Rebel Heart

by Penelope Ward

  “And which is riskier?”

  “Unfortunately, the risk is pretty even. If we don’t stop the bleeding, he could have further damage. Although we don’t yet know what damage he’s already incurred. But if we go in to stop it, there’s a good chance he won’t make it out of the O.R.”

  “Jesus.” Rush dragged his fingers through his hair.

  “What are you recommending?”

  “My current recommendation is to hold off on the surgery, at least for a few hours to see how things go. We’ll, of course, keep scanning him to look for any changes one way or the other. But you need to understand that there’s a risk in waiting, as well. I’ll need you to think it over, and give me some guidance on how you think your father would want to be treated.”

  We talked to Dr. Morris for another twenty minutes. Rush asked questions about potential outcomes to waiting versus having the surgery, including how Edward’s quality of life might be. I don’t think I would have been able to be in such a clear frame of mind had it been my father—or even my own estranged mother. But Rush pulled it together, and by the end of the conversation, he seemed well informed and said he’d speak to his brother and get back to him soon.

  “It’s a big decision,” the doctor said. “Just have the nurse page me if you have any more questions.”

  “I will. Thank you.”

  The doctor patted Rush on the back and gave me a nod. As he started to walk away, Rush stopped him. “Doc?”

  He turned back.

  “Can he hear us? You had us step out to talk. So does that mean he can hear us?”

  “We’re not sure, son. Sometimes patients come out of it and remember random things that they couldn’t have known without hearing. But most of the time patients don’t recall having heard anything when they wake back up. Although that doesn’t mean they aren’t hearing you during their time out. I’d encourage you to try to talk to him. The benefits to both of you might be important.”

  “Thank you.”

  We went back to stand with Edward for a while and Rush remained silent. Considering he could possibly hear us, it wouldn’t have been right to discuss what the doctor had said in front of him. Eventually a nurse came back over and said we’d need to step out in a few minutes so they could take some bedside X-rays, but we could come back again when they were done.

  Rush nodded and said we’d leave in a minute.

  He was quiet for a moment and once again took his father’s hand. When he started to speak, at first I thought he was talking to me. But he wasn’t. He was speaking to Edward.

  “I know we never got along. You might not be happy that I’m even here right now. But your other son—Elliott—he needs you. On some level, I’ve always been jealous of what you and Elliott had. The connection the two of you share. So even though we might not be that close, I’ve seen with my own eyes how much he looks up to you. How much he loves you and needs you. So fight for that. Fight for Elliott, Edward.” Rush paused for a moment, then added. “Plus, if anything happened to you, I’d have to find a new nemesis. And I’m not so great about change. So hang in there, you big pain in my ass.”

  Rush and Elliott decided to follow the doctor’s advice and hold off on surgery. Later in the night, Rush talked Lauren into going home and getting some sleep, assuring her that he’d stick around and let her know if anything changed. He tried to send me home in an Uber, too. But there was no way I was leaving him. The nurses were kind and brought us two comfortable chairs that reclined a little so that we could sit by Edward’s side in ICU all night. We both actually dozed for a few hours, and when we woke up it felt like one big do-over. The only thing that had changed was that light now streamed through the window behind his bed.

  “I’m going to run and get some coffee,” Rush said. “You want something?”

  I patted my belly and smiled. “Yes. And I’m too lazy to get up and go with you.”

  He hit me with the first real smile I’d seen since before Oak walked into his office twelve hours ago. He stood and stretched his arms into the air, before walking around to where my chair was positioned. Leaning down, he kissed my belly and whispered in my ear. “I’ll get both of you something to eat. Be back.”

  After he disappeared, I closed my eyes again and started to fall into a light sleep. Rush’s footsteps approaching made me smile. They stopped next to me, and I still hadn’t opened my tired eyes.

  “Can you feed me? I’m too tired to do it myself,” I teased and opened my mouth, figuring I’d get a dirty comeback from Rush.

  But it wasn’t Rush’s voice that spoke.

  “Open wider. I got something for you, alright.”

  Elliott.

  “Piece of shit.” I kicked the damn vending machine that had just stolen my dollar. Thinking maybe it was just out of coffee, I pushed every other button. Of course, it didn’t do anything except piss me off. When it ate my second single, I might’ve dented the thing.

  Deciding a walk would do me some good, I made my way to the hospital main entrance and asked the security guard where I could get some coffee and breakfast outside of the building.

  Last night after Gia fell asleep in her chair, I watched her sleep for a while. I couldn’t stop thinking about the baby and what kind of a relationship Elliott might have with this child. And what the kid would think of Elliott. It got me thinking about Edward and me.

  My whole life, all I wanted to do was hate the man. Hate him for what he’d done to my mother. But was he always an asshole? Without a doubt, I knew with absolute certainty that he had been a dick to me the last twenty years. Although I couldn’t remember back when I was three or four. Had he tried back then, and it was me who never gave him a chance at all? Obviously, there are some situations that you never really understand unless you’re part of them. I definitely recognized that better now that I found myself in a sharp corner of a similar kind of triangle.

  At the deli, I ordered three breakfasts. An egg white omelet with turkey and Swiss for me, an order of French toast with whipped cream and a cherry for Gia—the whipped cream for her, the cherry for me to watch her eat it, and a giant cupcake with blue frosting for my little boy.

  My little boy.

  He really was my boy already. Beth was right. DNA didn’t fucking matter.

  In the span of the fifteen minutes it took me to go get coffee and breakfast, I’d gone from calm, to pissed off, and back to calm. People with real mood swings must be fucking exhausted all the time.

  I saw Gia’s foot tapping on the floor as I approached the curtain around my father’s bed in ICU. I smiled to myself knowing she did that whenever she was anxious. My girl was anxious for food.

  But the smile ripped from my face when I pulled back the curtain and saw Gia wasn’t alone. Elliott was standing two feet away from her.

  The burn of hatred heated my face. I wanted to beat the crap out of him more than I wanted anything else in the world at the moment. A stare-off ensued. I didn’t give a flying fuck that he looked like he hadn’t slept a wink in two days or that we were standing in front of a man he loved who was on his deathbed. My heart couldn’t even consider those things; all it knew was that he was standing two fucking feet away from Gia—Gia, whom he’d been inside of—and I was about to explode.

  My fist opened and closed, clenching at my side. I felt like a raging bull and, to me, Elliott was painted head to toe in the color red. I took a step toward him, but then something stopped me. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Gia. She was white as a ghost and trembling in her chair.

  Without giving my brother another thought, I went to her. I dropped the bag and took both her hands. “You okay?”

  She nodded fast. Her hands stopped shaking inside mine. I looked down at them and then back to her. “You sure?”

  “Yeah. Why don’t I go wait in the waiting room and give you two a minute?”

  “I’ll walk you.” Still ignoring my brother, I grabbed the breakfast bag, wrapped my arm tight around Gia’s should
er, and escorted her to the visitors’ lounge. I knelt at her feet once we were there. “Did he say anything to you?”

  “No. I just got nervous when he showed up.”

  I wasn’t sure if she was telling the truth. My gut thought she might be lying, and Elliott had said something to her. Gia just didn’t want me to make a scene. But right now, it didn’t matter. As long as Gia was okay.

  “He didn’t touch you?”

  “No! Not even a handshake.”

  I looked her over and let out a deep breath. “Fine. But you look exhausted.”

  “Thanks.”

  I brushed her hair from her face and kissed her forehead. “Eat. Your food is probably half cold to begin with. I’ll go back in and deal with Satan while you feed our boy.”

  She gave me a soft smile. “Okay. But don’t do anything to get yourself arrested. Because my father would probably show up here from the precinct in three minutes, and he’d kick your ass for leaving me stranded in the City.”

  My lip twitched. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Promise me?”

  “Fine.”

  On my way back to ICU, I looked over my shoulder and saw Gia already digging into the bag. I watched her lick her lips and tear into the Styrofoam containers and realized in that moment that nothing else mattered. Not even my asshole brother. So long as I could put that smile on Gia’s face.

  And then it hit me.

  Something that Oak, of all people, had said to me.

  “You have to figure out whether your love for Gia is stronger than your hate for your brother.”

  For the first time, I started to believe it just might be.

  “Your opinion doesn’t fucking matter.”

  I shook my head at my brother. The doctor had just walked out from ICU after giving me and Elliott an update on Edward’s condition. He’d told us the morning scans had shown the bleeding had stopped, but they needed to keep him in a coma until the swelling in his head could go down. He wasn’t out of the woods yet, but he’d taken a step in the right direction.

  “The doctor asked us for our opinions,” I said through clenched teeth.

  “No one cares what you think. My father needs educated decision making. Did you even graduate from high school?”

  “Let’s not have this discussion near Edward. There’s a possibility that he can hear every word that we say, and the last thing he needs is to hear us at each other’s throats.” I wanted to be at my brother’s throat—with my hand crushing his windpipe—but I’d promised Gia not to get in trouble.

  Elliott started to go off again, when Lauren suddenly walked into the curtained area.

  “You made it.” She smiled at Elliott. What the fuck did she see in him?

  My brother’s entire demeanor changed. A mask slid over his face, covering the contorted anger he wore for me. “Sweetheart. I’m so glad you’re here,” he said. I watched his entire act. Elliott morphed into the dutiful husband—hugging his wife like he’d missed her and kissing her on the cheek with a mouth that had undoubtedly been buried in some skank’s pussy while he was down in Florida.

  He wrapped his arm around her waist and held her close. Back to Ken and Barbie.

  Unreal.

  “How are you doing, Rush?” Lauren asked with genuine concern.

  “I’m okay. But I think I’m going to head out since you two are back. Gia needs to get some rest. I’ll probably just get a hotel nearby and come back this afternoon for evening rounds.”

  “That’s crazy,” Lauren said, looking at her husband. “They can stay in our guest room. Right, honey?”

  Elliott flashed a politician’s smile. “Of course.”

  Yeah, right. “Thanks, Lauren. But we’re good.”

  “If you change your mind, or if Gia needs a change of clothes or anything, just text me.”

  I nodded and looked down at Edward one more time before leaving. “Call me if anything changes.”

  Every bone in my body ached from the intense muscle control it took to be around my brother and not beat the piss out of him. But I relaxed a little getting back to Gia in the waiting room.

  “You want to get out of here?”

  “But you didn’t eat?”

  “I lost my appetite.”

  She frowned. “You need to eat.”

  “Fine. Bring it. What do you think about getting a hotel somewhere close by so I can come back later for evening rounds to check on Edward? It’s a hundred miles back to the Hamptons in traffic, just to turn around again. Unless you need to get back.”

  Gia stood. “I don’t know…do I?”

  I squinted.

  “My boss can be a real prick sometimes. I’m supposed to work…”

  I put out my hand to help her up. When she took it, I yanked her to her feet. “Let’s go, wiseass.”

  “Can we stay at one of those three-hour motels? The ones that all the hookers use?”

  “What the hell would you want to do that for?”

  She shrugged. “Why not? It will be cool to people watch.”

  “And to lie in the same sheets that probably haven’t been changed in a few weeks. Cum stains, blood, probably some shit streaks from dirty ass left behind, too…”

  She crinkled up her nose. “Good point. Take me to the Waldorf Astoria.”

  “I was thinking more along the lines of the Hilton down the block.”

  “Cheapwad.”

  I shook my head. God, I fucking missed her.

  “I wonder if he’ll love peanut butter,” Gia said.

  My head rested on her chest. I’d been caressing her belly for the last twenty minutes while we talked in the dark. “If not, I’m not sure we can keep him. There’s something off about people who don’t like peanut butter.”

  She whacked me in the head. “Don’t say my kid’s going to be off.”

  “I didn’t say that. Besides, he’s your kid, so he’s bound to be a little nutty. So you probably should get used to it now anyway,” I teased.

  “I hope he looks like my dad. Or you.”

  I’d never thought about it, but her kid could technically look like me. I shared DNA with his father. That thought reminded me of the act Elliott had put on for his wife. “Lauren seems like a nice lady. I just don’t get how she can’t see through his shit. One minute he was talking to me like I was garbage, and the next minute she walked in, and he became a different person. He has to slip up sometimes and show his true colors. You can’t live with Dr. Jekyll and not see Mr. Hyde come out a few times.”

  Gia sighed. “I know you don’t want to hear this. But I didn’t see it. People see what they want to see. I was lonely and wanted to see Prince Charming who could change my current situation. Lauren doesn’t want to see her husband for what he is.”

  “She’s gonna find out the hard way…when he brings her home an STD instead of flowers one day.”

  Gia was quiet for a while. When she spoke again, her voice was a whisper. “Just so you know, I understand why you slept with that woman.”

  What the fuck?

  I lifted my head from her chest and found her eyes in the dark. “What woman? What are you talking about?”

  “That woman. Where did you meet her?”

  “What woman?”

  “The woman who answered your phone the night after you found out about Elliott being the baby’s father.”

  Then it hit me.

  “I met a woman at a bar, but I didn’t sleep with her. What do you mean she answered my phone?”

  “I called your phone the next morning and she answered. She seemed to know all about everything that had happened the night before.”

  I got up from the bed and turned on the light. Gia sat up, too. I was angry that she’d thought I’d done that all this time and never said a damn word.

  “I shared shit with that woman while we got drunk—shit I regret sharing because it’s private. She asked me to go home with her, and for a second, I thought about it. I wanted to hurt you back. But I couldn
’t do it. I stumbled to the parking lot, crawled into the backseat of my car, and passed out for the night. Alone. The next morning, I realized I lost my phone and waited until the bar opened to see if I’d left it inside. The woman had stopped by a few minutes earlier and left it with the bartender in case I came looking for it. I don’t even remember her fucking name. You must’ve called while she had it.” My blood was pumping at the thought that Gia had believed I’d cheated on her all this damn time.

  “So you really didn’t cheat on me?”

  “I’d never cheat on you, Gia. And I’m pretty pissed that you thought I did and didn’t call me out on it. You could be damn sure if some guy answered your phone when I called, you’d fucking know about it.”

  “What about the woman in Arizona?”

  “Beth? Nothing happened with her either. She’s an old friend with a great kid. I spent more time hanging around with him than her. Because in my fucked-up head it made me feel closer to you since you’re pregnant.”

  “Oh my God. All this time…” Gia held her head in two hands.

  “Why the hell didn’t you ask me if you suspected something, anyway?”

  “I…I felt like I’d deserved it, I guess. I’d hurt you and maybe a part of me wanted you to hurt me back. Plus…I didn’t know if you being with another woman was cheating.”

  “What? You didn’t know if me fucking another woman was cheating?”

  She hesitated. “If you slept with a woman now, would you be cheating?”

  “I just said I’d never cheat on you.”

  “But if you did, would it be considered cheating? In order for it to be considered cheating, you’d have to be committed to me.” Tears built in her eyes. “I’m not sure what we are right now, Rush.”

  Jesus Christ. I’d really fucked with her head badly. She didn’t even know that I would never sleep with another woman. I looked back and forth between her eyes and cupped her face into my hands. “I don’t know where we’re at right now either. How things will wind up in the future. I wish to God I could tell you that right now. But I do know one thing—you have me. There’s no one else. Me being with another woman—or you with another man—would definitely be fucking cheating.”