“It will.” He takes it from me, easily lifting it and placing it in his trunk. “I’ve got some rope that I can tie the trunk down with so I can see out the back window.”
“You have rope? Should I get in the car with you?” I tease.
He turns to me and holds me in place with a fierce look in his eyes, hypnotizing me. He steps closer, sucking all the oxygen out of me, leaving me gasping for air as he pierces me, owning everything about me.
It’s funny how he can change me without even meaning to. But being in his proximity makes me dizzy and calm.
“Do you trust me?” he whispers, his breath engulfing me, making me forget everything except him, and strangely, I’m okay with that. In this moment, I’ll let him be the center of my universe.
“Yes,” I say, meaning it. I might not have known him very long, but I know I trust him.
“I don’t want to take you home. Let’s go somewhere else.” He doesn’t ask, but I nod my head yes anyway.
“What about Chris?” I ask.
“He doesn’t get home for another two hours.” He holds out his hand in the limited space between us, and I place mine in his without a second thought.
And I let him take me wherever we’re going. Because right now I’m enjoying this roller-coaster, nowhere near ready to get off.
A park. It seems a little odd he didn’t want to take me home, and instead he took me to a park, not the one in our neighborhood, but a nicer one, a bigger one.
Lush green grass is everywhere I look, and it’s beautiful, inspiring. This is what a park should look like, not the dinky one we know all too well.
Aside from a swing-set, this park has monkey bars, a rope to climb, a tire swing, walking trails, and a pond complete with geese. It’s the most beautiful place I’ve seen in a while.
Since I graduated high school, I’ve been going to the same rundown places, meaning work, home, and the grocery store–when I have a spare minute. I’ve been missing out on a lot the last three years. My life has been passing me by without me even realizing it.
Hudson holds my hand, leading me to the pond away from everyone else. I take the strength he’s offering me, not wanting to let go. I’ve been relying on myself too long, and I can feel my body decaying, withering away every day. So I’ll hold onto him for as long as he’ll let me.
We come to a stop at the edge of the pond and sit on the warm, green grass, but I don’t drop his hand, and he doesn’t let go of mine.
I watch the geese swim in the water, carefree and serene. They don’t have to worry about money, where they live, or their parents. They live a simple life like most animals. Is it weird that sometimes I wish I was an animal? I’m sure it is, but they’re living a life I wish I had.
“I’m sorry I left,” I say, still looking out at the water.
“Don’t be.”
“What did you want to be when you were younger?” I ask, needing to know everything about him.
“A football player.”
I gawk at him. “Seriously?” I drop his hand, turning to face him, and I don’t miss the quick downturn of his lips before it disappears.
“It’s not a stretch.” He laughs. “I used to play up until I had Chris. I was the star wide-receiver. I wanted to play college ball and eventually go pro.”
I shake my head, utterly surprised. “Wow, I don’t see it.”
“I haven’t played in years, but believe it or not, I used to be different.” He glances at me. “What were you like in high school? Because all I can picture is a girl with a scowl on her face, ready to pommel anyone who said a word to her.”
“Oh my gosh!” I laugh, clapping my hands in front of me. “I can totally picture that, but I wasn’t as bad in high school as I am now. I wasn’t all peaches and cream, but I didn’t go around beating kids up.” If they didn’t deserve it.
“What did you want to be when you were younger?” he questions.
I look out past his shoulder with a faint smile. “An artist–to create beauty for someone to draw inspiration from. Art that means something to someone other than me.”
“It sounds like you still want to be an artist.”
More than anything.
“I do,” I admit. “I draw whenever I can, but I don’t have enough time. I never had the chance to go to school–to hone in my skills and learn even more, which is what I wanted, but then life happened.” My smile fades as I bring my eyes back to his. “When I was busy planning my future, my world collapsed. That’s what happens when you make plans to be something more. You get burned.”
“Do you really believe that?”
“Yeah.”
“You shouldn’t because it isn’t true.” He moves closer to me, our legs touching, causing heat to spread through me. “You had this really shitty thing happen to you, but you shouldn’t let it stop you from living your life. I can understand that in the beginning you needed to get your bearings on the situation, but it’s been three years, and you’re in the same place.” His hand rests on my knee, and I look into his brown eyes, listening to every word he says. “If you want to draw, draw. Make it happen because no one else in this life is going to fight for what you want. You have to be the one to make it happen, so the question is, are you willing to fight? Are you willing to put yourself first?”
I stare down at the grass, pulling a handful of it from the ground as my heart beats against my chest.
I don’t want to answer him because he’s not going to like my response. He’s not going to want to hear that I won’t put myself first until my mom’s last breath. Until then, she will be my priority, everything I want will be benched because if I was to put myself first, the guilt would eat me alive, and there’s no way I could survive it when I’m barely hanging on now.
So I give him an answer he can live with. “Maybe.” But I don’t mean it.
“That’s a start.” He sighs, seeing doubt written across my face. “By the way, what happened here?” he asks, lightly running his hand across the scrape on my arm and then down to my leg, causing goosebumps to erupt in his wake.
“I–I fell off my bike.”
“And why are you wearing this shirt?” His hand moves to the edge of the sleeve, slipping over my shoulder, and resting on my cheek.
“Mine ripped.”
“You’re a disaster.”
“I am,” I agree.
“But more than that, you’re someone who cares deeply for those around you. Even though you don’t show it, you need someone, but I can feel you holding me at arm’s-length. If you’re not going to fight for yourself, will you let me fight for you?”
I watch him move closer, stopping when our noses touch, and my breath hitches in my throat. I don’t move–I don’t blink, too afraid that he’ll run away and leave if I say the wrong thing.
Will I let him fight for me? I haven’t had anyone in my corner in so long that I don’t even know what that entails, but it couldn’t hurt to let him try.
“Yes,” I whisper, my breath floating in the space between us.
His mouth inches closer to mine, but stops eerily close to mine, tempting me to fall into his world and lose myself completely. He tilts my face toward him, brushing his lips across mine, tingles race through my body, urging him to close the gap. I can’t take having him so close yet so far, so I seal my lips to his, causing an inferno to ignite in my stomach, a fire I’ll gladly burn in just to keep him closer.
His kiss takes everything away. Pain. Confusion. Longing. His kiss leaves me with one thing. Hope. Hope that the life I’ve been leading can be more.
It’s something I don’t want to escape because maybe we were brought to each other for a reason. Maybe he’s here to rescue me from myself–to help me find everything I’ve been missing.
His hand slips to the back of my neck, holding me closer, melding us together, and I fight to keep him in place, letting him be my lifeline as my hand grips his bicep.
It’s a kiss that’s innocent enough, a tou
ch of the lips, mouths meeting together for the first time. It’s tender and careful, but it’s a kiss that makes my world implode, making me realize that I can have more. Maybe, just maybe, I can have him. Maybe I can have something of my own.
He pulls back, resting his forehead on mine which he seems to do often, keeping me in place. He rears his head back with a quirk of his lips, dazzling me more than he should.
“I’ll race you to the swings.”
I groan. “Oh, come on, I’ve had enough exercise for the week. Can’t we just sit here and watch the geese fight each other?” I nod my head to two geese fighting over a soggy piece of bread floating in the water between them and laugh. “My money is on the one on the left.” That’s the one who keeps going for the bread while the other nudges its neck away. Hudson stands from the ground, reaching out his hands for me to take. I slap my hands in his and push myself from the ground as he lifts me to my feet. “Fine, but I’m not racing you.”
“Okay,” he says nonchalantly. He bends over, wrapping his hands under my butt and throws me over his shoulder.
“What are you doing?” I shriek.
Each step he takes causes my stomach to bounce against his shoulder, but I focus instead on his warm hand gripping the back of my thigh, heat radiating through it, warming my body with his touch.
“Thought I would give you a break, since you’re so exhausted,” he jokes, stifling a laugh.
“I can walk.” Not that I want to. I’d rather be exactly where I am.
“I’ll put you down the second we get there, so just enjoy the free ride.”
Oh, I’m enjoying it alright. I try to fight the smile on my face, but it’s useless. It’s the moments we’re free that pull us together even more. It’s something I’ve never had before. Someone who can understand the dark side of me and still be the light shining through.
A friend. A companion.
Someone who sees it all and doesn’t run in the opposite direction.
“We’re here.” He stops and slides my body off his shoulder, causing friction the whole way down. My hands rest on his chest as he holds me by the waist, keeping me flush against him. He places a chaste kiss on my lips before turning me around and guiding me to a nearby swing.
I would pout, but the fact that there are kids and families nearby keeps a smile on my face. PDA in front of small people is not appropriate.
So instead, I sit on the swing and let Hudson push me to the sky, enjoying the wind blowing across my face and each time his hands connect with my back.
I let him push me like a little kid, and I don’t even care because I like knowing the fact that he’s there each time I descend back down to the ground to catch me, keeping me from falling all on my own.
I’ll never forget this day, and I wish it was because it was the first time Hudson kissed me, the first time I felt free from the chains holding me to this life. I wish it wasn’t because this is the day my mom fell into a downward spiral.
It happened three hours into my shift at the bar. My phone vibrated in the back pocket of my shorts, but I ignored it because we were slammed as usual. It vibrated again and again. I yanked my phone out of my pocket, irritated that the damn thing kept going off. No one ever called me. Ever.
When I saw a number I didn’t recognize on the screen, I hit ignore and shoved it back in my pocket before getting back to work, but then the damn thing went off again. It was the same number, so instead of ignoring it for the fourth time, I answered it, wanting whoever it was to leave me alone.
“Hello?” I answered curtly.
“Is this Jade Hart?” an unknown woman asked.
“Yes,” I said a little irritated that she wasn’t getting to the point.
“Your mother, Elizabeth Hart, is in the hospital. She wanted me to call you…”
She went on, but I didn’t hear a word she said. My world stopped, everything standing still, knowing that something happened to Mom while I wasn’t there, while I was out trying to have a life, she was falling apart.
My heart plummeted out of my chest, landing on the floor, and I watched it contract with each beat, covered in blood–blood that dripped on the floor, but somehow, I was still standing. I was still breathing, staring at my heart on the ground while my own mother couldn’t survive with her heart in her chest. I was living, while my heart was laying at my feet.
I stumbled back, hitting the counter and knocking over several glasses. They shattered to the ground, breaking around my beating heart, but I didn’t try to stop them. I let them crash to the floor, watching the shards fly all around me. When the last piece of glass fell on the floor, it landed in my heart, but the damn thing kept beating, contracting, but I felt the pain. The piercing glass slashed a hole in my heart, tore it open, ripping me in two.
“Ma’am? Ma’am, did you hear me? You should come to the hospital.”
It was then the world came back to life, moving at warp speed while I was stuck in place, glass shattered at my feet. I pressed my hand to my chest, feeling my heart thrashing frantically behind my ribcage.
“I’m on my way,” I croaked, hanging up the phone and holding it in a death grip in the palm of my hand, needing a lifeline.
Kristy came running around the bar, placing her hand on the top of my arm. “Are you okay?”
I wasn’t, because it felt like everything I knew had been snatched away from me in an instant. But it shouldn’t have been a shock. I should have expected this because it’s been three years of waiting.
“I have to go,” I told her.
She dropped her hand from arm. “It’s fine. Go. I got it.”
I nodded my head and walked out the door, riding my old bike to the hospital.
So now, here I am, hovering over my mom’s body. I wish I could trade places with her, wish I could be the one lying in the hospital bed.
I run my hand through her thin brown hair and listen to the steady beep of the machine she’s hooked up to. The sound has become one of comfort to me. I don’t have to feel for her pulse when she’s here because I know she’s still breathing from the beep that echoes through the hospital room.
“We’ve given her medication, so she isn’t in any pain,” the nurse says, attempting to ease my mind.
But she can’t. She can’t make me feel any better. She can’t make my own pain go away. She can’t turn back time and force my mom to have a surgery she didn’t want.
“How long?” I ask, needing to know how much longer it will be before her body is lying lifeless in this bed, her soul gone forever.
That’s all I ever want to know–how much time I have, but I know I won’t ever be satisfied with the answer because if it’s not a lifetime–it’s not enough.
“It’s hard to tell. We can’t predict these things, but she would be lucky to make it another month.” She holds a chart close to her body, hugging it so tightly the tips of her fingers turn white.
“I want her to have the surgery,” I say, determination in my voice, wanting someone to fix her–someone to bring her back to me.
I don’t care that I still need $1,000 for them to perform the surgery. I’ll sell everything I have to save her.
The nurse looks at me with pity in her eyes. “I’m sorry, but she signed a DNR the last time she was here. She explicitly wrote out that she did not want to have surgery, and she didn’t want to prolong her life with any extraordinary measures.”
What? I can’t believe what I’m hearing. I can’t believe that this is it.
Time freezes as I let the weight of her words sink in. Nothing I’ve done matters. Everything I sacrificed was for nothing.
I stare at the nurse, baffled. “You’re just going to let her die?!” I yell. “Watch her wither away into nothing? Don’t I have a say in this?” I demand, tears streaming down my face.
“I’m sorry,” she says, taking a step closer to me.
I hold out my hand, stopping her before she steps any closer. “Get out!” I scream.
She
backs away and walks out the door, leaving me crying over my mom–over the woman who raised me, over the woman I’ve been working my ass off to save. And it was all for nothing. She was never going to have the surgery. And I was never going to have her the way she was before she got sick.
“Where are we going?” I ask, yanking on Mom’s hand as we walk down the bustling city street.
“We’ll be there in just a minute. Hang on, and you’ll see.” She grins, tugging me along next to her.
I skip down the sidewalk, happy to be out for the day while my dad is at work. I love days that Mom and I spend together. She calls it girls’ day, but I call it play day because we always get to do fun things that Dad never wants to. Last time we went to the heart of the city to see a garden that was filled with beautiful flowers and butterflies. It was magical and made me feel like I was a princess in a Disney movie.
“We’re here,” Mom announces as we stand outside a tall building.
“Where’s here?” I ask, confused by the giant, white building in front of us that looks like it should have guards standing outside with two giant lion statues.
“You’ll love it,” she promises, squeezing my hand as she ascends the stone steps to the ticket booth.
Mom buys tickets as I look around at my surroundings. The woman standing next to me has neon pink hair and is wearing a shimmery gold top with royal purple pants. The man holding her hand has wild green hair and is decked out in black clothing. I smile, wishing Mom would let me dye my hair a fun color–something different besides my dark brown hair that makes me blend in with the rest of the world.
“Enjoy,” the man behind the ticket booth says as Mom takes our tickets, and we head inside.
We walk through the grand glass door, and a woman wearing a maroon vest tears our tickets before we weave through the velvet red rope.
“Are we seeing a movie?” I ask, puzzled.
She doesn’t answer as we shuffle into a room on the right, and it’s then I see it. Another magical place that makes my heart leap and my stomach jump in excitement.
“We’re at a museum,” she explains. “An art museum.” She crouches down next to me, smiling from ear to ear. “I want you to see that this could be you one day. You could have a whole museum filled with your artwork. I know you’re only eleven and aren’t thinking about being an adult, but one day, you’ll have to make a decision about who you are.”
The Truth About Falling Page 12