Jesus. No matter what happened, it would be weeks before he got out of hospital. Months, even. Jesse might be uneducated, but he wasn’t a complete moron. Ezra had to have broken both legs, which meant a wheelchair, which meant there was no way he’d be able to come home. This little house just wasn’t built for wheelchairs. Which meant, even if they were easy breaks, simple breaks, it would take six weeks or more, and the way the car had been—
Jesse swallowed hard against the lump in his throat.
He busied himself. Jesse knew himself—stay busy, stay okay. So he puttered about the little house, half-pretending Ezra would be home soon, putting water in the flower vases, weeding out the junk mail from the pile on the mat and putting a load of laundry through the washing machine. Flopsy ignored him. Kitsa followed him around, purring and rubbing her head against his hands whenever he stooped to pet her. Ezra did his chores in the evening, not before work, so there was plenty to do. Jesse even made the bed, changing the sheets out of the need to do something and not wallow, washed the scant dishes and wiped down all the kitchen surfaces, just to not think for a few minutes.
Eventually, he collected himself back together. Eventually, he sat down with Ezra’s phone book and the cordless handset, Kitsa immediately jumping into his lap. He had to dial twice, he was so on edge, and when the phone finally connected, it rang and rang for what seemed like hours.
Until it didn’t anymore.
“Ceri Pryce speaking.”
Jesse took a deep breath through his nose. “Mrs Pryce, it’s Jesse Dawkins,” he said. “Ezra’s partner.”
There was a pause. Then, “What happened?”
Jesse almost smiled. Ezra was sharp. He supposed it fitted that his parents were equally suspicious.
“There was—” he struggled. “He was in a car accident earlier today.”
She drew in her breath sharply.
“He’s in the hospital, but he’s all right,” Jesse added hastily. “Well, you know, he’s not all right, but—he will be. He’s not—it’s not fatal.”
“I see.”
“He had a long time in surgery, though, so—I figured you ought to know,” Jesse finished lamely.
“I—yes. Yes, thank you,” she said, and Jesse grimaced at the hoarse tone to her voice. “What—no, never mind, I’ll—I’ll come down as soon as I can. He is—you’re sure—”
“The surgeon told me herself he’d live,” Jesse said. “And I was—I was there, Mrs Pryce. My team were called to the accident.”
She let out a shuddering breath. “He was—”
“He talked to me, he was, you know, coherent and everything. And the doctor said he’d be fine.”
“Right. Right, yes, I—I’ll—I’ll come down as soon as I can. I’ll need—I’ll need to find someone to look after Mum, and—I’ll try and get there by tomorrow. Thank you,” she added suddenly. “For calling. So soon.”
It was a brief, awkward and horrible conversation. Jesse had never had to make a call like that. He’d had one, when Mum had killed herself, but he’d never made one. She hadn’t had any family, no real friends to speak of. The funeral had been attended by him, the vicar and a couple of neighbours who’d lived next door to Mum’s old house. He’d never had to make that kind of a call, and especially not to his boyfriend’s—ex-boyfriend’s?—disapproving, Bible-thumping mother.
Kitsa meowed and headbutted his hand.
He stretched out on the sofa, petting the kitten and staring absently across the tiny living room. Ezra had said he was his boyfriend. That was what he’d told Ellie. And the way he’d clung to Jesse’s hand, he couldn’t—he couldn’t hate him, right? For last night? Maybe the talk had been to talk it out and clear the air, not break up with him. Maybe that had been Ezra’s intention all along.
Whatever his intentions, Jesse wasn’t going anywhere now. He felt oddly resettled, like the black temper had been shaken out of him. Ezra had needed him. He’d reached for him and needed him, really needed him in that car, and there was nobody else who could have done what Jesse did. Nobody else could have helped Ezra through that. He’d needed Jesse, and no one else.
It hurt to realise what Ezra had been telling him all along—hurt to realise it like this.
So Jesse sat and stroked the cat and stared across the room, at a picture Ezra had framed on his bookshelf. A picture of them, crushed in close in a shot taken at Christmas by one of Jesse’s gym buddies on a night out. Ezra had come out to join them after his yoga class, his fluffy hair half-hidden by a black beanie, his smile wide and beautiful. They both looked beautiful, Jesse thought, because they looked happy. Ridiculously happy, with cheesy grins like everything was perfect. And it was perfect, no matter what, never mind about Ezra’s stupid ex-boyfriend and his stupid sister and his current boyfriend’s stupid self-esteem issues.
Ezra smiled like that because of him, and Jesse couldn’t believe he’d missed it all this time.
* * * *
The hospital was quiet at eleven o’clock the next morning.
Jesse had woken up still stretched out on Ezra’s sofa, Kitsa sleeping curled up on his stomach and Flopsy a warm, heavy weight across his ankles. He had slept deep and hard for most of the day, exhausted by the crash and the waiting game in the hospital, and he had only woken when the sun had poked him rudely in the eyes the following morning. He had taken half an hour to shower and change into the spare clothes he kept in Ezra’s bedroom before heading right back out, and the antiseptic smell of the hospital was somehow oddly soothing. Ezra was here. Ezra was safe here, even if he was still—still hurt.
It took two nurses, three phone calls from said nurses and retracing his steps twice to find Ezra. He had been moved in the night and undergone a second surgery at eight o’clock that morning, but the nurse refused to tell him why, obviously clocking that Jesse wasn’t technically family. But eventually he found his way to a ward for post-surgical care and managed to persuade another nurse with bobbed blonde hair to let him in to sit by the bed for a little while.
“I swear the minute you tell me to go, I’m out,” he pleaded, and she eventually relented with strict orders not to touch anything and to call her if Ezra so much as twitched.
Then he was there, and the raw ache in Jesse’s throat started up all over again.
He looked very much the same. Very much small and fragile in the hospital bed, hair scraped back instead of floating around in its usual mess. An oxygen tube ran under his nose, and his neck was still in a brace. His shoulder was strapped up, in a high sling that Jesse’s experienced eye recognised from hundreds of practice drills gone wrong—a dislocation. At this closer vantage, the awkward shape of the blankets was due to the open casts on both legs, and two tubes disappeared under those blankets towards his ribs.
But he breathed. He breathed, slow and gentle, and a heart monitor tapped out a calm, steady rhythm by the bed. Slowly, Jesse slid his fingers under Ezra’s, too nervous to properly hold his hand, and leaned close to whisper in his ear.
“I’m here,” he breathed, and sat back to watch his face.
His very scratched and bruised face. Five blue stitches stretched garishly across his forehead, and his eyes were both spectacularly black, the left one probably swollen shut. He was a complete mess. But he was still breathing.
“I love you,” Jesse whispered, and bit his lip. “And I’m sorry. I’ve been fucking stupid, and I’m sorry and I’ll tell you again when you wake up. Promise. Okay, baby?”
Ezra, of course, didn’t respond, but Jesse was okay with that.
“If you wake up and smile at me, just for a second, I promise to—” Jesse thought about it. “To never complain about your cats again. Or to promise you shoulder massages whenever you want them, because take it from me, baby, you’re going to get cramps and soreness like nothing else while that shoulder heals.”
“Mr Dawkins?”
He jumped. The doctor that had materialised at the foot of the bed simply raised an eyebrow.
“You are the patient’s partner?” he asked coolly.
“Yeah,” Jesse said, slipping his hand back out from under Ezra’s. “How is he? What—what did you have to do?”
The doctor eyed his clipboard. “Are you in a civil partnership, married or cohabiting?” he asked.
“I—what’s that got to do with anything?”
“Mr Dawkins, I cannot simply—”
“Ezra!”
And Mrs Pryce was hurrying across the ward, her hair askew, clothes rumpled, skirting around the surprised doctor without seeming to notice either of them. She bent over the bed to stroke her son’s face gingerly, worry twisted into her haggard face, before whirling on the doctor and shrieking, “What happened?!”
“May I ask who—”
“I’m his mother!” Mrs Pryce snapped. “I received a phone call yesterday afternoon from Jesse here saying my son was in the hospital! Don’t just stand there, tell me what’s going on!”
The doctor drew the curtain around.
“I need your permission for Mr Dawkins to stay,” he said flatly. “As the patient’s family, you—”
Jesse’s heart lurched. Mrs Pryce paused, biting her lip.
“No,” she said finally. “No, of course he can stay. Jesse will be—will be looking after Ezra, you see. I live in Norwich.”
“Very well,” the doctor said. “I suggest you both take a seat.”
Mrs Pryce sank into the visitor’s chair. Jesse leaned against the bedrail, trailing a hand down to stroke lightly over Ezra’s elbow.
“The patient was brought in with severe trauma after what we were told was a head-on car collision. His right leg is fractured in five places, two compound, and three toes were crushed. That leg is the major concern at the moment. His left leg suffered a compound fracture to the shin, but that was relatively simple to set. Both ankles are broken. Both legs have been set and are in open casts until the skin heals. He’s suffered multiple contusions, none particularly serious, and required stitches in his forehead. His right hip and right shoulder were both dislocated and were restored by Dr Anwar prior to the surgery. Four ribs suffered hairline fractures, and three more suffered bruising on the bone. There was moderate internal bleeding from his liver which Dr Anwar corrected, and we will be monitoring closely over the next few days. He also suffered whiplash,” he added, almost unnecessarily.
Jesse squeezed the elbow under his fingers and let out a long breath.
“Oh, Jesus,” he muttered.
Mrs Pryce, on the other hand, looked quite composed again. “And the prognosis?”
“For the moment, we need to ensure the right leg does not develop any infection or complications. If it does, we may need to consider amputation. Until the bones heal, we cannot be certain of the ongoing mobility of that leg in any case. The left leg should heal without much problem, as should the ankles. The crushed toes will have to be monitored for gangrene. The whiplash, the shoulder, the ribs and the hip will heal easily enough, although the patient is likely to be in physiotherapy for several months. The liver should recover—he was previously in a good state of health and Dr Anwar reported that, trauma aside, the liver had been functioning well.”
“And if it doesn’t?” Mrs Pryce pushed.
“I imagine it will,” the doctor countered. “The liver is a resilient organ. In a healthy young man, it should recover.”
“When will he wake up?” Jesse blurted out.
The doctor raised an eyebrow. “Entirely? Not for several days, Mr Dawkins. He will be in and out of it a little, but pain management at this stage more or less involves keeping the patient under.”
Jesse glanced down at Ezra’s still face and bit his lip. Mrs Pryce was immediately battering the doctor with fresh questions. She might have been quiet and tired in Norwich, but Jesse finally saw the evidence of her caring and he left her to it. The doctor was irrelevant.
He slid his fingers back under Ezra’s and pretended that Ezra squeezed back. On the one hand, it was good that he was sleeping. Jesse didn’t want him to be in pain, and he’d recover faster if he slept. But on the other hand, Jesse wanted to talk to him, for Ezra to hear how sorry he was about the whole bloody argument and how’d he take it all back in a heartbeat if he could and how he realised now just how fucking stupid he’d been.
The doctor and Mrs Pryce slipped out, but she returned alone momentarily with a chair, settling on the other side of the bed and taking Ezra’s other hand. She looked tearful but composed again. Jesse bitterly wondered where Grace was. The charitable part of him could pretend she was looking after her doddery grandmother. The less charitable part insisted she wouldn’t have come if he’d called saying Ezra had an hour to live.
It was, surprisingly, Mrs Pryce who broke the quiet, when she murmured, “I feel the strangest sense of déjà vu.”
Jesse winced. “It must be—hard for you,” he offered hesitantly, and a wan smile crossed her face. Sitting with all her focus on her son, she didn’t look like the anxious, dismissive woman from the house outside Norwich. She looked like a mother.
“Ezra and Grace were upset, but physically quite fine,” she said softly. “They had both collected worse injuries as young children. All three of mine had a thing for trees, you see,” she added, and a little laugh escaped, quiet and wary, into the room.
“They fell out a lot?”
“All the time,” she said. “Ezra especially. He hit puberty very early, you see, and suffered terrible growth spurts. He’d grown to his full height by the time he was fifteen. Very awkward as a boy.”
Jesse struggled to imagine a tall but baby-faced Ezra.
“But he and Josh could have been twins,” she murmured, and smoothed back Ezra’s hair in an obsessive little motion. “They looked so alike it was uncanny. He looks—”
Jesse bit his lip.
“I sat with Josh,” she murmured. “My husband was dead, my youngest were traumatised, and I sat and held my son’s hand as he passed away. He never knew I was there.”
“Mrs Pryce, Ezra’s not—”
“Oh, I know he isn’t,” Mrs Pryce said. “But it still feels…”
She trailed off. Jesse squeezed Ezra’s hand and didn’t know what to say.
“I know I was a bad mother afterwards,” she said suddenly, and Jesse winced.
“You weren’t—”
“I was. I let Grace take out all her anger on Ezra, and I let Ezra hide himself away until he was a stranger to us, and I let my own grief consume me. My children were hurting too, but I couldn’t comfort them, and suddenly they’re adults and don’t tell me a thing. You know, I didn’t know that Ezra had a new—a new—”
“Partner,” Jesse supplied gently.
“Partner,” she echoed, and smoothed that wild blond hair back again. “I didn’t know about you until he called and said you both would be visiting. He doesn’t tell me things.”
“Because he gets upset you disapprove,” Jesse blurted out, and Mrs Pryce gave him a startled look. “I’m sorry, but you can’t expect him to tell you all about his relationships if you give him the whole ‘gay men are an abomination’ thing.”
“Please don’t compare me to my daughter,” she said tightly.
“You’re not that different,” Jesse pushed.
“I do not believe my son is going to hell!” she snapped.
“Do you think I am?”
She paused, and Jesse shook his head.
“You might not be as loud as Grace, but you’re the same,” he said. “You think there’s something wrong with him and he’s defying God, and whatever, fine, you might be right. But he’s happy. Doesn’t that count for something? We’re both consenting adults, we’re not out to convert anyone or ruin other people’s lives. It’s nothing to do with anybody else. It’s just me and him, that’s it. And if there is a god, then he and Ezra can hash it all out when Ezra actually dies, but for now, can’t you just let him live his life?”
It was the most he’d ever
said to her—or anyone, really—regarding his sexuality. Jesse didn’t see much religious homophobia. He saw the casual, two-poufs-walk-into-a-bar style homophobia that was less abrasive, less grating. All his mates at work teased him about having a missus that looked awful in a skirt, and he didn’t mind. It was just a laugh. And Jesse was big enough and nasty-looking enough that he’d never really had to put up with the darker, uglier side of it from pubs and clubs the world over.
Ezra’s experience of it, on the other hand—that was worse. That wasn’t funny at all.
“I’m not asking you to go on gay pride marches and shit,” Jesse said, staring at Ezra’s thin, white face as though in a trance. “I’m just saying, you can’t complain he shuts you out if every time he tries to talk to you, you tell him he’s doing something wrong.”
“It is wrong,” she said quietly, but she lacked the fervour that Grace had when she said it.
“Mrs Pryce, with all due respect, I come from an abusive household. My parents were straight, but my dad cheated on my mum, he hit her, he called her all sorts of awful things, he drank, he smoked, he did drugs, he fathered at least one bastard and eventually he ran off with someone else. Then my mother killed herself,” Jesse said flatly, and ignored her startled flinch and gasp. “By comparison, I don’t see how any god with any brain could call me and Ezra wrong, and my parents right.”
“I—” Mrs Pryce croaked, then she subsided and looked back to her son, her hand trembling a little as she stroked back his hair.
They didn’t speak again for the rest of the afternoon.
* * * *
Jesse had been in the fire service long enough, and done enough on-call shifts, to react instantly to something changing, and so Ezra’s fingers had barely begun to contract around his before Jesse was sitting up, scrubbing the sleep from his eyes with one hand and leaning towards the bed.
“Ezra?” he murmured.
It was just after six. Ezra’s mother had left at five to go back to her hotel and Jesse had dozed in the chair since. He had refused to go before visiting hours ended at eight, because the doctor had said Ezra would be in and out of it and Jesse didn’t want him to wake up alone and confused and hurt. Not after that.
Enough Page 15