by Callie Rae
And none of us know what really happened.
A nurse comes in every four hours to give her more medicine, leaving her to sleep or rest in a daze. Lifeless. The only clue that she’s still here right now is the rise and fall of her chest, but with every rise, I fall a little bit more into despair.
I’ve refused to leave the hospital since she woke up. As much as it hurts be in here, unable to be who everyone’s asked me to be, I find it even harder to be without her. So, I stay. I stay and I do whatever it is I can to help her. I shower in her bathroom, I sleep in the chair, and I stay. To keep that last part of me alive.
“Water,” Fallon croaks out.
I look up to her eyes staring at me, through me. I jump up and grab the pitcher next to the bed. I fill the nearest cup and bring it over to her mouth, bending the straw enough so she can sip from it.
“Where is she?” Fallon asks as her eyes blink trying to clear the fog.
“Your mom?” I ask. “She ran home to shower. She’ll be back soon.”
“No. Where is Luna?” she mumbles again.
Her eyelids get heavy, and she shuts them for a moment before they lazily open again. The drugs are still keeping her in their grasp.
“Luna?” I ask.
Her eyes blink a few more times, and she looks around. “Where am I?”
“You’re in the hospital,” I say, holding the straw to her mouth again to let her take another sip.
“The hospital?” she mumbles.
I can see her trying to think things through. She looks around and then back at me.
“You were in an accident.” I pause, waiting to see if she remembers. “The truck hit a pole.”
She stares at me for a moment. Her eyes shift to look between mine as she thinks back. I see the moment it clicks in the way her eyes widen and then twitch, the way her hands tighten into balls in the bed.
“Marcus?” she says, the panic evident in her voice. “Where is he?”
I don’t say anything; I just look at her, observing the fear she has at the very idea of him. That I let someone hurt her in such a way that she fears his name, the possibility of him finding her…I didn’t protect her the way I should’ve. I didn’t do what I was supposed to do.
“Where is he, Jesse?” she asks once again, breathing harder with every word.
My name on her tongue makes me wince, but it snaps me out of it.
“He didn’t make it,” I say as her breathing comes faster.
The beeping sound that I’ve drowned out starts to get louder, and I realize if I don’t do something, they will knock her out again. And I just need a moment with her, a real moment.
“Fallon, look at me.”
I reach over and grab her chin, bringing her eyes to mine.
“Look at me. You’re safe. I’m here. Marcus can’t hurt you again. He’s gone. He’s dead.”
She grabs onto my wrist and closes her eyes. The first tear slides down her face, streaking her pale cheek as she squeezes her eyes shut and shakes her head.
Her breathing isn’t evening out, so I reach over with my free hand and hit the call button. I just wanted a moment, but instead I’m hurting her more.
“Breathe, Fallon. Breathe with me. In…” I slowly inhale a deep breath through my nose. “And out.”
I let out my breath slowly through pursed lips, dragging out the process and repeating. I’m not sure if it’s helping her, but it stops me from losing my shit next to her.
She’s trembling. Her eyes are closed, but she’s breathing with me.
A nurse comes in quickly and reaches the other side of the bed, pressing buttons to make the sounds stop. She pulls a syringe of medicine out of her pocket and connects it to Fallon’s IV.
“Fallon, I’m going to give you something to calm you down. Your heart rate is a bit high, and we need to keep you calm so your body can heal. Okay?”
“Wait, what are you doing? What’s happening?” Fallon asks, her panic flaring once again.
“It’s going to be okay. Trust me. You’re fine.” I place my hand gently on her cheek and turn her face back to me.
I can’t hide the agony on my own face, even though I know it’s not helping her right now. But in only a few more moments, I’ll lose her to sleep—and her dreams—once again.
Her eyes start to roll back and close as the nurse depresses the plunger.
“It’ll just make her sleep for a little while,” the nurse says to me with a sad smile.
I nod. I know the drill. It’s the same one we’ve been through every time Fallon has had one of these episodes—which is pretty much every time the drugs start to wear off.
She walks around to my side of the bed and places a hand on my shoulder. “Keep trying. Don’t give up on her.”
I look up to her as she glances over at Fallon’s sleeping form. The shivering has stopped, and her breaths are coming in steady now.
“I’ve seen too many women in similar situations with no one to fight for them. Fallon’s lucky she has someone. Just don’t give up.”
Chapter 3
Jesse
“When are you planning on telling her?” Cason whispers to me.
Between him and Jade, I may never be alone in this hospital. Today, I’m the fortunate soul who gets them both. I’d rather sit here in silence, watching her breathe.
“Tell her what?” I ask, looking up from the magazine I’ve been flipping through.
I’m not really looking at it. I can’t even remember what was on the open page. My mind has been replaying the accident over and over. I can’t stop thinking about it: her being taken, Marcus breathing. It was on replay in my head no matter how hard I tried to stop it.
“About the deal with James? You’re planning on telling her, right?” Cason asks.
I quickly look over at Fallon, who is sound asleep. I breathe out, thankful she can’t hear this. I’ve noticed she looks less haunted in her sleep. It’s like whatever prison has her mind trapped only locks her in when she’s awake.
“I’ll tell her when she’s not lying in a hospital bed,” I say.
My jaw locks in place and pain radiates up the side of my forehead. I rub my hand across it, trying to ease some of the pain. It’s been like this for days. Weeks, maybe. I really don’t know when it started.
“Jesse,” Cason says.
I look at him, dropping my hand away, “What?”
“You can’t hide that from her. James is getting restless. He’s already calling. You’re going to have to make a choice here. If you keep ignoring him, he’ll come for you. And probably her, too. She’ll need to be prepared. And if you hold up your part of the deal, she’s going to notice. There is no course of action where she doesn’t find out,” he says, so matter-of-fact that it gives me the urge to punch him.
They all do, with their sound logic. That used to be me. He’s taken on my role because I’ve lost it.
“I’m not hiding it. I’m protecting her. She needs time to heal, to process. Don’t worry about James. I’ll take care of him.” I take in a slow, deep breath, trying to calm myself.
Cason means well. He really does. But Cason doesn’t understand why I can’t make a move right now. The right one is the one that hurts her the least. It’s what I’ve been asking myself again and again.
What move can I make that leaves her out of it all? In no more pain?
I can’t do it. I can’t fail her, again.
“She needs time, or you do? To figure out how to get out of it and never have to tell her?” Cason asks.
Fallon starts to stir, and I put the useless magazine on the nearby table so I can go to her. I look back to Cason. My body is vibrating with so much tension it’s almost tangible. I say one simple word.
“Both.”
He nods and keeps quiet. But his eyes tell me everything he’s not saying: that I can’t hide the truth from her. That this won’t end well for either of us if I do. But, damn it, I can try. I can try to make this right without put
ting her through any more bullshit.
I grab the water off the table and bring it to Fallon just as her eyes pop open. “Hey, babe. How are you feeling?”
Her hollow stare finds mine. She doesn’t answer, but she does take a few sips of water from the cup. She shifts a bit, like she might be uncomfortable.
“Are you hurting? Do you want me to get the nurse?”
"Cason?" I think I hear her say his name, but I’m not sure.
I mean, her mouth is moving and there is sound coming out, but did she just ask for fucking Cason? It’s the first word I’ve heard her speak that wasn’t said while she was screaming out of fear during an outburst. I look up and find Cason and Jade watching us closely. Jade seems frozen in her seat on the other side of the room.
Cason leans forward toward the bed. "I'm here."
"Will you hold my hand?" Fallon asks. She stretches her hand out towards him.
"Uh, s-sure," he says as he reaches toward her and wraps his fingers through hers so hard his knuckles turn white.
"Cason," she murmurs. "Does it go away?"
He looks at me, and I shrug. She usually just gets upset with me when she’s awake. This is uncharted territory for me. All of it is.
How do you help someone when you have no idea what she’s going through?
He turns back to Fallon and adjusts his grip. "Does what go away?"
"The pain. The pain of missing someone so much and never being able to be with them."
Cason's face pales. He swallows hard, his Adam’s apple bouncing. I look to Jade, whose eyes are wide and whose mouth is agape.
Then Cason opens his mouth and speaks slowly, the hoarse tone of his voice biting into me. "No, not for me. It's there every day, burning into my skin like a fire. If you stop moving, it'll dig even deeper. But if you acknowledge it, it'll embed itself into your soul."
I swallow hard. I knew Cason hid his issues behind his personality. I've always known. But to hear him tell it this way kills me. My brother is hurting, and it cuts so deep it’s impossible to fix.
Maybe we’re all just walking around broken, and the idea of control is our way of not acknowledging how fucked we truly are.
“I can’t. I can’t keep moving,” Fallon says as her gaze strays from a fixed spot on the wall to look him in the eye.
"You can, Fallon. You're one of the strongest people I know. I only keep going because you showed me how. You just have to get up. You have to. We need you." Cason's voice has turned from pleading to completely broken, something I haven't seen in him before. "I need you to get up. Because if you don't get up, I don't think I can stay up."
I look from my brother to my sister. The tears are streaming down Jade's face as she quietly watches our brother say the things he's never once whispered to either of us. But neither of us understand them or what this feeling is. I feel a pang in my chest as I realize I'm jealous of this connection Cason has with Fallon. I'm jealous that they've both gone through so much that they understand each other on a level I will never have with her. I'm jealous that it's Cason she’s reaching out to. I want it to be me. I want to understand. I want to be able to fix her. As ridiculous as it is to wish for the horrible things that have happened to them, I wish it was me. I close my eyes and fist my hands as I try to find a balance somewhere in all of it.
I open my eyes and I reach over to my sister, grabbing her hand and leading us out of the room. I force myself to understand that no matter how much I love Fallon, I can't always save her.
I failed her before, but I won’t fail her now.
Chapter 4
Fallon
I’ve lost all sense of time. I don’t know what day it is. I’ve mostly slept them all away. I’d prefer to keep sleeping. It’s the only time I have with her. It’s the only part of me I know how to handle. I don't know who I’m supposed to be anymore. For so long I was scared, looking over my shoulder, suppressing the feelings of losing Luna for fear of breaking.
But waking up without any fear means I can no longer hold back the pain of losing her. Each dream feels so real, like I’m reliving it. Losing her all over again. Being beaten and battered again. But without the fear of it being repeated, I don’t know who I am. Who am I if I don’t have to constantly fight for myself anymore? Who am I if I’m no longer living in fear? Everything I was, everything I am supposed to be, has been built on fear. That’s all I know.
But now there’s something different inside of me—a pain, an awareness. It’s like looking at an overbearing load on a rickety shelf and watching as the rusty screw slowly slips from its crumbling wall anchor. With each passing moment, it slips a little bit more. And I’m behind it with more rusty nails and a hammer, frantically trying to tack it up. But no matter how many times I beat a nail into the wood, the weight is still too much, and the shelf continues to splinter and crack. It’s like it’s waiting for the perfect time to come crashing down on me. Lurking, searching for my weakness.
I see all the stares, especially Jesse’s. I see the way he looks at me, like I’m lost. I see him, even though he thinks all I see is the spot on the wall. He's worried. He isn't sleeping, he's barely eating. He's suffering along with me as best he can, but he doesn't understand what it's like to be lost, suffocating in your own breath.
Cason does. He's lost every day. I just wanted to find a way out, a way forward. But all Cason did was assure me there is no way out. That this hell will burn me alive. And that is where I'm living: in hell.
But he also reminded me that sometimes burning together makes it a bit easier. But how do you burn with someone who isn’t burning from the same fire?
They have started weaning me from all the drugs, which is unfortunate. The nurse has been making me sit up and eat food resembling cardboard with a side of salt. I’ve had to force myself to speak words that mean nothing to me. They want me to say what they want to hear. They need me to say these things, so they can think they’re helping me. They think these worthless words are a start. They don’t know that it only comes at a sacrifice.
"Honey, the doctor is about to come in. Are you ready to speak to him?" my mom asks as she swipes my hair back from my face.
I look at her. I don’t have the strength to give her any part of myself right now, even a worthless word. So, I nod.
"Do you want to sit up?" she asks me. I meet her eyes and nod again, and she begins pushing the buttons to raise the head of my bed.
Just as the bed reaches a sitting position, a knock comes from the door. The doctor cracks the door open and pops his head in, a large, overwhelming smile plastered on his face.
"Fallon, it's good to see you! How are you feeling today?"
Again, I can't find the effort to give him any worthless words. Instead, I just look at him. He only waits a moment before walking into the room and continuing his line of questioning.
"Your chart shows that you've been taking less pain medication. On a scale from one to ten, what would you say your pain level is today?"
I’m not taking the extra drugs because they won’t give it to me, and he should know this. He prescribes them. And my pain level? My mental pain, including the shit in my head going awry? Two thousand. My physical pain, in my body that is betraying me by healing?
"Seven."
"Seven? Okay, that's better than what you've previously reported." The doctor reaches the side of my bed and pulls the rail down.
I flinch at his proximity. I don’t like his hands near me, but I hold still.
Even so, he must’ve noticed because he gently adds, "I'm just going to check your vitals real quick."
He places the stethoscope on my chest and listens to my heart. He checks my pupils and all of the individual cuts and scrapes and breaks. When he seems satisfied with his violation of my personal space, he pulls a chair up next to me and has a seat.
"Everything looks good. You’re healing as well as can be expected. So, tell me, how are you dealing up here?" He leans back into the chair and taps on his tem
ple.
I stare at him. I don’t have an answer for him. Not one I want to give him, anyway.
“I want to clear you for physical therapy. But I don’t want to pressure you to start before you’re ready. Physical therapy can be hard on the mental state,” he says. “It can just be hard in general.”
I don’t think I will ever be mentally capable of existing in this world again, with or without physical therapy. If he wants to base it on my mental capacity, I can just sit in this bed.
Against my better judgement, I look over to Jesse, hovering in the corner with his arms crossed. He’s not the same either. It’s etched in the way he narrows his eyes, in the way his mouth turns down at the corners, on his skin. But there’s still a spark in him, the same one he hopes is still inside me. His throat bobs as he swallows hard. I see the hope in his eyes; he wants me to get better. I want to have the same hope, but I don't. I look away before I sink. But maybe I can let him keep his hope for just a little longer.
"Okay. I'll do it."
The doctor nods his head. “Are you sure you’re ready for that?”
Am I sure? No, I’m not sure. Not at all. I don’t want to do it. I don’t want the hope. I don’t want the lie. My jaw tenses and my shoulders lock up, but in this moment, I have the worthless words they all so desperately want to hear me say.
“I said I’ll do it.”
“Okay,” he says with a nod. He stands up and pats my hand. “I’m glad to see you sitting up.”
The doctor leaves and takes all the oxygen from my room with him. I feel suffocated—by the idea of living, by the hope and relief I see on Jesse’s face. I feel like my insides are screaming and everyone around me is smiling because of it.