derby?”
He looked up at me, halfway to Exasperation Land, “Team is family. They’ll understand.”
“Well…”
“Journey, darlin’ look at me.” I reluctantly did. I was messing his life up again—causing disturbances.
“There is nothing, job, school, reffing, money—none of that means anything if you’re not ok. When you’re hurt, I take care of you. When you need me, I’m there. When you’re sad, my shoulder is yours. You and Scout are my Sun. I will revolve around my girls, always.”
“I don’t deserve you,” There were so many tears, I couldn’t differentiate between them and the water from the shower.
“You know when I realized you were different?”
“When?”
“The scissors. The old Journey wouldn’t have known that the real issue wasn’t getting cut, it was her fragile three year old ego. I knew right that minute that I wanted you for the rest of my life and that you wanted us.”
I motioned for him to come closer to me, since I couldn’t drop down on the tiles next to him like I wanted, and he complied. I was still crying a river when his lips touched mine beneath the spray. And in that kiss I finally accepted the fact that I did deserve his love. I did deserve happiness. I deserved it all.
He dried me off and while we were in the bathroom, someone had changed the sheets. I wanted to kiss that person too.
He helped me get dressed, this time in a pair of boy shorts and one of his t-shirts. I was really starting to hurt by the time it was all over. And the nurse came in right on time—I’d never been so ecstatic to see a syringe.
And while the nurse was checking my vitals or whatever they checked he bent over me, kissed my temple and asked, “Will you marry me tomorrow?”
And then I was out.
Chapter 22
Nixon
Taking care of someone you love—it’s ever an imposition.
Journey had woken in the night to a nightmare and it prompted a conversation in which I had to explain how Simon was in prison on charges of attempted murder. How my dad had questioned him to find out exactly how ludicrous and twisted his mind was. He’d actually thought and convinced himself that Storey and I were married and that I was cheating on Storey with Journey. And that’s why he’d paid that memorable visit to her house. He thought he could get to Storey through Journey and me. He had a serious mental problem.
But I hoped he went to jail for a long, long time.
She went back to sleep after her next round of pain medication.
I called Storey the next morning. I hated to ask for more favors, but if anyone could get the job done, it was her.
“Hey! How’s our girl?”
“She’s ok. I need a favor—a couple of favors—actually, a list of favors. So many favors, I’m gonna owe you my next kid.”
I could hear her munching on chips or something, “Deal. You spit out some great spawn. I’m off school today. Name them.”
“I actually have a list and it starts with you picking up Scout and bringing her to the hospital before she goes to school. Can you do that?”
“Yes, Sir. Give us thirty.”
“And one more thing….”
I detailed out one more task that had to be completed. It included going to my house, getting in my safe and grabbing one of my credit cards. And then I worried that it would take her all day to do my shopping. Storey loved to shop.
We hung up and I wondered, as I looked over at Journey, if she remembered what I asked her the night before. I hoped she did since I was about to pitch the idea to our judge and jury—Scout.
She was still asleep when Storey and Scout arrived a little after twenty minutes later. We made an exchange, a bag and a Scout for watching over Journey in my absence. I took Scout out to one of the smaller, quieter waiting rooms and let her talk for a while on her own before I laid this decision at her feet.
She finally wound down her dissertation and I picked her up and held her against my chest for just a minute. This wasn’t just a proposal—this was changing our family dynamic. And just for a fraction of a second I mourned what used to be. It had been just me and her for so long—it seemed like way more than three years. It felt like I’d waited for Scout all my life—to come in and save me. It had been us against the world.
“Daddy, why are you crying again?”
“I have to ask you something and I’m scared.”
She crossed her miniscule arms in front of her, “Daddy, I’m not gonna bust your balls.”
“Scout, don’t say balls. You love Ms. Journey, right?”
“Duh.”
I skipped the reprimand, I just didn’t have the time or the energy.
“What if Ms. Journey and I got married, here at the hospital and she came home with us to the house. Her leg is broken and she can’t really do much by herself. She needs someone to take care of her and I love her.”