by CY Jones
“You don’t even know Nichole,” he spits out hatefully.
“Apparently, neither do you,” I say just as hatefully and immediately regret my words when I see the impact they wield. That rhyme ‘sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me’ is complete bullshit. Words, when wielded right, are sharper than a blade and can cut deeply. “I’m sorry,” I rush to tell him.
“Get out.” His voice is low but dangerous. I’ve never heard this tone from him before and I’m almost scared he’ll hurt me. I don’t argue, the fight having drained right out of me. Instead, I rise from my seat so I can leave. When I’m brushing past him in the doorway, he stops me and grabs my arm in a tight grip. “Jade, make sure you don’t come back here again.” The hate in his eyes scares me worse than anything he could ever do to me with his fists and I heed his words, practically running for the exit.
31
Grayson
As soon as Jade is gone, I take the seat she vacated. Without her knowing, I was standing, listening to her talk to Nichole for quite a while. I could hear the worry she had for me in her voice and I had to stop her. I don’t deserve that worry when I’ve been nothing but an ass to her, but it’s better this way. I’m a broken man. I have nothing to offer her. She may be carrying my child, but we couldn’t be more further apart. The women in my life are ruining me, and as much as I hate them, Jade’s words ring true. I don’t know my wife. I thought I did, but I was wrong. This mastermind lying in the bed before me is an alien. A clone with a masterful brain that likes to use people like puppets. Jade is too good to be around such a person. It’s better she keeps her distance now and saves herself from the inevitable.
“Mr. Hastings, I was hoping I would catch you,” Nichole’s doctor says as he walks in.
“Doc,” I reply, never taking my eyes off my wife.
“I thought I could have a word with you about the steps we’ll be taking moving forward.”
Finally lifting my head and looking over at the doctor, I frown, asking, “What steps?”
“Well, I’ve been informed you’ve been inquiring about further treatment. When we last talked, I did not get the chance to tell you all of your wife’s instructions.”
“What instructions? What more could she have done?”
"Well, everything you have been asking about is to further improve her condition, but she left detailed instructions that, if she was ever to be admitted to the hospital, we are to only treat her and do nothing to help her improve. She also signed a DNR, which as a lawyer, you’ll understand I’m bound by law to follow.”
“Wait! Let me get this straight. Nichole actually signed paperwork stating we have to let her die?” At the tone of my voice, he rightfully takes a step back, probably remembering the last time he informed me about my wife’s condition.
“She did. As a doctor, it goes against my every being, but since she is the patient, it’s in her rights how she wants her care to follow. Nichole has been a very interesting case. I have talked to everyone in my field, looking for ways to help her, but at this point, there really isn’t much we can do. The longer she stays in a coma, the more her organs will slow down and eventually stop working all together. Soon, she will no longer be able to function without the help of machines and that is only a temporary solution.”
“In your professional opinion, how long does she have left?”
“A month, two at most.” His answer breaks whatever is left in me. I’ve been foolishly holding on to hope that Nichole will beat the odds, but she’s taken the steps to ensure that’s impossible. If her body fails, with the DNR she signed, the hospital staff can do nothing to resuscitate her. I know it’s fruitless to try to fight it. The only way I can get around it is to have a court find her incompetent when she signed it and she doesn’t have time for that. She’s literally tied all of our hands and is controlling her death. Two months from now, maybe sooner, she’ll be dead and where will I be if this happens? Can I live my life without her? No, I can’t. Nichole is my world.
“Then we will make her as comfortable as possible until she goes,” I tell him, turning back to my wife. I hear him leave, but I don’t acknowledge it, nor do I acknowledge the nurse checking on Nichole, changing out her IV and morphine pump.
“Is this what you want? To die? If so, then you’ll have to deal with the consequences that as soon as you do, you’ll kill me too. Don’t worry, love, you won’t be in the afterlife alone for long.”
Rob
I’m surprised to see Jade walk in. I haven’t seen her since that incident with her boyfriend, but here she is, beautiful as ever in her workout clothes, looking like she’s about to pop at any second. You would think that would turn me off, but on her, it’s fucking perfect. Jade is my goddess. Maybe I always knew she’d be back. The reason why I never filled in her spot.
“Hey,” she says hesitantly as I walk over.
“Hey, yourself. Are you ready to work out?” She gives me a relieved smile, and I lead her over to the bike. There isn’t much she can do in this condition, but I get this feeling that she isn’t here just to workout. Maybe she needs air or needs to hash out what happened. I don’t know how many times I pulled out my cell to call her just to change my mind at the last second. I’ve never been hung up on a woman before, but I am with her. Is it because she’s unattainable? Or maybe it’s because I’ve never met anyone like her before. Jade is like a snowflake, original and unable to be duplicated.
After thirty minutes of her warming up on the bike, I can’t take it anymore. “I know you’re not here to just work out, what’s going on?” I ask.
I’m taken back when tears fall from her eyes. As long as I have known her, I have never seen Jade cry. Not even when that bitch Cathy assaulted her. Gathering her in my arms, she loops her arms around my neck and I carry her to my office, bridal style. Laying her gently on the couch, I sit on the edge, palming her cheek. “Sweetheart, what’s going on?” I’ve never seen her fall apart like this before.
“Everything. Everything is fucking wrong,” she gets out between her sobs.
“I’m going to need more than that, sweetheart,” I tell her gently.
“Nichole's cancer is back, and she’s in a coma in the hospital. Grayson is a mess and doesn’t want me to visit her or even talk to him, and soon this baby will be born and I have no clue about its future.” I’m shocked by her revelation. I heard through the grapevine Nichole was sick, but I didn’t know it was so bad.
“I take it Grayson doesn’t want anything to do with the baby, either?” She nods her head and proceeds to tell me everything. The restaurant, her and Tyson, and Grayson. A love triangle that’s expanding because I haven’t given up on her either. I still intend for her to be mine and I don’t care if I have to share her.
“What do you want?” I ask her once she’s done. “Do you want this baby?”
“You know, no one has asked me what I wanted in all this. I’m not ready for a kid. I only went through with this because I knew in the end, someone else would be raising the baby, but now Nichole has taken that option from me. I feel like I’ve been trapped in her web of lies since the beginning, like she was planning something else and it was not being a mother.”
“Maybe, maybe not, but moving forward everything will be your choice. You need to decide what’s best for you. If you want to marry Tyson, then marry him. If you want to raise the baby, then keep it. If not, give it up for adoption. Stop thinking about everyone else's feelings and start thinking about what Jade wants, because at the end of the day, you’ll be the one most affected, so it might as well be your decisions. Not Nichole’s, not Grayson’s, or Tyson’s, not even mine. Yours.”
“What about you? Should I stop thinking about you?”
“Is that what you want?”
“No,” she answers and I bend forward and kiss her. I kiss her like a dying man, putting all my feelings in that one action. Immediately, my dick gets hard and I want nothing more than to fuck her
right here, right now on my couch for all to hear, but I refrain. Now is not the time.
When I pull back, I almost growl from seeing her swollen lips, knowing I’m the one who made them that way. Her stomach moves and I place my palm flat against her belly, feeling her son move around.
“He’s quite active, just like his mom.”
“He is. I swear he’s sneaking in coffee when I’m unaware,” she chuckles and it’s like music to my ears.
“You’ll get through this, and once you do, I’ll be here waiting.” I kiss her again, letting my lips convey how true my words are and we lose ourselves as we kiss. When she leaves, she’s a whole lot lighter, having thought over my words. I’m glad I was able to help her. I meant it when I said I’ll always be there for her, no matter what.
32
Grayson
Dodging traffic, I rush back to the hospital. It’s been two weeks since Nichole’s doctor gave me the news about the extent of her intentions, and I just received a phone call that Nichole woke up from her coma. I thought she was prepared to stay in her coma until she breathed her last breath, but as always, she surprised me. This, at least, gives me some hope that maybe she’ll fight. That before she had a lapse in judgement, but now she’s ready to give it her all to stay with me.
When the hospital comes into view, I park my car and run up the stairs instead of taking the elevator. Walking the same steps I have taken every day for almost three months now, I’m breathing hard when I open the door to Nichole’s room. She’s still laying down in her bed looking like a fragile doll, but now those glorious blue eyes are wide open and staring straight at me.
“Grayson,” she says slowly in a hoarse voice sounding like music to my ears. The nurse beside her smiles at me once she’s done taking her vitals and beckons me inside and I move my body like a robot as I walk toward the bed. This almost seems like a dream and I cannot believe it’s real. I’ve seen this nurse many times before during my visits here. She’s one of Nichole’s regular nurses as well as one of the nicer ones who doesn’t frown at me or give me dirty looks when they see I’m drunk. I may have been moody with the others, but with her, I find it very hard to do so.
“Perfect timing. The doctor has already been by and I just finished with her vitals and refilled her morphine pump. Her voice will be a little raw for a couple of days because of the feeding tube, so try to refrain from engaging her in too much conversation.” With those instructions, she claps me on the shoulder as to relay that this is indeed real and that Nichole is awake before leaving out the door.
Slowly, I sit down next to Nichole’s bed, and as soon as I’m close enough, I grab her hand and kiss it. “I can’t believe you are awake. I don’t know how many times I’ve come here, pleading with you to open your eyes.”
“I know; I heard you.”
I hope that’s all she heard. I’ve said a lot of things to her during my many visits here. A lot of them were not so nice. I’ve been angry with her, even more livid after I talked to the doctor to find out that she has given up. Along with the alcohol swirling around in my system, I told her just what I thought about her cowardliness. It wasn’t all bad. I also conveyed how much I loved her, telling her that I can’t live in this world without her.
“Why, Nichole? Why would you do this?” No need for me to elaborate. She knows exactly what I’m talking about.
“I’ve known for quite a while the cancer was back. When my doctor first told me, it was like I couldn’t breathe. Flashbacks of everything I went through, what we went through, played in my mind like a movie and it brought up fears I thought I had long buried. I saw things differently after that, like I was high and midway through the psychedelic effects. My doctor turned into an anime villain with big wild eyes and his hair and doctor’s coat floated around him as he cut me open to expose the black mass of cancer that was invading my body. My hair losing its shine and slowly falling to the ground like leaves in the fall, my body fading away leaving behind nothing but sorrow and grief, and finally, my family and friends gathered around watching my casket being lowered to the ground. I decided that night, I will not be a victim of this illness ever again. If I had to go out, I’d go out my own way.”
I close my eyes as I listen to each word. Her speech is rough and she pauses when it gets too hoarse to hear, but I listened to everything she had to say as I held on to her words like a lifeline to her thinking process. “And Jade? Why bring her into all of this? Why want a baby?”
“I brought her here for you. At first, she was just a means to an end. I never meant to get close to her or see her as an actual person, but I did. I started to feel bad about using her, but once she got pregnant, I knew I couldn’t give up on my objective. I knew I was still going to die. There’s no getting out of that outcome, no matter what treatment they try. I heard you, you know? When you were pleading for me to fight. I knew once I was gone, you'd try to follow me and I couldn’t accept that. I’ll never accept that. Grief is no reason to die. I don’t want that for you. I wanted you to live, so I gave you something to fight for.”
“I can’t accept that. I don’t want Jade or the baby. I only want you,” I shout. “You want me to live, but yet it’s okay for you to just give in and die? How is that even fair? You’ve been playing puppeteer in some diabolical plan to set me up with a new life without you in it. How fucked up is that? Don’t you know that life is not worth living without you? A wife and a baby won’t change anything because they aren’t you, and I refuse to accept them, so you have to live now because your version of how this will end is obsolete.”
“It hurts me to hear you say that as well as hear all the anger in your voice aimed towards me. Your determination to undermine my plans is killing me, even knowing they are my dying wish. Your happiness is all I ever cared about and seeing this through is the only thing keeping me going. I hate to ask because of the answer, but what of Jade? How have you been treating her?”
“I haven’t talked to her. The last time I saw her, I told her not to come here and visit you anymore. I also told Tyson if she decides to keep the baby, I will not be a father to it. I will only support him financially and that’s it. When they marry, the baby will receive his last name.”
“You can’t do that,” she croaks.
“I can and I will. I told you, your plans are futile. This little family you tried to set me up with is meant for Tyson, not me.”
“Get out.”
“What?” I say, looking at her like she’s crazy. In a rare burst of emotion, tears pool in her eyes and they flow down her cheeks like lava. “Get out,” she shouts again, this time loud enough to bring one of the nurses from the nurses station to the door.
“Is everything okay in here?” she asks.
“Everything is fine. I was just leaving,” I tell her on my way out the door.
33
Jade
“One more push, my love, you got this,” Tyson says as I hold onto his hand, squeezing the life out of it. I have been in labor for three hours now. My water broke while I was eating out of all things and Tyson rushed me to the hospital. It was a difficult drive as it’s New Years Eve and the streets are filled with people on their way to Times Square to see the ball drop. All day until the early hours of the next morning festivities will be held. Since it’s close to my due date, we decided to not go out to the New Years party we were invited to and opted to stay in and watch the ball drop on TV. Never in a million years did I think I’d go into labor before then.
Outside the door, I can hear them counting down the New Year and I hold my breath as I push with all my might; clenching my teeth so hard, I’m surprised I haven’t cracked one. When the hospital staff start cheering for the New Year, I cheer for another reason as I hear the glorious wail of my baby boy. “Welcome to the world,” my doctor coos before everything goes black.
I wake to a warm weight on my stomach and something foreign over my face. Pulling the oxygen mask free, I take in a deep breath as I get my be
arings. When I glance down, I spy Tyson’s golden hair fanned out messily around his head as he had passed out with his head on my stomach. I move my hand and gently comb through the strands when he suddenly sits up like he’s on fire.
“Jade, thank fuck,” he cries before holding my face in his hands, staring deep in my eyes.
“What happened?” I asked. “Where’s the baby?”
“You passed out right after you delivered him. While they worked on you, they took him away to clean him up. Now since you’re awake they should be bringing him back soon.”
“How long have I been out?” I asked, completely confused by all of this. I don’t remember anything past the agony of pushing out my son. Because of some issue with my spine, I was not allowed to have an epidural to help numb the pain.
“Not long,” he answers glancing down at his watch. “Only about an hour.” Reaching over, he presses the button on my bed and a nurse I’ve never seen before walks in. At the look of confusion on my face, Tyson explains, “You were moved to the delivery side of the floor while you were passed out.”
I take in the posh room as Tyson asks the nurse about the baby. It must be a private room as it looks like no expense has been spared in here. Nothing but the best for the wife of Tyson Garfield. Shocker, I know. I still can’t believe we have been married since the Christmas holidays. Despite who Tyson is, we did not have a fancy wedding. In fact, it just sort of happened. After I came back from the gym when I made out with Rob, I told Tyson everything. Everything that happened with Rob and how confused I’ve been about him, Grayson, and Rob. I even told him he should want to be with someone else because, even though I love him more than anything in this world, I can’t see myself deleting Grayson or Rob out of my life. Granted, Grayson hasn’t spoken to me since the day he kicked me out of Nichole’s room, but I still can’t seem to kick him to the curb of my mind.