by Lila Felix
“You look like you need some sleep too.”
“I do,” He started to move but I fisted his shirt, “You can’t leave, I just got you back.”
“No, I got you back. I’m just going right there to the chair. I don’t want to turn or move and squish you.”
“Too far away.”
He let out a great breath, “Oh thank God. I didn’t know if I was actually gonna make myself go over there.”
We settled in and though I tried to sleep, I repeated his words in my head. Wait, did he say he loved me? He said I had the last one covered, that was someone to love me.
“Fade, did you say you love me?”
I was too late, sleep had already claimed him.
She did hear me. She heard me say I love her—not in so many words, not in those exact words, but I’d said it nonetheless. But this was neither the time nor the place to focus on what I felt. My only goal was to get her better. And not just her body—I was afraid that the kind of healing she needed would go beyond her body. Yes, she was courageous and tough as nails but even the toughest would be broken by just her life—I feared this kidnapping ordeal would leave a scar that not even my love, no matter how fierce it was, could close. The next day would be excruciating.
Mrs. Blakely and I had decided she needed to go home with her and Ali. That was the most stable environment for her. I couldn’t give her stable, or a normal family life—there was just me. We thought she should get well, both physically and mentally away from me—but everything in me chiseled ‘don’t let her go’ into my heart. But no matter how much it hurt, I had to do what was best for Havok. Because that’s what I would do for her, no matter the cost to me—I’d always put her best interests before my own.
I just hoped that when we told her—she didn’t cut me off completely. She was just that stubborn, and I loved her for it.
My mind woke me up every time a nurse entered, taking her vitals and giving me the thumbs up. And I took the time in between to cherish the time I had with her, not knowing if it was my last.
Caring nothing for my own lethargy, I spent the entire night branding her in my memory, thanking God she was okay, cursing the ones who did this damage to such a precious soul. The pad of my thumb fit exactly within the indent of her chin. Her ears were curved the same, but one was higher than the other. Her hands were so delicate, but strong when she held onto me, like silk covered steel.
“Fade,” she murmured.
“I’m here. You’re okay.”
She opened her eyes near eight the next morning, bombarded by nurses and now a doctor. I was shooed away, banned to the hallway. Mrs. Blakely came in shortly after and told me in no uncertain terms to take her car, go home, shower, and come back. She assured me we would talk to her then. There was something about Jett’s mom that forced you to be obedient.
Dead tired and dragging, I drove home—it wasn’t home, it was just a place to live. She made it home. My home was laying in a hospital bed. The shower and fresh clothes did nothing to freshen my mind. How could I tell her she couldn’t come here? How could I look her in the eye and tell her that with me wasn’t what was best for her? But it wasn’t just words, I knew deep down it was true. She was better off getting better on her own. Maybe she would still love me. Maybe she wouldn’t. But I convinced myself on the short drive to the hospital that it didn’t matter. For once in her life, the person she leaned on needed to have her best interests, her best shot at a good life in mind.
And I’d rather spend my life a lonely man than to spend it with her wondering what if.
I parked in the hospital parking lot and reluctantly made my way to the room. I knocked first, not knowing if maybe the doctor was still in or she was sleeping. Hearing permission, I entered. The color had returned to her cheeks and she no longer looked at me through glassy eyes.
“How are you feeling this morning?”
“I’m really good. They made me walk while you were gone. And I had Jell-O for breakfast. Remind me never to eat Jell-O again.”
“I’ll do that. What did the doctor say?”
She shrugged, “I can go home in two days but Ali’s mom said we needed to talk about it. I don’t know what she means.”
Ali’s mom walked into the room just in time and gave me the nod to continue, “It’s your choice, of course, Havok, but Mrs. Blakely and I think you should go home with her. She was a nurse for a long time, she’s home all day. We—I think you need a normal life for a while. You need to recover without the added layer of a relationship.” I stepped towards her with every sentence, “It will only be for a few months. You can get better, rest, take your time healing. Camille said she’s gonna come over to the Blakely’s a few times a week so you can talk to her. She won’t tell me anything, I swear.”
She looked to Ali’s mom and back to me, wordlessly.
“You don’t want me,” she said to the sheet she knotted in her hands.
I heard Mrs. Blakely bow out behind me and shut the door.
I blew out a frustrated breath and steeled my resolve.
Come on Fade, this is best for her. This is not about you.
Sitting next to her, she refused my touch.
“How can you say that? Look at me, Havok. Really look at me.” She darted around the room, her signature move. But I waited her out. She hesitantly met my gaze.
“I want you with me always. But I want you with me healthy. I want you when you already have a home and people who love you. I want you to be with me when everything is right in your world, not just because it’s all wrong and you’ve no one else to turn to. That’s what you had with your mom,” She cringed at my accusation, “You stayed with her because you had no one else, or so you thought. Freely, that’s how I want you to come to me. I love you Havok. I’ve loved you before I knew you and loved you more when I found out your secrets. That’s why we have to do this. Take this chance to heal yourself, make yourself whole without me. And maybe one day when you’re done and you’re really, truly, happy and free. I will be waiting.”
She shrugged. I hadn’t made my point in all of that blathering.
“You don’t know how much I want to take you out of here and lock you up in my apartment and just stand over you, making sure no one hurts you again. I’d hold you every night and make you laugh every day. You wouldn’t need for anything. But then one day everything that has happened to you will come back to haunt you—and we’d be back to square one. But if you do this now, you’re still young. We have time for this Havok. What’s a couple of months or a year or even more in a lifetime? I’d rather that time without you and then have you well than to hide you from the world to have you wake up one day and hate me. You hating me would kill me.”
“Fine.” She said and turned towards the window, away from me.
“Do you want me to leave?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll be in the hall if you need something.”
I opened the door to leave and before it shut behind me, her heart breaking sobs began. Mrs. Blakely gave me an understanding nod of the head and then went in to soothe her along with Ali. Sometimes, doing the right thing for the person you loved sucked.
I sat outside her door for the rest of the day like someone who was just an acquaintance, a friend of the family, a co-worker. They brought her dinner, I took note it was now real food, or as real as hospitals could get to real food. She was progressing. That was my only goal, my love getting well.
About nine that night, Mrs. Blakely and Ali left the room. They sat next to me for a few minutes guaranteeing me without knowledge that she would be alright.
“Is she asleep?”
“Yes, she dozed off while we were talking. We need to get home and make some preparations for tomorrow.”
“Will you keep me updated after she’s gone? Can I help? I’ll give you money.”
“We’ll talk about it another time,” Ali smiled at me.
“She’s never gonna forgive me for this,” I admitte
d more to myself than anyone else.
“She can’t even forgive herself yet. That’s why this needs to happen. She needs to forgive herself, learn who she is without the stigma of her mom. Then she needs to live a while without worrying about where her next meal will come from or whether she’ll have bed to sleep in. Then one day when her heart and her mind is settled, she’ll come back to you. That girl loves you. She’ll come around.”
“Yeah. Thanks.”
They left and I tried to twist and turn into some semblance of a comfortable position, hoping to sleep a little. A tapping on my shoulder woke me up sometime later.
“Are you Fade?”
“Yes. Is she okay?”
“She is fine. She’s asking for you.”
I jumped from my seat and went into the room with trepidation.
“It’s me. Do you need something?”
“I’m scared in the dark here by myself.”
“I understand, I’ll sit in here all night.”
“The chair?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t make me say it, Fade. I can’t say it.”
Her voice quaked with an unspoken request and I had no willpower to say no to her. I kicked my shoes off and slipped into the hospital bed beside her, first turning off the pitiful lamp and the TV she was using for company. I scooted over until she and I were melded together, her flawless back showing just a hint through the ties of the gown.
“You don’t have to say anything. I need you as much as you need me.”
She nodded and stacked her legs with mine. She threw the stiff pillow on the floor and pulled my arm down, using my bicep as a pillow instead.
“You’re right.”
“About what?”
“Everything. I’ve got to fix myself. Ali’s mom told me about my mom. She’s gone somewhere. I’ll probably never see her again. I’m not happy about her being in that life, but I’m kinda relieved she’s gone. Does that make me horrible?”
I threaded my fingers in hers, over her stomach, “No. That means you’re ready to move on. What you had with her was toxic. It takes a while for the poison to completely leave your system. Sometimes it leaves traces with us for the rest of our lives. But if you want life, true life, you have to move on.”
“I know. You know, you should be some kind of psychologist or something. Help people over the radio.”
I chuckled in her ear, “Now I know you’re ready to get out of here. Your smartassery has returned in full force.”
She laughed a bit, shaking beside me, but soon quieted, “I won’t ask you to wait for me. I don’t know how long I’ll be.”
“Another thing you don’t have to ask. There’s no one else for me. I’ll wait for you no matter how long it takes. And if you emerge from this and decide you don’t want me, then I’ll be okay because you’re happy.”
I could feel the tears rivering down my arm, “Don’t cry, sweet Havok. No matter what, know that you have my love.”
“One day we’re gonna have to talk about how you decided to tell God and everybody who I am.”
“Yeah, one day.”
She cried a few more minutes before falling into a deep sleep marked by a soft purr.
But as we approached the Blakely’s car, driven around by Ali’s father, the word ‘end’ snapped in my head. This could be it. This could be the last time I saw her. But I had to be strong and the last effing thing I wanted to do was be strong.
“Can I have just one minute?” I asked the Blakely’s. Ali got into the car and Mrs. Blakely nodded her permission.
I crouched down so I could look up at her and took her hands. There were so many things I wanted to say, reiterate for her sake, but mostly mine. But instead a silence filled the space between us. But she stared in my eyes and I took in every ounce of heart her eyes had to give me. It was there, in the dingy, flickering lighted underground parking lot of that hospital that we exchanged some kind of vow. A simple squeeze of my hands in her tiny ones sealed it. Unspoken, unheard, unseen but professed regardless. The moving cars around us, the surgeons and nurses flitting like ants to their destinations, the cracks in the concrete below us our signed and pledged witnesses. And I promised myself something there. If one day she chose something else, decided that someone else, even someone she hadn’t met yet, made her feel the way I did when I looked at her; I’d still be tangled in who she’d become to me in such a small amount of time. She was more than my heart’s desire, more than a girl I’d tried to give my life to…she was my best friend. And she would hold my heart even if she held another’s hand.
I gathered everything in me, rose, and kissed her forehead, maybe for the last time. And then I walked away.
Four months—it had been four months since I’d seen Fade. I listened to him every day on the radio. He’d changed. He didn’t coddle his listeners or keep them talking just for ratings, he shot straight and didn’t candy coat anything. He dedicated a song to me every Friday, always different. And it was his new fresh approach that had earned him spots on not just one but twenty other stations around the country. He was everywhere, billboards, Facebook, even the news. They did a follow up on my story and since I refused to talk, he appeared and updated everyone on my status.
I’d skipped the fall semester of college in favor of working at the bakery. Mrs. Swan taught me everything and I thrived in a set schedule of four in the morning until two in the afternoon. I had counseling with Camille on Mondays and Wednesdays and she said I was progressing well. I lived in Ali’s room since she was in LSU going for her degree in History. She wanted to be a professor and we wrote emails and Skyped all the time.
I untied my apron and hung it in its usual place at the bakery at two. Roaming the halls, looking for Mrs. Swan was an ordeal. For an overweight woman, she sure could hide well. “I’m not telling, so stop looking for me.”
“Come on. You always tell me yes or no. You never give details.”
“Like what? He orders two banana muffins, one coffee. I’m not telling you anything else.”
“Ugh, I just wanted to know if his hair was long or short.”
She shrugged a little too dramatically, “I don’t know. He’s always got that hood up, earphones on.”
“HA!” I pointed at her. She’d given me something—it wasn’t much but it was more than I ever got out of the marshmallowey woman.
“Stop it. That’s enough. Go home. You’re off tomorrow. I don’t want to see your skinny face. Although, it’s not so skinny anymore,” she reached out and tugged at my little pooch of a belly. I’d gained twenty pounds and gone up three sizes between working at the bakery and eating Leslie’s cooking. Leslie snapped after about three days of me calling her Mrs. Blakely and forced me to call her by her first name. She’d been a Godsend. I thought she’d dote on me hand and foot after the snatching, that’s what I called it, the snatching, like the Reaping, that creepy movie. But to my surprise she didn’t and I was glad. I was given chores and regular responsibilities at home between work and counseling. And we always ate dinner together. I thought most families took that for granted, and I knew for sure after living there for months that it was true. It grounded me. Knowing that no matter what life gave us, we could all come together around that long family table made it all okay.
“I’m going, Jeez.”
Grabbing my purse and crossing it over my body, I walked home, ready for my last Monday session.
Camille was already waiting for me when I got home and we walked outside for some privacy.
“How was work?”
“It was good. I made the cinnamon rolls all by myself today.”
She snickered, “Not really what I mean but good. This is the last Monday session. Do you feel like you need it? Are we moving too soon?”
I shook my head, “No, I feel like I’m settled. I want to go to school next semester. I’ve done enough recovering.”
She smiled. This was more than counseling. She was my friend now. I told her every deta
il, some shocked me when they came from my mouth. That was just proof of how well they’d been hidden. Even I denied them all this time.
We talked at length about future plans, circling and tiptoeing around the real issue at hand. But I wouldn’t let her go this time without having an answer. Truth be told, even if she said I wasn’t ready, I’d already made up my mind.
“So that’s it, kiddo. I will see you not this Wednesday but next one. And bring a girl some croissants next time. There’s a reason I counsel you specially, it’s for the carb fix.”
“Ok, I will, thank you.”
We always hugged after sessions. It probably wasn’t protocol, but we didn’t give a damn about protocol. She squeezed me back and I took advantage of our hold, “Please.”
Please was the only word I could manifest to let her know how ready I was for this next step.
She nodded and cried. Sometimes I forgot that Fade was her brother and whatever state he was in, she had front row tickets.
“Is he okay? I just need to know before I go. Has he moved on?”
“He’s okay. Not good, not happy, but he’s okay. He asks about you every single day but I can’t say anything other than ‘fine.’ And no, of course he hasn’t moved on. He’s just as ready as you are.”
That was all the answer I needed. Running to the front door, I grabbed my bag again and quickly checked myself in the mirror by the door.
“He’s gonna faint. That’s how beautiful you’ve become, Hav. You were a pretty thing before, don’t get me wrong. But you’ve grown into a lady now in just a short time. Don’t let him hit his head. You two have had enough visits to the hospital.”
“I won’t…what if he doesn’t feel the same?”
She hugged me around my shoulders, “Then he doesn’t deserve you.”
“I love you Leslie.”
“Oh Havok, I love you too. Bring Fade over for dinner. I have a feeling it will be the first of many. He might as well get used to being in this family.”
In this family. I belonged to a family now. I checked my face and hair one more time in the mirror just to be sure. My hair had grown out some, but not much. Whatever formula those goons had dyed my hair with had really done a number on it. A month ago we’d dyed it back to my natural black color, but I still rocked a Mohawk and not by choice.