Jagged Love

by Nicole Simone

  Andrew glanced at the clock. “That was an hour and a half ago.”

  “I have come to realize that hospitals work on their own time.”

  Stretching his arms above his head, Andrew’s shirt rode up and flashed a tantalizing strip of skin. My skin heated as lust roared through my veins.

  He quirked an eyebrow. “Unless you want to find a hall closet and get busy. I promise it will take five minutes max.”

  Laughing, I shook my head. “We both know it will take longer then that. You are very thorough.”

  “Hell yeah, I am. I’ll be outside if you change your mind.”

  I watched Andrew’s sweet ass walk into the hallway and disappear around the corner. The doctor appeared soon after, clipboard in hand. His stern expression immediately caused me to jump to the worst possible scenario. My coat billowed open as I stumbled to my feet.

  “Is Sumiko going to be ok?” I asked.

  The doctor’s thick Russian accent butchered his words. “She is stable, but her body cannot take much more drug abuse, yes?”

  “I know that, but she won’t listen to anybody.” For some reason, I felt compelled to defend Sumiko. “She has had a hard life and likes to self medicate with drugs. It’s the only way the nightmares dissipate.” My hands tangled themselves as the doctor’s bushy eyebrows hit his receding hairline. Judgment rolled off of him in waves. “You don’t understand,” I mumbled.

  “There are no excuses when it comes to drugs,” he said sternly. “I’m going to recommend she check herself into a drug treatment center.”

  “Of course.”

  “She should be awake by now. Would you like to see her?”

  “Please.”

  Turning on his scuffed blacked shoes, I followed him to Sumiko’s room.

  With her bleached blonde hair and pale complexion, Sumiko blended into the sterile environment. A heart monitor beeped steadily next to her. I wanted to ask a million and one questions but today wasn’t the day to get answers. Sumiko was a mystery. After knowing her for almost half my life, she still felt like a stranger sometimes. Just like my mother, I had no idea what nightmares Sumiko was trying to bury, but I’m sure most of it had to do with her father, a mean man who used his money to make up for his lack of heart. Sumiko got the brunt of his wraths while I was sent to my room. Covers over my head, I would try to block out the sounds of screaming followed by what could only be described as body meeting floor. To tamper the guilt for not intervening, Sumiko’s wounds would be tended by the first aid kid I’d kept hidden under my bed. I should have done more though. I should have blocked the blows, thrown a lamp, anything instead of hiding.

  Sumiko stirred, tangling the sheets around her feet and moaned. The doctor mentioned she would feel like death warmed over when she awoke due to the withdrawal. I’m glad I wasn’t in Sumiko’s shoes.

  Opening her milky green eyes, she trained her gaze on me. Surprise registered. “Haven?”

  I threaded my fingers through hers and scooted my chair closer to the hospital bed. “Hi, how are you?”

  “How do you think I am?” Tears ran down her cheeks. “I stole money, started using again, and lived in a cracked out stupor for the past two weeks. Big Ted gave me an endless supply. It was as if he wanted me to die.”

  My hatred toward Big Ted multiplied. I shouldn’t have given him the money. It only allowed him to continue peddling drugs and screwing up young kids’ futures. If I didn’t though, Sumiko wouldn’t be lying here. She’d be on a marble slab in a morgue somewhere.

  I handed Sumiko a box of tissues from her nightstand. She blew her noise then tossed the snot rag off to the side. Personal cleanliness was never her strong suit. When we’d shared a room, I divided the two spaces by a piece of blue duct tape. My side looked immaculate while hers looked as if a tornado blew in.

  “It’s over now,” I said soothingly. “I give Big Ted the remaining money and he promised to stay away from us. It goes both ways though. You can’t return to that hellhole no matter what. I don’t care if zombies invade and that is the only non-infected area. Don’t go back there.”

  Sumiko rolled her eyes like she did when she thought I was being over dramatic. “Jesus, I’m not a glutton for punishment. I know I can’t. How did you get the money?”

  I wasn’t comfortable with Sumiko knowing Andrew gave me a loan because that’s exactly what it was. A loan. I fully intended to pay him back as soon as I could. Sumiko wouldn’t understand though.

  “That’s none of your concern.” I fiddled with the skull ring on my finger. “It’s done. We can both move on and hopefully get a fresh start. The doctor suggested you check yourself into a drug treatment facility and I agree with him. You have to kick this habit once and for all.”

  Sumiko analyzed my expression to an uncomfortable degree. A smile tilted up her lips. “It was that man you were with the night I stopped by.”

  “Broke in, not stopped by,” I interjected.

  “Whatever, same thing. He was the one who gave you the remaining money.” My emotions I wore on my sleeve deceived me. Sumiko punched the air in victory. “Haven has a sugar daddy,” she taunted. “Does he match your blow jobs for money?”

  She was nine months older, but I always felt like the older one. Irritability crawled underneath my skin.

  “Don’t act like all high and mighty, Sumiko. He saved us,” I bit out. “And stuck his neck out to do so.”

  Taken aback by the venom in my voice, her mouth gaped open. “You never once defended any of your boyfriends before. You usually join in until he is ripped to shreds.”

  “Things change.”

  “No he is special, I can tell. I was honestly worried you would never fall in love. I’m glad you’re opening your heart.” She fluffed her pillows and leaned back. “Does he treat you right?”

  “Yes,” I said hesitantly. “He does but were you really worried?” Sumiko never seemed to care about my personal life, so this was news. “It’s not as if I didn’t have boyfriends.”

  She pinned me with a look. “Those weren’t boyfriends. They were distractions from your own problems. Besides, they would treat you like garbage because that’s how you thought you should be treated.”

  I stared at Sumiko as if she had three heads. It seemed as if there was an old wise woman trapped her inside her all along.

  “Why didn’t you express this earlier? It might have saved me some time,” I said.

  “You really think you would have listened to me?” She huffed. “Please, your head was so far up your own ass you couldn’t see the light.”

  “Hey!”

  “It’s true.”

  After the string of her insult lessened, I saw the value behind her words. The men I’d dated were a warm body to cuddle up against at night. They were didn’t push my boundaries or attempt to eradicate the walls around my heart. They allowed me to float through life comfortably numb. Andrew had entered the scene a week ago with a hammer and didn’t stop swinging until I was naked and exposed. Literally.

  Sumiko gave me a self-satisfied smirk. “I can’t wait to meet the man who was won the keys to my little sister’s heart.”

  “Be quiet,” I mumbled. Done with the discussing my love life, I moved on to the elephant in the room. “I know you don’t want to talk about this but what caused your downfall? You said it was your nightmares. What nightmares?” Lowering my voice, I brought up her least favorite person. “Where they about your childhood? About your dad?”

  Sumiko’s face immediately turned cold. She pushed a red button on her side table, ignoring my questions. “Stupid nurses don’t give you the good stuff unless you ask.”

  I pressed on. “You can trust me.”

  Her chin jerked as her green eyes reveled a chasm of broken promises. “If anything, our parents have distilled the opposite of that. You can’t trust anybody, not even your family.”

  A nurse bustled into the room, carrying a tray of hospital food. “We have a delicious cheese sandwich an
d green Jell-O today.”

  Sumiko scowled. “I want pills.”

  “Lunch first.”

  The tray was set in front of her and the Jell-O jiggled unnaturally. I could sense Sumiko was done with having visitors.

  Grabbing my purse, I stood. “I’ll be by later tomorrow. Enjoy your lunch.”

  She didn’t acknowledge me. Defeated, my body dragged itself out into the artificially lit hallway. With Sumiko, her darkness overran the small amount of light that still burned inside her. I was afraid one day the darkness would take over completely.

  After Andrew and I left the hospital, we found ourselves in an old-timey diner across the street. I drowned my sorrows in a stack of pancakes while Andrew sipped a cup of green tea. His fingers wrapped around the mug and steam fogged up his glasses. They had become such an integral part of his identity, at times I forgot he wore them.

  Andrew grimaced as I dragged a piece of bacon through a pool of maple syrup. “That’s really gross.”

  My fork hovered over my plate. “Are you kidding me? It’s amazing. Haven’t you had maple smoked bacon? It’s basically the same thing.”

  “I wasn’t allowed to eat bacon growing up.”

  I almost dropped dead in shock. A child shouldn’t be deprived of delicious bacon.

  “So let me get this straight.” I said. “You don’t text, you don’t eat bacon, you used a creepy abounded house as your fort, any other weird facts I should know about you?”

  Andrew tapped the side of mug while he thought. “I can hold my breath for two minutes under water.”

  “Seriously? What are you—part fish?”

  “My mom forced to me to take a sport. She gave me three options: Football, field and track, or swim. I chose to join the swim team. It was the sport that had the lowest chance of me tripping over my feet.”

  “A little gawky in high school, were you?”

  “I was known as the school klutz.”

  An image of a teenage Andrew, glasses perched on his nose, books clutched to his chest as he attempted to wrangle in his long limbs had me giggling. I wished we had met back then. The outcast and the klutz was a romantic comedy waiting to happen.

  “How about you? Did you take any sports?” Andrew asked.

  I snorted. “Me? Sports? That’s like asking if cheetahs can survive in the streets of Los Angeles.”

  “So I’ll take that as a no?”

  “A big fat no. I was that girl who always chose the seat in the back and spent more time in her own head than in reality.”

  “I bet you had purple hair and those spiky bracelets around your wrist.”

  Making a swirl in my pancake syrup, I rolled my eyes at the clique. “Not every loner in school is a Goth, although, yes I did have purple hair. Monica and I first dyed it blue but with my tiny stature, I was afraid people would mistake me as a Smurf.”

  Andrew choked on his green tea as he laughed. He dabbed at his lips with a napkin. “Did you and Monica tend the same high school?”

  “We did when I lived in Detroit. My mom as you know wasn’t a pillar of stability. We moved around a lot. There was one year when she dragged me to Seattle, Los Angeles, and Portland, looking for the richest men. It was a wild goose chase.”

  Andrew had already expressed his disdain for my mother. However, whenever her name came up, his face became sympathetic—just a hair away from pity. Since it was Andrew, I let it slide. Giving up my last piece of bacon to him, I pushed my plate away.

  I pointed to the bacon. “Eat that and consider your life changed for the better.”

  He picked up the pork, examined it and bit a small piece off the end. “Holy crap.” He took another bite then demolished the entire slice. “I might have to order another plateful.”

  “You’re welcome. Is there a reason why your mom didn’t allow pork in the house?”

  “She considered it inhumane to eat pigs since they are as smart as humans. Plus, she lived on a farm growing up and always got too attached to the animals her family raised.”

  “Where did she grow up?”

  “Amish Country.”

  That was an unexpected twist. “Was she raised Amish?”

  “Yeah. She met my dad during her Rumspringa, which in the Amish religion is when you venture into the world for the first time.”

  “Seriously? How did they meet?”

  He whacked a sugar packet against the side of table. Tearing it open, he dumped the white crystals into the cup. “They met at a coffee shop when their orders got swapped. She got his Americano and he got her full fat latte.”

  “We met at a coffee shop too. Talk about coincidence.”

  “Yeah but the difference is that you didn’t have to leave your whole family for me.” He said bluntly. “My mom chose my father over the only life she had known.”

  “It seems like it has worked out.”

  My comment garnered a smile. “It has. Their thirtieth wedding anniversary is this coming Friday. Would you like to come? I’m driving up to their vacation home and would love some company.”

  I hadn’t met any of my boyfriends’ parents before. It seemed like a huge step reserved for when the relationship has passed the six-month mark. Andrew and I hadn’t even passed the two-week mark. Nonetheless, I would love to meet the people that shaped him into the incredible man he was.

  Nerves jingled in my stomach. “Is your whole family going to be there?”

  “Obviously my mom’s side won’t, but my dad’s side, my older brother, and my youngest sister will be.”

  “You have siblings?”

  “Yup.” Pride was held in his voice as talked about them. “My younger sister is attending Yale as a sophomore. She is crazy smart like my father. My older brother works as a master carpenter and builds these incredible homes for wealthy people.”

  “You never mentioned them before,” I said.

  Andrew shrugged. “Not on purpose. We are close but this past year has been insane for all of us and weekly phone calls have slipped.”

  “Weekly phone calls?”

  “We would conference call each other on Sundays.”

  Andrew’s family sounded like they belonged in those TV shows I watched as a kid where every member, including the dog, was happy and they all wore matching sweaters for Christmas.

  A random thought occurred to me. “Did your grandma also give them a chunk of change as well?”

  “Yes. My sister can’t access it until she is twenty-one, while my brother sunk it into starting his own business. Why?”

  “Just wondering. Sometimes money can breed resentment.”

  “Nah we all got our equal share and even if we didn’t, that’s not the kind of family we are.”

  Deception was my family’s motto. Once again, I was reminded how vastly different Andrew and I were. God, what I was going to talk about with his parents? My mom was dead, my job as a shot girl made me sound like a floozy, and I didn’t lean left or right politically. Panic flared.

  The waitress came by and cleaned the dirty plates off our table. “Anything else?” she asked.

  As my mouth opened to speak, Andrew jumped in. “Can we get another side order of bacon and a slice of apple pie?”

  “We have bacon apple pie. Do you want that?” The waitress snapped her gum as Andrew stared at her flummoxed. “The crust has bacon in it,” she explained.

  “I’m good.”

  She turned on her heels when Andrew spoke again.

  “Actually, can you scrap the side of bacon? I’ll just have the slice of apple pie instead.”

  The waitress acknowledged his order with a death glare. “Anything else?”

  “Nope.”

  When she was gone, Andrew launched into a three-minute rant about how sweet and salty food groups shouldn’t overlap, which turned into a disagreement. I pointed out that salt actually brings out the natural sweetness in desserts. He said that made no sense because sweets are supposed to be sweet. We were in such a heated debate, the rest
aurant could have caught on fire and we wouldn’t have noticed. That was why the man standing next to our table had to clear his throat times before our gazes swung over to him.

  Andrew’s face spilt open in a grin. “Brad!” He ambled out of the booth and wrapped this presumed Brad in a manly half handshake half hug. “It’s so good to see you.”

  “You too, dude! It’s been too long. What have you been up to?”

  “Oh you know this and that.” Andrew said nonchalantly. “Did I hear correctly you got engaged to Becky?”

  Brad’s meaty head bobbled up and down. “I had to. She was practically on her knees begging.”

  Due to my couples of weeks working at Rogue, I had a pretty good read on men and could tell Brad was a frat boy who’d never mentally left college. Those were his golden years. You could tell by the way he peppered his sentences with ‘dude’ and made it seem as if his fiancée had roped him into marriage. The question was how did Andrew know him? Brad’s eyes lit up with interest as slid me a look. “This must be Camilla!”

  Andrew coughed violently. Handing him a glass of water, I stood and plastered a smile on my face. “I’m Haven, actually. It’s nice to meet you.”

  “Oh, my bad.” Brad let out an awkward chuckle. “This guy never updates his Facebook page.”

  What did that mean? Was Andrew still listed as engaged on Facebook? It was weird I hadn’t considered googling Andrew. Normally by the time I’d met a guy for drinks his interests were checked and memorized. That way, there were no lulls in the conversation—like for instance, right now.

  Brad rubbed his neck as his gaze fell to the checkered black and white tile.

  I steered the conversation to neutral ground. “How did you and Andrew meet?”

  “We were in the same frat,” Brad said. “I was his big brother.”

  Today was full of insightful information about Andrew. Although, the frat thing did make sense. It was the classic tale of a nerd using his newfound hotness to indulge in everything he missed in high school, like parties and women.

  “What frat?” I asked as if I had any clue about the Greek system.