I hoped it wouldn’t come to that. I didn’t want to be the reason that someone violated HIPAA.
“She hasn’t seen him either, Edith.” Mrs. Nelson gestured to me.
Mrs. Scoggs sighed. “Well, if you do see him, you let him know that we miss him. And that my garage door won’t shut all the way.”
“Edith!” Mrs. Nelson’s tone was reprimanding before she looked at me. “Just tell him that we miss him, dear.”
“Yes, ma’am.” I nodded.
Mrs. Nelson gave me a decisive nod before shuffling toward the exit. “Let’s go, Edith, we won’t get our table.”
“Don’t forget to tell him that my garage door won’t shut,” Mrs. Scoggs added before she followed behind Mrs. Nelson.
Mrs. Nelson gave her a playful swat on the arm as the women walked out.
“Hey, that’s elder abuse!” Mrs. Scoggs shouted.
“It can’t be elder abuse when I’m two years older than you, Edith.”
Mrs. Scoggs examined her arm and pointed to a small discolored mark. “It can if you leave a bruise.”
“You bruise faster than a peach in the dryer.” Mrs. Nelson dismissed her as they left through the doors.
I finished cleaning the room and checked my phone which had an app for my camera of the backyard. No Holden. Channing was sitting in the middle of the grass staring at Holden’s back door, which was what he’d been doing for the past week that he hadn’t been coming out.
It was one thing to ignore me. Or his parents. Or his brothers. But when you ignore Channing, we have a problem. It was time to use the emergency key.
Chapter 27
Holden
“It’s not about what’s behind ya or in front of ya, it’s about what’s within ya.”
~ Maggie Calhoun
A loud noise startled me awake. My eyes flew open but then immediately slammed shut again as bright light blinded me. I put my hand in front of my face as I turned my head.
“Wake up!” I heard Olivia shout.
My mind was still not fully alert. In my foggy state, I thought I must be dreaming, maybe having a nightmare. I was still trying to get my bearings when I felt the comforter getting pulled off of me.
“Get up!”
This wasn’t a dream. This was real. Olivia was in my room barking orders. I started to peek out from under my heavy lids, hoping that my eyes would have adjusted to the brightness. But the next thing I knew, the bed beside me dipped and I felt something wet on my cheek. I managed to open my eyes, squinting, and all I saw was a large tongue coming straight at me. I turned my head, but Channing still managed to land a big, slobbery kiss on my cheek.
During the month that Olivia and I were spending every night together, I’d witnessed Channing smother Olivia with tons of kisses nearly every day but I’d never experienced it, because I was always up before both of them. There was no real defense for his lick attack. The only option was to surrender and wake up.
“Okay, okay.” I tried to block his aggressive affection, but it was no use.
“Take a shower. Get dressed. Be downstairs in fifteen,” Olivia commanded sounding more like a drill sergeant than a yoga instructor. I wouldn’t be surprised if she told me to drop and give her fifty.
By the time I managed to sit up and actually open my eyes, all I saw was her backside as it walked out of my room. Not that I was complaining, it was a damn nice view.
“What’s going on?” I called out after her.
“Downstairs, fifteen!” she shouted back.
Channing gave me one more kiss for the road and happily bounded off my bed and down the hallway, easily catching up with Olivia.
Alone in my room once more, I stared at the wall in front of me. If it wasn’t for the saliva drying on my cheek, I’d be tempted to think that I was still asleep and everything I’d just experienced had been a bad dream. But since both of my cheeks had the faint smell of Channing’s dogfood, I knew that it was real.
With more effort than I cared to admit, I shifted my legs and sat on the side of the bed. Resting my forearms on my thighs I raked my fingers through my hair. I would toy with the idea of skipping the shower, because that seemed like a whole lot of work, but since it felt like I’d been using Canola Oil as a styling product I figured a shower was past its due date.
Taking a deep breath, I braced one hand on my nightstand for support and stood to my feet. When I was fully upright, which took at least thirty seconds to achieve, I slowly let out a breath. It was a technique that was used in childbirth. I’d gone down a very deep rabbit hole researching back pain and stumbled across a page that was dedicated to helping women who experienced back contractions. I hadn’t even known back contractions was a thing. But I figured any technique that helped a woman cope with a bowling ball coming out through their vagina was at least worth a try.
The idea was, when you knew a contraction, or in my case severe pain, was coming on, you took a deep breath and held it until the worst of it was over, then you exhaled slowly. I wasn’t sure I understood the science behind it, or if it was just the power of suggestion, but either way the results were pretty good, so I’d kept doing it. It wasn’t like it made the pain go away completely, or at all. But it made it manageable. Which at this point, I’d take.
When I walked into the bathroom, I saw that Olivia had gone to the trouble of laying out my clothes. Since I hadn’t had any clean clothes, that meant that she had to have washed and dried them. I also saw that my mirrors which, had been smudged and dirty were now sparkling clean and the stench of…well, me…that had been hanging out in the bathroom had been replaced with the freshness of Pine-Sol and Windex.
Olivia had cleaned my bathroom. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. Or the fact that she’d broken into my house to do it. Unfortunately, I didn’t have much time to contemplate it since I had a deadline.
Pre back injury, fifteen minutes would’ve been plenty of time to take a shower and get dressed. Post back injury, I didn’t have time to mess around.
I started the water and waited for it to heat up before stripping down. I stepped into the shower and lowered my head so the water hit down my neck and back. As I stood beneath the spray, the water massaging my soreness, I tried to remember when I’d showered last. It had to be going on two weeks.
It wasn’t that I hated being clean, it was just I didn’t see any point. I’d stopped going to PT because I couldn’t muster up enough will to drive there. I’d stopped going to yoga because I didn’t want to see Olivia. I’d bailed on a dinner at my parents’ house. And the past week or so, I hadn’t even had my backyard hang sessions with Channing.
I’d slept. That was about all I’d done.
In record time, which these days was just under fifteen minutes, I grabbed my cane from the side of the bed. On my slow decent down the stairs I noted that the fast food bags and beer bottles that had littered my coffee table and pretty much any flat surface had been cleaned up. The air smelled of cleaning products, the curtains had been pulled back, and there was sunlight streaming in.
When I reached the bottom of the steps, I found Olivia waiting by the front door. Channing was sitting beside her with his large tongue hanging out of his mouth. One of them looked happy to see me.
“Why did you clean up?” I asked.
“I think the real question is, why haven’t you?” She opened the front door.
Touché. I could tell that she was upset with me, and she had every right. I’d been a jerk to her at the surprise party and then I’d gone AWOL.
She started to open the door and I asked, “Where are we going?”
“You’ll see when we get there.”
As I we walked out of the house, I caught a whiff of the berry and cinnamon scented lotion that she lathered on herself every morning. I inhaled and it hit me how much I’d missed her. I hadn’t meant to go this long without seeing her, it just sort of happened. I kept putting off seeing her because I wanted to wait until I wasn’t in such a dark pla
ce; I didn’t want to take out my shit on her again. One day turned into a week, one week turned into two weeks, two weeks turned into a month.
But it’s not like I ever stopped thinking about her. She was the first thing I thought about when I woke up, the last thing I thought about before I went to bed, and all the time I was awake in between.
I hated that she was upset, and I was the cause.
Hoping to break the tension between us, I joked, “I hope this isn’t another surprise party.”
“You don’t deserve another surprise party.”
Yep. She was really pissed.
“Olivia, I’m sorry—”
“Don’t.” She held up her hand. “I don’t want to hear it. Not yet.”
She clicked the fob and her car chirped. Apparently, she was driving. I opened the passenger side door and Channing jumped in.
“Back.” I pointed to the back seat and he hopped back.
I thought I caught Olivia rolling her eyes as she got in. It was clear it bothered her that he listened to me, probably because he wasn’t quite as well behaved for her. I could give her training tips, but I didn’t think this was the time.
I started to get in and noticed something was on the seat. I bent down to move it but Olivia stopped me. “It’s for your back.”
I looked up at her.
“It’s a massaging heat pad. It’s a long drive and it’s supposed to help with back pain.”
I stared at her, totally speechless. She was obviously mad at me, and justifiably so, but she’d cleaned my house, was taking me on a field trip, and had bought me a device to make the drive easier.
“Olivia, I—”
“Just get in.” She cut me off.
My hand gripped the door frame as I gently lowered into the seat. Sweat broke out on the back of my neck as my back clenched with stabbing pain. Sitting down and standing up were difficult. So was laying down, walking, and standing still. None of it felt good these days.
I knew that it was my own fault. I’d stopped going to PT because the drive had sounded like too much. So I hadn’t gone back because the pain was too bad. It wasn’t going to get better until I started going to my appointments, but I didn’t go to my appointments because I was in too much pain. It was a vicious cycle.
I’d just settled back in the seat and shut the door when Olivia pulled something wrapped in tinfoil out of her bag and handed it to me.
“What’s this?”
“Breakfast burrito.” I hadn’t had an appetite but as soon as I started unwrapping it, my stomach growled. “Eat it.”
The next thing she pulled out was a travel mug. “Here,” she said as she set it in the drink holder. “Coffee. Drink it.”
Without saying another word, she buckled her seatbelt, turned the engine on, turned the radio up, and pulled out of the driveway.
I had no idea where we were going, or why Olivia had done any of this, or when she’d let me speak, but I did know I was the luckiest man in the world to have the woman sitting beside me in my life. The luckiest man.
Chapter 28
Olivia
“What you tell yourself every day will either tear ya down or pick ya up, choose wisely.”
~ Maggie Calhoun
I glanced beside me and saw Holden quietly looking out the window. I was glad that he hadn’t tried to talk to me during the hour and a half drive. I’d needed this time to try and get my head right and figure out what I could say to get through to him.
After yoga this morning, my plan had been to go over and check on him. But one look at the disgusting state of his living situation, and I knew that checking wasn’t enough. He needed an intervention. Even if Holden and I weren’t going to end up together, he was my friend. He always had been. And I was not going to let him waste away in self-pity.
So, I’d quickly formulated a plan and got to work. I’d gotten as far as taking him to the ranch, but I still wasn’t sure what I should say once we got there. And as we pulled under the custom steel sign that read Reed Rescue Ranch, I knew that my time was up.
I had some bullet points in my head of things I needed to address. I was going to be as matter of fact and gentle as I could, but he needed to hear that he couldn’t keep going on the way he had. I hated confrontation but I knew that this had to be done. He needed to get some perspective and if I had to push myself out of my comfort zone to give it to him, then so be it.
Channing, who had been sacked out in the back seat, perked up as we drove down the long dirt road. He started whining when he saw Lola, his favorite horse, running alongside the car in the pasture.
I parked in front of the stables and Holden shifted in his seat. “What are we doing here?”
I took a deep breath and launched into my spiel. “I’m here to teach a yoga class to those kids over there.” I pointed to the group of fourteen teens and preteens hanging out in the rec area and everything I’d planned flew out of my head. “And you are here to get over yourself.”
His brow lifted but he remained silent.
I looked back at the kids. “Do you see the girl with the white hoodie on? That’s Eloise. When she was eleven, her English teacher noticed that she was falling asleep in class and had worn the same shirt and pants for three weeks. Her teacher made a call and a social worker found her at home, alone, caring for her three younger siblings, ages nine, seven, and five. After a little bit of investigation and talking to neighbors, they discovered that her mom had left six weeks earlier on a bender and Eloise hadn’t told anyone because she was scared that her siblings would be broken up. She’d fed them with food she found in dumpsters.
“Do you see that kid with the White Sox hat? That’s Dale. Dale’s been in foster care for ten years because when he was four his dad shot his mother right in front of him and then took off. It took three days for anyone to discover what had happened. The police were called after a neighbor complained about the smell coming from the apartment. He’d been alone with his mother’s lifeless body for three days. And as unimaginable and traumatizing as that was, it’s nothing compared to some of the things he’s endured in the twenty-seven foster homes he’s been in over the decade since he lost his mom.
“See the girl with the dark glasses and the blue hair? That’s Ivy. Ivy’s homelife was so abusive that she ran away from home at nine and lived on the streets for three years, alone, begging and stealing and doing anything she had to do to stay alive. When the system finally caught up with her at twelve, she became hysterical when she was told she would be going back to live with her parents. She sobbed and pleaded with her caseworker to let her stay on the streets because it was safer than what she would face at home.
“The guy with the earbuds bobbing his head and not making eye contact with anyone, that’s Ched. Ched’s mom was in a car accident when he was ten and was paralyzed from the neck down. She has to be bathed, dressed, and given medication and food through a tube. They don’t have enough money for live-in care. So, he has to arrange for family and friends to stay with her during the day when he’s in school and at his part-time jobs but at night he’s her sole caretaker. And as if that wasn’t hard enough, two years ago, his mom’s kidneys began failing. So on top of everything else, he got his hardship driver’s license at thirteen and has been driving his mom back and forth to dialysis appointments, working two part-time jobs, and he has a four-point two GPA.
“I can keep going but my point is everyone has problems in their life. Some of us more than others.” I waved my hand toward the kids before pointing it at Holden. “You have lived a charmed life. You grew up in a loving home with parents that supported you and sacrificed for your dreams. You’ve had an amazing career. You got to travel the world making a ton of money doing exactly what you loved doing. And yes, that got taken away from you. And yes, you are in a lot of pain and that’s not going to go away. And yes, you lost a commercial to a cocky kid who throws a lot of shade at you. And yes, you might have to walk with a cane for the rest of your life.
And yes, you are depressed. Guess what? It could be a lot fucking worse.
“You have a family that loves you and wants to be there for you. You have friends and neighbors stopping by your house giving you homemade food and you don’t even have the decency to answer the door.
“And you have access to medical services that a lot of people only dream of. Your back hurts? Go to physical therapy. Go to yoga. Do the work to make it better. You’re depressed? Go see someone. Get on medication. You lost your commercial? Work with your manager to get a new deal. Take some responsibility for the quality of your life. Make the best out of what you have and be grateful for it.”
I took a deep breath. “So, to get back to your original question, what are we doing here? I’m here to do what I do every month, I’m going to go hang out with those amazing kids, teach a yoga class, and try and give them some tools to cope with the horrors that they’ve faced and will face in their lives. And you, you’re here to stop feeling sorry for yourself and get over it. You have your entire life in front of you. You could do anything you want, and you have enough money in the bank that you have time to figure it out.
“One of your brothers trains rescue dogs to be therapy dogs for soldiers with PTSD. I have a camera in the backyard, I’ve seen you with Channing. You could go to work with him training dogs. Your other brother started this rescue for kids who actually need rescuing. You could get off your ass and go help him out. Or you can stay in the car and pout. It’s up to you.”
My hands were shaking as I grabbed my mat from the back seat and got out of the car. Channing hopped out behind me. I’d gone completely off-script. I hadn’t meant to say everything I had, I hadn’t planned it. But when I’d seen all the kids, it had just sort of poured out of me. Maybe I wasn’t so bad at confrontation after all.
Chapter 29
Holden
“Don’t walk ten miles into a forest and expect to get out in five.”
Educating Holden (Wishing Well, Texas Book 11) Page 17