Tangled up in Love

by Charlotte Byrd

  She landed on her stomach and her eyes rolled back into her head. She wasn’t there and I couldn’t just leave her.

  Martin was dead and if I left her, she might die, too.

  When the ambulance arrived, they placed her into the back and refused to let me inside. I didn’t even bother asking Julie if she wanted to come.

  She draped herself over Martin, taking turns sobbing and screaming into his ear.

  I drove the car straight here and left it in the front of the hospital with the doors open and the keys inside.

  It’s probably towed, as if I give a shit.

  Instead of letting me right back to see Harley, they first forced me to fill out pages of paperwork.

  They don’t show this in the movies, but that’s what I had to do rather than be with her.

  “Just sit down and focus on this,” the nurse said, handing me the clipboard.

  “I’ll pay whatever the bill is, I don’t care about the insurance. Just let me in there to see her.”

  “I am sorry, sir, but everyone has to follow the protocol.”

  So, that’s what I was doing. I was answering questions on a piece of paper while our baby was dying.

  3

  Jackson

  In the silence…

  You’d think that the hospital room would be quiet, but it’s not.

  One of the machines puts out a low buzzing sound and another one beeps sporadically.

  The door is closed, but the voices from the outside come in loud and clear.

  The nurses are laughing and gossiping about their boyfriends. I wish I could turn on the light to make this moment seem a bit more real, but Harley doesn’t want it on. She just wants to lie in here in almost darkness.

  I finally pull myself from the window and reach for the remote control. I need something to distract me.

  My thoughts keep going back to that moment when I learned my baby was gone, and if I don’t do something soon, I know they will suffocate me.

  “No, keep that off,” Harley says when I flip on the television.

  It’s the first time that she has said anything to me this whole evening. It’s the first thing that she has said to me since she got into the ambulance.

  “I need something on to…not think about it anymore.”

  “You don’t want to think about it anymore?” she asks without turning around.

  She is being cruel.

  I know this. She is focusing her anger at me because there’s no one else here. But still it hurts.

  I turn off the television and the room returns to darkness.

  The voices outside the room pick up.

  After a few minutes, my eyes adjust and I return my gaze to the street. I give in because I feel like I lost a lot more than she did. But I lost just as much. We both lost our child.

  Time passes as if it’s standing still. I stare at the dirty glass, full of my fingerprints. With every moment, I descend further into darkness. It’s calling me. It’s whispering my name. Just let go. Stop fighting. Come here. It’s all going to be okay once you are here.

  My phone vibrates.

  It’s a text message from Phillips. She’s putting out another fire at Minetta.

  My job seems like it’s the last thing I should worry about right now but thinking about it somehow takes some of the pain away.

  I text her back. The physical act of typing and thinking actually alleviates some of the pain. It’s more than a distraction. It’s a lifeline.

  Once I send the text, I open my email. There are more problems to deal with. I let out a sigh of relief.

  I can’t make myself or Harley feel better, but I can do this.

  This will make me forget. I know it will because that’s exactly what I did when I lost Lila.

  No matter what, I will not compare the pain of losing them. It’s not fair to either. Lila was a child.

  She had a personality I knew.

  She had years of my life invested in her.

  This baby was real but not, at the same time. I don’t know who she or he would’ve been.

  I don’t know what they would’ve been like. All I know is that this baby was my second chance to love a little creature again. And now, that chance is gone.

  After answering eight emails, I glance over the phone at Harley. At first, everything is pitch black.

  With my screen so bright, I don’t see a thing. But as my eyes adjust, they meet hers. She has turned around and is now facing me.

  Her body is still in the same fetal position with the blanket wrapped firmly around her shoulders.

  She’s looking at me without blinking.

  “How are you?” I ask, immediately regretting the banality of this question. But what else is there to ask? Say?

  She doesn’t respond.

  That’s when it hits me. She’s not looking at me, but past me. Her eyes look at something in the distance, which is far over my head.

  “Harley,” I say. Her name seems foreign in my mouth. It’s as if I hadn’t said it before.

  “I am so sorry,” I say. My words crack. Tears start to well up in my eyes. My throat closes up.

  She takes the blanket and turns around under it. Her face doesn’t change in expression a bit.

  I am certain that she is now staring out in the distance on her other side just like she did here.

  At a loss as to what to do next, I return to my phone.

  After Lila died, I grew this company to what it is today without much help from anyone else. I spent all of my waking days working and it was only then that my wounds learned to heal.

  Or maybe the work just distracted me from the pain?

  Maybe I’m not over Lila’s death at all.

  Can a parent ever get over the loss of a child? Is it foolish to even contemplate such a thing?

  Somewhere in the back of my inbox, I find an old email that I never opened. It’s about all the money that I lost in the financial fraud scam.

  Not long ago, I would’ve paused over it and hesitated opening it. But tonight, I couldn’t care less. I click on it and read the contents.

  It’s from one of the prosecutors in charge of the case and it’s not good news. Apparently, the family had spent most of the money that they stole and it’s unlikely that anyone will get paid back anything.

  I close it without another thought.

  Who the hell cares about all of those millions of dollars?

  I should, perhaps, but right now I can’t summon the strength to give a shit even a little bit.

  The news makes me chuckle.

  “Are you laughing?” Harley asks, turning around surprised.

  I shrug my shoulders and point to the phone. She knows about the money and she knows how much I wanted to get it back.

  “That money I got swindled out of…it’s pretty much all gone.”

  “It was gone.”

  “Yeah, but I always held on to a little hope that I’d be able to get it back and use it to get a controlling interest in Minetta again.”

  They paid me more than Minetta is worth, of course, but maybe I could pay them even more to get my rightful percentage back.

  “I guess that’s out.” I laugh again.

  She shrugs.

  “How can you think about work at a time like this?”

  What else is there to think about, I ask her silently.

  4

  Harley

  In the darkness…

  Jackson taps on the window. Jackson turns on the television. Jackson answers emails and texts on his phone.

  Jackson annoys me.

  Why can’t he just be?

  Why can’t he just relax and calm down?

  I want to throw the pillow at him, but that would require getting up and actually engaging my body.

  The prospect of that is impossible.

  I feel like there’s a heavy object that’s laying on top of me that I cannot move. Even to turn from one side of the bed to the other requires a Herculean effort. />
  I keep my eyes open because when I close them, I see Martin’s. Just a moment ago, they were so full of life.

  I didn’t know him well, but whenever we spent time together, he put me at ease. He was easy to talk to and he loved Julie.

  And more than that even, he made her happy.

  Blood is streaming down one side of his face, following the edge at first and then dripping straight down onto the ground.

  His eyes are glassy, vanquished of all life. The hole in his forehead is dark and deep.

  I reach for him, and he is only a bit out of my grasp.

  Please come back, I say to myself. Please come back. You can’t leave. You can’t be…dead.

  All of this happens in a second.

  A mere glimpse. Just a moment.

  That’s when the pain sets in.

  As I lay there, looking at the body of my friend who died trying to protect me, my arm starts to throb. A strong shooting pain runs up my body and centers in my shoulder, in the place where I landed.

  I don’t know exactly what happened yet, or how I ended up on the ground. When I search my mind for that no memories emerge.

  All I remember is standing next to him and hearing a loud popping sound that I thought belonged to a car backfiring.

  What happened next, I don’t exactly know.

  Suddenly, I am lying on the ground gazing into Martin’s eyes.

  My shoulder starts to throb, but that pain is manageable. The one that follows it isn’t. It’s come from the center of my core.

  I grab my stomach to try to help my baby, but the pain gets worse and worse. Warm liquid starts to pool in between my legs and tears of pain, regret, and anger roll down my cheeks.

  “Stay, stay, stay,” I whisper under my breath. “It’s going to be okay.”

  Suddenly, Jackson is there. He’s holding me, promising me impossible things. Sirens are blaring in the distance.

  The ambulance is almost here.

  I promise the same impossible things to the baby. I try to breathe through the pain, but it doesn’t help. I pray for this to stop.

  When they lift me up onto the stretcher, I look over at Martin.

  Julie is on top of him, her sobs are echoing around the buildings. I’ve never seen her like this, but then again, I’ve never seen someone get shot before either.

  Jackson fights to come inside the ambulance with me but they won’t let him. They physically push him out of the back, and a part of me is relieved. This is all my fault.

  Our baby is dead because of me.

  The police will need evidence to find out who did it, but I don’t.

  I know it’s Parker. Or at the very least, it’s someone he hired. If he can’t have me, then he will kill me. Only problem is that I survived and my friend and my baby are dead.

  My hopes that things did not turn out as the worst case scenario aren’t dashed until we get to the hospital.

  All throughout that ambulance ride, I still believe that it’s going to be okay. I still have hope.

  But then the pain gets worse and they take me into one of the rooms.

  They try to make the bleeding stop but it’s too late. The baby is too young. It’s still a collection of cells. And my body is weak.

  “Luckily, you will still be able to have children,” a man in a white coat says.

  Lucky is not what I would describe myself as, I think to myself. And that sentence should be other children. I’m not lucky enough to have this one.

  A knock on the door startles me, but I barely move. Jackson goes to see who it is. I hope it’s not Julie. I can’t bear to see her yet. I’m not sure if I ever will be ready even though I know that I will have to.

  “Thanks for coming.” I hear Jackson say.

  With great difficulty, I move under the heavy weight that’s smushing me into the bed to face the door.

  The hallway is bright and full of stomping feet and loud voices, and I can’t quite see who is at the door.

  Jackson wraps his arms around the visitor and I want to throw up. I can’t see her face, but I sense that it’s Aurora.

  Who else could it be? And now, look at her, hugging Jackson, trying to be there for him. I don’t really have anything against her but I am not a big fan of how close they are and how he’s always there for her.

  I turn away from the door and pull my blanket above my head to try to drown their whispers out completely.

  Why isn’t the fucking television on when you need it to be?

  “Harley! Honey!” A familiar voice rushes over to me.

  She falls on top of me, shielding me from the weight that’s been keeping me in this bed by her body.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask, my voice cracking.

  “I’m here, honey. We both are.”

  Tears start to stream down my face. She pulls away briefly, giving my dad some space to get in on the hug.

  “Mom…Dad…” My voice trails off and I am suddenly ten years old again, crying in my parents’ arms, waiting for them to make everything fine again.

  5

  Harley

  They try to make things better…

  My parents hold me for a while and don’t pull away until I do.

  They are just there for me.

  They don’t bombard me with questions of how I am or what I’m feeling. They just wait. I appreciate it.

  While they hold me, Jackson stands back and waits. I don’t know exactly how much time passes, but after a while I start to feel hot and I push them away in order to get some fresh air.

  Jackson pulls over two chairs from the other side of the room and sits back down on the couch which he has made into his sanctuary.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see him toying with the idea of wrapping his feet in a blanket just like he did before.

  The room is not particularly warm but he pushes the blanket away, deciding against it.

  Once my parents pull away from me and pull their seats to the edge of my bed, Jackson asks if he can put on the light.

  “Yes, of course,” Mom says immediately. But Jackson waits for me to respond.

  “It’s just that the light was bothering her before,” he explains.

  “Oh, sure, whatever you want, honey,” Dad says.

  “Is there any way to not have the big one on overhead?”

  Jackson scours the room and then finds the switch to the smaller light above the bed, but it’s somehow even more oppressive. Instead of a neutral color, this one drenches everyone in a horrible fluorescent green.

  “Okay, just put the big one on, it’s fine.”

  As much as I want to hide in blackness, I don’t want to force everyone to sit in the dark.

  “So, you called them, huh?” I ask Jackson. He shrugs and nods.

  “And got us a plane to bring us here.”

  “Really?”

  “I have to say, a private plane is the way to go,” Dad says. He’s not being obtuse or rude, he’s just trying to lighten the mood. And I appreciate that.

  With great difficulty and a foldable hospital bed, I manage to sit up.

  “It is pretty nice,” I agree. “Thank you,” I say, turning to Jackson. Again, he just shrugs and looks down at the floor.

  “So…how are you?” Mom asks. Now it’s my turn to nod and hang my shoulders.

  “I don’t know,” I mumble.

  I glance past my parents to Jackson.

  Suddenly, it occurs to me that I don’t know if they know.

  I mean, they know about Martin and how I almost got killed, but I don’t know if Jackson told them about my pregnancy.

  I certainly did not.

  “So, how’s everything going?” I ask, trying to change the topic. “You’re newlyweds again, right?”

  They exchange glances and can’t help but smile at each other.

  “We are just so happy you’re okay,” Mom says, taking my hand in hers. “We were so scared.”

  “I know.”

  They don’
t say anything for a few moments.

  “Are you going to answer my question?”

  “We’re doing really well,” Dad says. “We’re really happy.”

  I smile at him. “That’s good. I’m glad.”

  “And thank you and Jackson so much for the ranch, of course,” Mom says.

  I stare at her. What is she talking about?

  I glance over at Jackson but he avoids eye contact with me.

  “What do you mean?” I ask.

  “For giving us the money to rebuild the ranch,” Dad explains. “We really appreciate it. And we’re going to pay you every cent of it back, Jackson. Please believe us.”

  “You really don’t have to,” he mumbles.

  Thoughts rush through my mind so fast, I get dizzy. Why didn’t he tell me about this? Why didn’t they? Why did he give them the money?

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask him. I probably should’ve waited until we were alone to ask him, but I’m tired of secrets. There has been more than enough of them among all of us. I don’t want to keep another one.

  “You didn’t know?” my dad asks, surprised.

  “No.”

  “It was always their dream so after the wedding, I just gave them a check to rebuild what they had lost. That’s it.”

  “It was so…generous. We just can’t thank you enough.”

  “Was this before or after you dumped me?” I ask. I don’t know why but for some reason I am fuming.

  I’m angry at him for giving them the money. I’m angry at them for accepting it. But mostly, I am just angry. Under the fluorescent lights, my anger intensifies and I can’t hide below the surface for much longer.

  “You and Jackson broke up?” Dad asks.

  “Are you back together?” Mom pipes in.

  “No, we didn’t break up. Jackson broke up with me.”

  “But now…everything is fine?” Mom asks again.

  “No, Mom, everything is not fine.”

  I feel like I’m drowning. Seeing them here, talking about the ranch, thinking about my baby, it’s just all too much. I can’t handle it. Tears start to run down my face faster than I can wipe them off.