by Ella James
I’m not sure why I didn’t realize this would be the case, but when our plane landed in New York, and I felt the warm, soft air, I realized—it’s summer here. We’re in the northern hemisphere. It’s lovely summer, and I’m in America. Baby is in America. Last night for dinner after having my vaccines and physical in New York, I ate a hot dog. It was lovely. Everything has been so lovely.
New York was lovely, but I think Washington is quite a bit more so. Charles thought the trees might make me feel a bit odd or perhaps out of place, but I adore them. I adore their canopy, the hiddenness of this pine-needle-paved lane. I’ll confess I don’t adore the asphalt, but I see its practicality. And all the same, I quite like this softer road.
When Charles turns the wheel and we start down the short driveway, I can scarcely draw a breath. We’re rolling toward a green and yellow cabin in a clearing with tall trees above it, bending in the wind.
“You good back there?”
I nod, but that’s not quite true. Everything is glittery and wobbling in the prism of my unshed tears. I squeeze my eyes shut, wipe them.
Then the car has stopped. We’ve parked. Charles says, “I’ll take Baby for a look around.”
I nod slowly, understanding. And I’m opening the heavy door. I’m passing Baby off then stepping out onto the spongy, needle-covered ground with its impossibly thick grass. I notice two red rockers on the cabin’s porch. The entire front wall, where it’s not door, is windows.
Knowing that he bought this property for my mum—for both of us, I suppose—hoping we might come here to adjust to American life bit by bit, these trees protecting us from people and their foreign germs while we adjusted to this vast, more modern world…it gives me chills. And fills me with such gratitude. And yet it’s all so odd, because I realize now…if we had made it here I was seven, I’d be doing something very different now.
I try the knob and find it gives. I turn it slowly with my trembling hand and push the door open. I notice the room’s vastness first. The roof’s rafters, all the polished cedar. It smells…earthen. Like wood. The space is flawlessly appointed with fluffy couches, leather chairs and—
Him.
I see his tired eyes first. At first glance, I think they’re bruised below, so dark are the circles there. I see the horrid paleness of his face—what of it isn’t covered by his beard. I see the shock of white gauze all about his chest and shoulders. Both his arms are tucked against his chest in dark slings. He’s propped up in a recliner with a pillow around his neck and a red blanket over his lap.
And then he’s spotted me. I can tell the moment he does. His mouth trembles and tugs sharply downward at the corners as his eyes squeeze shut. Tears stream down his face as I walk to him.
Then I’m there beside him, and I don’t know how to hug him, so I simply touch his hair. He breathes deeply, and then he groans, as I suppose the movement hurts his shoulders.
“Oh…my darling…” He groans again, more a bark of pain, and I take his face in my hands and lean down, pressing my cheek to his.
He’s breathing deeply and shaking so terribly. “My sweet love…”
“Sorry.” It’s groaned.
“No. We won’t be sorry…remember?” It shreds my heart that he can merely press his cheek against mine as he nods. He takes a few deep breaths, and then a low sob shakes his shoulders. I cling to his neck and hold his forehead against my throat. After each sob, he makes an awful, pained gasp, and I’m wrenched with worry.
“Cover my mouth.” It’s a low rasp.
I realize what he means, but my lips can’t help a gentle kiss before I do as he asked. I hold his head and cover his mouth and stroke his hair and forehead and his neck. His hair is damp, and I’m stricken by his new fragility—the way he trembles and his tears drip down his face.
When he’s breathing fast and shallow, but a bit more steady, I wipe his cheeks with my shirt. I wipe his lovely welling eyes, and when more tears fall, I kiss his temples and his forehead and his soft, tremulous lips.
I’m half atop him now, one of my knees up on his chair and my right arm around his neck, my hand in his hair.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” I murmur.
I lean back a bit, so I can see his sweet Carnegie face.
His eye shut. “Don’t…stop touching me,” he rasps. “Please.”
I tuck his head against me, his forehead to my throat. “Never will. I promise.” I kiss his hair. Then I kneel at his feet. I meld myself against his legs and lay my cheek against his thigh and wrap my arms around his waist and hug him.
“Sweet Carnegie.” I rub his warm, damp back and then lean down to stroke his calves through his cotton pants. He swallows as he watches me with sad eyes.
“What can I do for you, love?”
He shuts his eyes, shakes his head.
For a second, I’m worried I’m gonna fucking cry again. I can’t think straight—I just know that I don’t want it. Any of this. I don’t want the searing pain, and I don’t want her seeing me lose it again. I grit my teeth and suck some deep breaths back, and finally, the feeling passes.
“Talk to me…if you can, darling.” Her hand runs through my hair, and I’m back to square one. The gentle movement makes my throat sting. I squeeze my eyes shut, trying not to think about how good it feels. How fucking great it is to have her hands on me again.
Jesus…
I just know I’m gonna lose control again. Siren can tell, too, because she leans back down and moves in close and presses her cheek to mine. Her hand strokes up into my hair again. It feels so good.
She kisses my cheek and my temple, whispers sweet things in my ear.
I can’t even hug her. I just want to hold her. I don’t want to be in the chair by myself…without her.
I’m gonna cry, so I take deep breaths, but it hurts my left side. It hurts so bad I can’t help but groan…and then I’m sort of halfway crying.
“Oh, I’m so, so sorry… Take some deep breaths.”
“I can’t.” My voice is raspy. I can’t even say more without breaking down.
I’ve got some hurt stuff up around my left shoulder, and every time I breathe, it hurts. Finley covers my mouth with hers again. I’m so used to touching her, I go to raise my right arm, and my newly repaired shoulder responds with a bolt of pain that leaves me panting.
Her hands stroke my cheeks. “What are you taking, sweet love?”
It takes me a second to process what she means. “Tylenol…and Advil.” My teeth start to chatter from how much it hurts. “Had to…take a break from Toradol.”
“But…that can’t be all. Can it?”
Tears well in my eyes again. I shut them, and I feel one dripping down my cheek. Get it together, Carnegie. I can’t even wipe my face. So I know she sees the way I’m struggling to keep myself in check. I don’t want to tell her…but I know I have to.
“I…got Dilaudid…at the hospital.”
“Do you want more? I can get you something. Your father and I will get you anything and everything you need, my darling. Just tell me what.”
I close my eyes. She doesn’t get it. I shake my head. I don’t want that shit again. Why does she think I’m shaking and sweating?
“I had…the RC surgery…” I stop to get a careful breath. “On my throwing side…to avoid…” To having to take that fucking stuff again, in a few more months. I grit my teeth. Even talking hurts me where the bullet did its damage.
“You had the surgery sooner to avoid requiring Dilaudid again…so soon after they fixed the gunshot damage?” I watch her perfect Siren face as she realizes fully what I mean. “I think I see,” she says softly. Her fingertip traces my eyebrow. It feels really good. My eyelids shut.
“You didn’t want to recover from this—” her hand hovers over my left side— “and then go in again for surgery on your right shoulder that’s been hurting for a while. I remember you said in the burrow that you’d have to get it sorted. So you convinced them to do both. They f
ixed up your left side, of course, and then turned right around and did the other surgery on the right shoulder—for the rotator cuff—the day you arrived in Boston from Cape Town. So…I believe that would be four days ago. Is that right? And time from the…gunshot itself…has been ten days.”
I nod slowly, and she strokes my hair back off my forehead. “Your father told me some of that. I’ve missed quite a lot,” she says hoarsely. “Now you’re wrapped up like a mummy.” Her hand waves to my chest. “You’re in ghastly pain. And I think perhaps you’re disappointed over the Dilaudid, even though no doubt you required it to keep from going mad, as you are now. Sailor…what must we do with you? Hopelessly stubborn.”
I shake my head. I can’t think straight enough—talk straight enough—to make her understand. I’m craving it again, so fucking bad now. Even more so because I feel so shitty. Even my skin and hair hurt from withdrawing again…since surgery.
“It’s not…supposed to be this bad.” The words are whispered, half delirious.
“What isn’t? The gunshot wound with these two ribs fractured?” She points to where I’m hurt, up near the collar bone. “Your father said the bone in back is cracked as well—your scapula. I suppose that’s why you can’t take deep breaths. I’m sorry for that bit of horrid advice.”
I shake my head. Don’t be sorry.
“Is that supposed to be less painful, or the repaired shoulder on the other side? And I’ve heard that craving what you formerly relied upon daily for years and were re-introduced to in a dire emergency is quite the cake walk. Clearly going back off opiates won’t hurt at all…”
My lips crack as they tuck up. Such a fucking wise-ass, Siren.
“Where the devil is your nurse? Who on earth has been here with you?”
“I had him go…before you got here.”
“Wrong choice. But let’s now take stock.” My eyelids feel weighted as she looks at the pill bottles on the table by the chair. “Antibiotics and the empty Toradol.” She lifts a brown bottle and frowns at it. “What’s this then? CBD and THC…what’s that?”
I swallow against my dry throat. “Marijuana.”
“It’s been legalized here, correct? It can be a powerful painkiller.”
“I don’t need it…if I don’t move much.”
“Why would you forego it? It’s not an opiate.”
I lift my shoulder out of habit and grunt as I realize the mistake.
“Can one become addicted to this?”
“Psychologically,” I rasp.
“Okay, so as one could become addicted to chewing fingernails, or not eating…or over-eating…or melatonin. Psychological or mildly physiological. On television yesterday, I heard of the term ‘nothingburger.’” She smirks, and I lick my dry lips.
“Yes,” she says, unscrewing the bottle’s top. “There’s even a dropper, my favorite way to dose my wayward Sailor. What’s this other bit, this wee canister?”
“It’s marijuana,” I whisper. “For vaporizing.”
“Let’s do all of the above.”
I swallow the tincture, and she gives me some water.
“There now.”
I’m half asleep as she rubs something on my lips. I want to ask her how she’s feeling. Did she get all the vaccines my dad told me she’d need so something like the measles doesn’t take her out? Dad said he made her take a Xanax when the Albatross left Tristan.
It was the same plane that got me from the Celia about twelve hours after the ship departed from the island with my gunshot ass. Ten days ago, like Finley said. Because of the special plane my agent’s friend owned, I got to Cape Town within a day of what happened. It was a late debridement, but there wasn’t much left in me anyway. The good doctor had a .22, so it was a small bullet. Probably the ricochet through the muscle is what snapped my top two little ribs and nicked my shoulder blade as the bullet blew out my back.
One of the scientists on board the Celia was an MD doing cancer research based on fish. I owe that guy my life. He packed my wound in a way that kept it from fucking up my lungs. The ship had oxygen for divers and a couple bags of saline for emergencies. The MD saved my life by keeping me warm and pumping me full of saline when my blood pressure would drop…which was a lot, I think. Dude even rode the Albatross with me and helped me till I got to Cape Town. I wish I could tell Finley about it.
But I feel so fucking weak. Even breathing takes a lot of energy.
Next time I open my eyes, my dad is here, and I smile because he’s playing with Baby. “Hey, Baby,” I whisper.
Dad’s hand ruffles my hair. Then Finley is hovering all around me, checking my pulse…doing some other stuff. I think I’m drinking water. I don’t know. It’s kind of funny really. I’m just laughing.
“You make me feel…a whole lot better.”
“Is that so?” She kisses my cheek. “I think that’s not my doing. But I love you, darling.”
I’m falling asleep, but I want to tell her… When I was trying to hold on between Tristan and Cape Town, I kept seeing those gold waves—my death dream waves; the waves that brought me to the island with the thought of drowning myself—and I finally knew what they meant.
I lived through overdosing just to fight again to kick up from below those flashlight-brightened waves at Tristan. When I was trying to hang on until Cape Town, I latched onto the thought that I’d never told Siren how much I really loved her. That’s what I told myself to find the strength to hold on, even when it felt so fucking hard.
Twenty-One
Declan
“When the plane—” My voice gives out. I swallow, and Finley holds a sports bottle to my mouth.
“There you go…”
“When the Albatross landed in Cape Town,” I rasp, “I don’t know. I kind of came to more, I guess. Realized…I didn’t know what happened with you. I thought you might be dead. I don’t remember, but they told me later that I flipped my shit.” I almost raise my arm to run a hand through my hair, but I stop myself in time and shut my eyes a second instead. “They said I demanded to be taken back to Tristan. I was fucking furious that you weren’t with me.”
It’s nighttime now. She and I are lying in the adjustable bed Dad set up before he left. Finley’s got her arms around my waist and her legs threaded through mine. She’s craning her neck back so she can see me over all my bandages.
“After the debridement—that’s when they clean a bullet wound…my nurse told me later that I made someone call Tristan.” I smile. “Ask about you. I don’t know who they got, but they found out you weren’t dead.”
“And Doctor was,” she whispers slowly. “It was Mrs. Acton who took that call. I found out the next day.” She rubs her eyes, and I realize they’re wet again. “Can you imagine? No one thought to tell me you survived until the morning after that call came.” She shakes her head as her eyes glimmer with more tears.
“For two days, I didn’t move from Anna’s bed—Anna and Freddy’s.” Her lip tucks up a little on one side, but it’s not a smile. “I tried to get an update, but that took another twelve hours. That time, I was told I couldn’t have details, but your father called me back quite quickly. He listed your injuries, and I wept. I was passed out when they got you into the boat. From hearing when Father tried to grab the gun and it went off. Doctor fell on me,” she whispers.
“Dammit. I think that’s why I thought you might have gotten shot, too. I must have had some kind of memory of not seeing you…when they pulled me in.”
“Yes…” Her mouth trembles before she presses it into a frown. “I wasn’t conscious when Mark pulled you from the sea. I came to about the time the Celia departed. I screamed and raged to go, but Freddy wouldn’t let me.”
“Freddy. I think he was talking to me on the boat.”
She smiles sadly. “He told me when they got you out of the water, he took care of you for me.” She wipes her eyes. “It didn’t make me feel much better.”
“It’s okay, though. I’m okay.”
>
“You will be, because I’m not letting you come down from the marijuana cloud—not for…however long it’s necessary.” She smiles.
“Siren?” She kisses my lower abs, and my dick twitches.
“Yes?”
I swallow hard, because my throat’s gone tight again. I have to whisper so my voice won’t crack as I tell her, “I want to touch your hair.”
She spreads it over my chest. I squeeze my eyelids shut. She’s watching close enough to see my tears in the dark, I guess, because she wipes them. “What’s on your mind, Sailor darling?”
“I wanted to tell you something,” I whisper.
“I’m all yours.” She kisses my ribs, and I close my eyes again.
Finley
“I couldn’t say I love you…when I wanted to say it,” he murmurs. “I didn’t say it how I should have at the island.”
“That’s all right. I always knew you loved me.”
He shakes his head. Tucks his chin to his chest, shuts his eyes. And then he looks at me. It’s quiet in the bedroom, the darkness broken only by beams of milky moonlight. Baby’s in the hallway. I can hear her moving around.
“There’s something I want to tell you, Finny,” he rasps. “Before you stay here a long time…”
“What do you mean?” I can tell he’s feeling the effects of the marijuana. His eyelids are heavy and sometimes he speaks a bit strangely.
“I don’t know if I can tell you.” He sounds pained, which makes my chest ache.
“You don’t have to tell me anything, my darling. All I need is to lie here with you. You elevate those shoulders, and I’ll keep you warm and watered.” I drop a kiss below his pec. It’s been a game of loving him up without teasing him. Because I’m not sure he can be pleasured yet without the movement bringing pain.
