It made me cry but I leaned over and softly kissed his cheek. “I love you too,” I said quietly.
He opened his eyes again but it looked painful, and then he closed them again.
“Do you want me to shut the shades more?” I asked. They were mostly closed, but I got up to shut them all the way. When I returned to the bed his eyes were open again.
“Thank you.”
It had only been twenty-four hours since he came out of surgery and the doctors said he’d been doing fine. The incident in the ambulance had caused everyone to worry, but thankfully there were trained professionals that knew what to do in situations like that.
“Is Maggie here too?” he asked. His voice was barely above a whisper.
“No, she’s with my dad at home. My mom came out with me the second we got the news.”
He seemed to think about that for a moment, or at the least, take the time to ease into speaking and moving. I honestly wasn’t aware that he was at that point yet, and then the doctor came in and said, “Whoa, what are we doing awake?” He’d said it with a smile, so I wasn’t afraid for his life or anything, but I was startled.
“He hasn’t been awake yet?” I asked.
Dr. Glenn looked over his vitals and grabbed a clipboard, glancing it over. “Nope, not yet. We’ve been keeping him under pretty well.”
“You can’t keep me out of it when this girl is around,” Jared told him.
I smiled but at the same time worried I was going to be banned from his room again. If he was still supposed to be sedated, maybe I was hindering his progress.
“No, I guess not,” the doctor smiled. He turned to me and said, “We juiced him down a little this morning. I’m not surprised he’s awake, but he’s probably still pretty sleepy. Don’t be alarmed if he dozes in and out.” I nodded and he turned his attention back to Jared. “How you feeling?”
Jared barely smiled. “Is that a rhetorical question?”
Dr. Glenn chuckled. “No, not really. I’m sure you hurt quite a bit—even with the meds.”
He traveled down to Jared’s feet and lifted the blanket up to his shin. For the first time I realized his right leg was in a cast. The doctor took a pointy thing out of his pocket and poked Jared’s big toe. He reacted and the doctor smiled.
“Guess you could feel that. Good deal. How ‘bout this one?” He did the same thing to the other foot and got the same reaction. He tapped each of Jared’s toes, asked him to move them on his own, and had him rotate his left ankle. “Excellent,” he concluded, jotting something down on his clipboard.
Another doctor joined us and the two of them discussed several things amongst each other, and also with me. And Dr. Glenn was right. Jared wandered in and out of consciousness the entire thirty minutes.
But that was until his mom entered the room.
Chapter Forty-Three
The fiery darts she shot at me were the evil sort and she snarled, “What is she doing in here?”
Both doctors looked surprised, even looking to me for an answer.
“John consented for me to be here,” I told her, feeling like I had to fumble for an excuse.
Jared was awake again, already feeling the hostility in the room. He looked confused. “What?” he mumbled. “Why did my dad have to consent for you to be here?”
Jocelyn was at his side in a millisecond. “Jared? You’re awake?” She let out a giant exclamation of relief as she took his hand, and even though I could relate to how she felt, I couldn’t shake her hatred of me. “Oh my God, I was so worried for you. Oh Jared, I’m so glad you’re okay—”
He’d pulled away from her by then, even wincing in pain. Dr. Taylor said something about his ribs but no one even acknowledged the portly man.
“Mom, did you tell Taryn she couldn’t be in here?”
She smiled in a motherly sort of way. “Honey, I didn’t let anyone in here. You needed to rest. You needed to get better—”
His bitter chuckle cut her off, especially because he grimaced again.
“You almost died, Jared,” she said sternly. “Don’t you get upset with me for that.”
“Ma’am, let’s not get him agitated…” Dr. Glenn began. But she gave him the evil eye before he could finish.
“Yeah, I need to relax,” Jared said with a painful sigh. “I think you should leave.”
I thought he meant everyone, but when I took a step toward the door he said, “Not you, Taryn. Please stay. Please?”
I knew it wasn’t his fault, but if there was anything that could make Jocelyn hate me even more, that was it. Her look was only brief but it spoke a thousand words.
I honestly did not understand her.
His mom left and Jared reached his hand out for mine. “Taryn, I am so sorry—”
“Shh, don’t worry about it. Everything is okay now, and I’ll be here until you can go home. Let’s work on that, okay?”
He nodded, but I knew he still had unresolved issues with his mom. I didn’t know what to do about it anymore and I feared that this most recent incident would continue to haunt me.
Thankfully the rest of the crew wasn’t banished from seeing him anymore. Later that afternoon they came in two at a time to see for themselves that he was indeed awake and on the road to recovery. He was still pretty groggy and in and out of sleep for a lot of it, but I think for the most part everyone felt so much better that there wasn’t a brick wall to keep him from knowing how much his friends cared.
That brick wall being Jocelyn Miller.
I stayed in the hospital with Jared for three days. My mom had returned home but I knew that Jared’s parents were still in Chicago until the day before he was discharged. Both of them did pop in and out of his room, separately, and even though there were plenty of awkward moments, I was thankful that nothing got out of hand. Jared still wasn’t on good terms with either of them, and I wasn’t sure if he ever would be.
It was so nice when he was finally sent home to California. The tour had been postponed, but that was the least of my worries. I just wanted Jared to get better.
He was forced to be in a wheelchair for the first part of his recovery. With his broken ribs and shoulder injury it was way too difficult to use crutches. He chose to hobble into the bathroom though, and even that was difficult for him. It took a while because he could only used one half of his body; his entire right side was under repairs and was pretty much useless for the time being.
His right leg was broken in two different places, and the doctors even said that he had ligament damage in his knee. That would have to be tended to once the cast came off. Jared had a lot of physical therapy ahead of him, but the only thing he focused on was that he would be able to dance with me on our wedding day. I thought it was very sweet, and it was very much like Jared to be thinking of something like that.
Maggie was glad he was back home. She understood that he’d been in an accident and had a lot of injuries, but she didn’t understand the career aspect of his life. It didn’t mean anything to her that the rest of his U.S. tour had been postponed; she was just glad to have him home. As it was, we weren’t even sure if he’d be ready to tour Europe. That was the second goal he was shooting for; his trip to Europe last year had been cut short because of other unforeseen misfortune. Career-wise, Jared couldn’t do that again.
We’d been home in San Francisco for almost two weeks when I could tell Jared was getting antsy. He enjoyed day-to-day with us as a whole, but he was dying to play some music. In fact, he did spend a lot of time writing. Sitting at the piano wasn’t very comfortable for him, but occasionally he’d carefully strum a guitar. He was pretty pleased when I set up Maggie’s keyboard for him next to the couch. He could sit with his leg up, and because the stand was adjustable, it was level for his left hand to play.
But whatever he’d been writing, I could tell that he was ready to compose the entire song. Since I’d met him, Jared had also been writing a solo album while finishing up some songs for his band’s latest
album. I believed that his newest song was meant for his solo project, although I never asked him straight out. I loved it when he shared anything with me, and I was always interested in all of his work, but sometimes he just had a process that did not consist of talking about it. I’d catch bits and pieces of it sometimes, but unless he openly shared something, or asked my opinion, I didn’t interrupt him.
By the fourth week he could hobble down to the basement on his own, and after that, I didn’t see him for about six hours of the day. From upstairs I could hear him playing if he was just messing around on his instruments, but if he was inside his recording booth, no sound traveled upward. If the basement door was open, I knew he didn’t mind if I went downstairs. Otherwise if it was shut, I knew he was working on something he wanted to keep quiet. I asked only once and he just smiled and said, “Can’t tell you.”
During this time, Jack, Kurt, and Marcus came up north quite a bit, along with Adrian and a few other industry people. I think those visits were for the band’s sake, to keep fresh because Jared planned on being ready to go when the European dates hit. The U.S. dates that had been postponed were rescheduled for October and early November, and the band also composed two new songs to take on the road for their fans.
In all the music and family time, there really were wedding decisions going on as well. It became even more important to me that our wedding and reception were both simple. I didn’t care about anything fancy or impressive; I just wanted that permanent union with Jared so we could start a family together. My mom had sewn Maggie’s dress already, but she also finished mine. Even though it was simple—how I wanted it to be—it was beautiful. May hit, the weather was gorgeous, and I was dying to be a married woman.
Jared had his cast removed that week. It was kind of scary because although he was told he wouldn’t be able to walk very well on his leg, I think he actually expected to. When it didn’t happen in the therapy room, I could tell he was frustrated.
He was sitting on a bench, able to bend his right leg for the first time in six weeks, but he could barely bend it very far, and he could hardly stand on it.
“It’s been ten minutes,” I told him with a sympathetic smile. “Honey, you’ve got to work into it slowly.”
“I know,” he replied. But it was sullen, like he didn’t want to believe it.
He got up again, standing on his left leg, and gradually he put weight on his right leg. The therapist handed him a cane and he practically scoffed at it.
“You wanna walk again or what?” Andy said to him.
He pushed the cane toward him again and finally Jared took it. He put it in his right hand to lean on, but I worried it would hurt his shoulder. He grimaced, but I wasn’t sure where it hurt exactly. He had refused to take any pain medication in the last four weeks.
“What’s hurting?” Andy asked.
“Uh, everything,” Jared chuckled. “No biggie, I just need to get used to it.”
“I know you can handle the pain, but where exactly does it hurt. Communicate with me, buddy.”
Jared shifted slightly, and then took a step forward with his right leg. He winced again. “Well, the shoulder seems okay. But it’s just my thigh, I guess. It’s like…a rolling pain that goes up and down it and then to my shin. Pressure on the mended bones, I guess.”
“Yeah, sounds about right. How’s your knee?”
Jared stepped with his left foot, and then with his right again. He rocked back and forth a little, to get an idea of how it felt. “Well maybe it’s my knee that’s hurting,” he shrugged. “I honestly can’t tell. It’s just an overall pain, like arthritis or something. I don’t know what arthritis feels like, but according to Grandpa Jim, it’s annoying as hell.”
I chuckled, and could almost hear my grandpa say that.
Andy smiled and said, “Sounds normal to me. Your body is using a leg that hasn’t been used for a while. Is the ache similar to how it felt in the cast?”
Jared nodded. “Yeah, it’s about the same. But I couldn’t move my knee in the cast. Now that I can…”
We knew a knee injury was present, which was why Jared was having another MRI next. There wouldn’t be any actual physical therapy until the doctors knew what they were working with, so while we waited for the MRI results, Jared and I grabbed some lunch and went to the park. He felt stupid with a cane, but really it was the only thing that was going to help him for the time being.
There was no way anyone would recognize him. He’d pretty much grown a beard while he was recovering from his injuries. He joked that he wasn’t going to shave until our wedding. He was still pretty damn sexy, and I even kidded back that he could keep the beard. It wasn’t even long or scruffy, it was just right, and to be honest, it didn’t matter how he grew his hair—he was still gorgeous.
Maggie didn’t like it though. She told him it was icky and he was too hairy. But I think that was because he liked to rub it on her face just to make her squeal. He told her it was going to make her grow a beard just by it touching her face. She definitely didn’t like the idea of that, and she insisted that he get rid of it so there were no bearded ladies in the house.
The doctor called while we were still at the park. After lunch we’d be headed back to his office anyways, but I knew Jared wanted the results as soon as he could get them. I could only hear his end of the conversation that first started out with a heavy sigh. Then he asked how long it would set him back, and after he waited for an answer, he asked if he could function without having it done.
I assumed “having it done” meant surgery.
When he hung up he said, “I’ve got a torn meniscus and a ligament that’s apparently almost totally detached. Don’t even ask me what it’s called because I forget. Anterior something. Surgery is next week. He said it’s a common procedure.”
“And recovery time?”
“He said it shouldn’t be too bad—a few weeks of taking it easy. I’ll be able to walk with a brace on it or something, and then physical therapy to get it functioning fully again. He didn’t say how long until it was back to normal.”
“And he apparently didn’t recommend skipping the surgery?”
“Nope. Said I could blow my knee out in the middle of a show, or even stepping off a curb.”
“Hmm. Wouldn’t want to mess up those guitar jumps.”
That made him laugh and he nudged me with his elbow. “Hey now.”
I slid my arm around his waist and kissed him. “I love you, guitar jumps or not.”
We both lounged back for a few minutes, looking up into the trees. I was nestled in his arm and I couldn’t help but take a few pictures that way, just to capture another moment in time.
Life with Jared.
I wasn’t sure it could get any better.
Chapter Forty-Four
I thought I would be nervous. I thought I would feel stressed out, or insecure, or even worried that something would go wrong. I figured it was a natural part of any person’s wedding, male or female.
Not for me. I didn’t feel an ounce of anxiety the week of the wedding or the day itself. I think I was so ready to marry Jared that it wasn’t going to come fast enough. And because it was such a private event—there were less than fifty people there—it felt comfortable and informal.
My mom did an amazing job. The flowers were gorgeous, the tables were beautiful, and the food was incredible. And because it was just an intimate crowd of people, it was easy to up the date even earlier in June—from the 24th to the 4th.
I guess there was one small thing that worried me when I allowed it to. That was Jared’s parents. I honestly didn’t know if Jocelyn was going to come to it or not, but I wasn’t surprised when she showed up just for the ceremony and then left. John basically did the same, but he did eat a little and speak with a few of Jared’s friends. He watched us cut the cake and have our first dance, and I think that’s when he headed out. Besides a few necessary pleasantries, he avoided my family entirely.
We skipped a lot of the formal “group” photos. I had some pictures with my family, but Jared wasn’t interested in doing the ol’ photo session with his folks. I felt that to be a shame, but I didn’t want to intrude on his personal decisions when it came to his mom and dad. However, I didn’t think that he would mind a few casual pictures with his parents, and I felt inclined to call Jocelyn and ask if she’d return to the party for that. She wasn’t too keen on having a conversation with me, but when I stated that Jared should have some beautiful photos taken with his mom on his wedding day, thankfully she agreed.
John had left by then, already having a few pictures taken with his son, and Jared was surprised to see his mom return to the party. I think he was happy, though. I really think he wanted those bridges to be mended with his parents, even if it didn’t mean being close to them again. His relationship with his dad might always be strained because of my sister, but I wanted the chance for him to at least have a decent relationship with his mom.
I caught her just before she was about to head out again. Of course talking to me was probably the last thing she wanted to do, but I was still a fool trying. I handed her a gift that I had for her—it was a framed 8x10 of Jared, with his guitar, sitting against the tree in our backyard. I took the picture from the back patio without him knowing, and he had this really far away look in his eyes as he was gazing across the yard. It was a beautiful picture, and I hoped that she liked it.
“Thank you for being here,” I told her sincerely. I really didn’t know what else to say, especially since she was holding the wrapped gift in her hands like it was laced with poison. “I’ll send you a set of the wedding pictures when they’re developed. Or maybe we could come out to Las Vegas and bring them in person.”
She stared at me in such a way that I really felt in the wrong for some reason. It was like she was trying to make me feel insignificant all over again. Finally she said, “Please don’t ever thank me for doing something for my son. I may not agree with his decisions all the time, but I love him more than anything and I will always support him no matter what.”
Love Today Page 36