Guitar Face Series Box Set: Books 1-4

by Sasha Marshall

  “Thank you, doctor. Will someone notify us when she is moved to a room?” Koi asks.

  “Yes, a nurse will advise you of the room number.”

  Chapter 12

  Henley

  When I open my eyes, a beautiful brunette is smiling at me.

  “Welcome back, Ms. Hendrix,” she greets.

  I moan as the pain hits me like an eighteen-wheeler, but what comes next is not something I could have never prepared for. The brunette, Cassie, tells me I was pregnant, twelve weeks pregnant, and miscarried. I lost a great deal of blood and had to have a blood transfusion. I am fresh out of surgery. I say nothing back to the nurse, because, really, what in the hell do you say. “Oh thanks for being the bearer of bad news.” Or? “No problem, shit happens.”

  I don’t know how I feel about any of this. I had a child inside of me and didn’t even aware. What kind of woman doesn’t know they are pregnant? It would’ve been so fucking great to raise a child with Claudia’s as a sibling.

  After I drink some water, I am wheeled to an actual room. A new nurse greets me and says a bunch of shit I don’t pay attention to. I catch the words pain medication, and I nod in agreement to it. Just numb the hell out of me, and she does just that. I turn on my side, away from the door, so I don’t hear my brother enter.

  “Are you asleep?” he whispers.

  “Not yet, but the nurse just gave me some pain meds, so I should nod off soon.”

  He pulls a chair up to the bed, and grabs my hand, “I am so sorry, baby girl.” He tucks my hair behind my ear, and he studies me closely, but I can’t make eye contact.

  “I didn’t know I was pregnant,” I offer.

  “I guessed. You would’ve told me.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Lots of people are outside waiting to see you, sis.”

  I say nothing for a beat.

  “Does it make me a bad person if I don’t want to see anyone?”

  “No. They will understand, but I think you should let Rhys and Kip lay eyes on you before they leave. They saved your life.”

  “I don’t remember anything.”

  “Can I send them in for a sec?”

  “One at a time?”

  “I’ll tell them,” he says as he kisses me on the forehead.

  “Thank you, Koi.”

  “I love you, baby girl. Try not to scare me like that again.”

  “I will do my best.”

  He kisses my forehead again, and stands to leave, “Koi?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Can you ask everyone not to come back? If it’s okay, I would like for just you to be here.”

  “I will make it happen. See you in the morning?”

  “Yeah. Get some rest. Love you.”

  “Love you too.”

  Koi leaves and Rhys walks in a few moments later. We don’t exchange words, but I see how exhausted he is. His tense body seems to relax when he sees my eyes. I grab his hand, and he scoots closer and envelopes me in one of his big hugs. He squeezes tight, and I can’t hold my sobs back any longer. My body shakes as I silently sob into his neck, and he sobs right along with me, his tears dropping onto my shoulder.

  When our sobs fade, he sits and then stands from my bed, gives my hand a squeeze, and simply says, “Be okay, Hen.”

  Then he leaves.

  Kip enters behind him, and he looks just as stressed and exhausted as Rhys. I notice blood on Kip’s shirt and realize it is mine. My God, what did I put him and Rhys through?

  Kip instantly crawls into bed with me, and I move over to accommodate him. He holds me for a while.

  “You scared me.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

  “I know.”

  “I don’t know how I feel about it.”

  “Sad, angry, shocked, relieved, scared?”

  “That about covers it.”

  “Koi said you don’t want anyone else up here but him after tonight. I respect that, but I am always here. I will be there when you get home, and we will nurse your body and heart back to health. K?”

  “Okay.”

  “Love you, Henley.”

  “Love you too, Kip. Thank you for saving me.”

  “I would save you a million times over girl. You are my best friend.”

  I fell asleep in Kip’s arms, and when I woke he was gone.

  ***

  Henley

  Koi stays with me all day at the hospital, and very few words pass between us. He informs me our parents are waiting for us at my house. I haven’t spoken to them since Christmas. I am still hurt over their extension of an invitation to Claudia to join our family for the holidays. I don’t really want to see my parents. I’ve never felt that way towards them, but damn if they didn’t hurt me.

  Around five in the evening, I am discharged, and Koi takes me home.

  “Jagger wants to see you.”

  I think about his statement for a few seconds, but the feelings I thought it would invoke don’t surface.

  “Okay, I guess.”

  “Hen, he lost a baby too. Neither of you knew about it, but both of you are suffering. Everything between the two of you is shit, but he is grieving too. You both need so much closure, and I don’t know how that is supposed to happen, but shit, maybe just hear him out, yeah?”

  “Okay.”

  “I will be there every step of the way, Hen.”

  “I don’t know if I want mom and dad there. I am so angry with them, Koi.”

  “I would be too. I tried to stay out of that cluster fuck, but they fucked up, big. I was pretty angry when I found out Claudia was coming home with us. That was not a call for anyone to make but you, and I am still shocked Jagger went along with it.”

  Koi pulls into my driveway, and into the garage. He helps me out and up the steps into the house. The garage leads to a door by my bedroom, so I lie down as soon as I get to my bed. Kip enters with Cash, and my puppy jumps on the side of the bed eager for me to pet him. I place him on the bed and he showers me with kisses. I giggle at his excitement, and am thankful that this little creature doesn’t care where I was, or why I was there. He only cares that I am home and is happy to see me. Cash quickly curls into my neck and we drift off to sleep.

  When I wake again, night has fallen, and the clock on my bedside table states it is two a.m. I slide out from under Cash, who curls into my pillow and finds sleep again. I want to wash the hospital stench off, so I pad my sore body to the bath.

  “Hen?” his voice comes from a chair in the corner of my room.

  I turn around and see a sleepy Jagger.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah. I am just going to take a shower. I feel gross and smell like a hospital.”

  “Okay. Will it be okay if I sit in there with you? I will turn around while you undress. I just… I don’t want you to fall and no one be awake to help you,” he says as his nervous eyes dart from me to the floor.

  “That’s a good idea. Just come in when you hear the shower run.”

  He sighs with relief. I suppose he thought I would fight him, but I don’t have any fight in me right now.

  Stepping into the shower instantly brings relief to my sore muscles, and I stand under the barrage of hot water. After a bit, I wash my hair twice, and scrub the hospital grit off my body. When I wash between my legs, the sting brings the miscarriage to the front of my mind. Call it hormones or some form of PTSD, but the tears flow, and no matter how hard I fight them, the sobs rack through my body. I lower myself onto my knees, cover my face with my hands, and quietly grieve for the child I didn’t know I had growing inside my belly. I grieve for the child lost, the child I will never know, or be able to love. I didn’t get a chance to love the child because it was ripped away from me before I had the chance to acknowledge its existence. My heart aches, and I can’t wrap my head around how a creator or whatever entity is in charge could allow you to conceive a life inside your o
wn body, and then cruelly take it away from you. Loss and grief is something I should be accustomed to by now, but damn if it doesn’t keep pouring down on me.

  Jagger’s strong arms wrap around me, and I can’t find the strength to push him away. I know he feels the loss too. Fully clothed under the water, he lowers his body to mine, and pulls me as tight as humanly possible to him. The sobs are no longer quiet as the grief pulls howls from my body. Jag’s own sobs follow soon after mine, so I pull my hands from my face, wrap my arms around his neck, and bury my face in his neck. I hold him as tightly as he holds me, and we grieve together over the loss of our child. A child unknown is still a child.

  ***

  Koi

  I watch my little sister pull away from the world over the next week. In the two days that follow her return home, she speaks very little, much less acknowledges anyone’s existence. After those two days, she doesn’t speak at all. She doesn’t eat very much. She stays up all night in the comfort of the dark and silence of her home and sleeps most of the day. With a house full of people, maintaining some level of normalcy has become difficult. Kip’s antics have gone unnoticed, awkwardness lingers in the air since she refuses to speak, and anytime my parents or myself attempt to convey our concern, she refuses to make eye contact and walks away.

  Researching other women’s reactions to a miscarriage is the only way I can keep sane. Her behavior is normal, but my concern doesn’t completely subside. She lost Caleb, and in the last three months, the love of her life humiliated her in public, he might be having a child with another woman, my parents betrayed her, and she is trying to record her first album without Caleb. Now she has lost a child. She is one of the toughest people I’ve ever met, but damn if that isn’t a lot for anyone to deal with.

  On week two, she surfs in the late hours of the afternoon, and finds sleep before the sun rises. It is an improvement. My parents fly back to Georgia at the end of week two, and she manages to hug them and wish them a safe trip, but her heart isn’t in it.

  On top of Henley’s depression, I can’t seem to find Jessica. I am worried about her since this resurrects so many difficult memories for her. At the beginning of week three, I send Samantha to find her, and force her to come to Henley’s. I can keep an eye on both of them here. Samantha arrives with a disheveled and intoxicated Jessica on Tuesday of week three. This version of Jessica is not a pretty sight. She can be a first class bitch when she’s like this.

  I escort Jessica into the kitchen away from Henley, to assess the damage.

  “What the fuck, Jess? I have been calling your ass for weeks. You won’t answer or text? I have been worried sick about you.”

  “I’m fine,” she snaps.

  “This isn’t fine! You are a fucking mess!”

  “Yeah, well we all can’t be so stoic in the face of pain like you. We all handle shit differently.”

  I pull my beautiful girl into my arms, and she tries to fight at first, but gives up. “Talk to me, baby.”

  The tension and fight in her body eases, and she finally relaxes in my arms. “I am just in a bad place. I need to get out of this funk. Henley losing that baby brought back the memories of losing Caleb and going through that miscarriage by myself. I lost a child, Koi, and it still fucking hurts.”

  “You weren’t by yourself, Jessica. I held your hand every step of the way.”

  “What in the fuck are you talking about? “Henley seethes as she stands frozen in the kitchen.

  Fuck!

  I release my hold on Jessica, and attempt to gauge my sister’s mood. Angry Henley is a dangerous Henley, and she’s already an emotional mess.

  “Where the fuck have you been?” she yells at Jessica.

  Jessica’s eyes dart from Henley to me, searching mine for help.

  “Henley, Jessica has had to take care of some things, and you weren’t up for company. It isn’t easy seeing you like this. She didn’t stay away to hurt you.”

  “No, it looks like she stayed away to get fucking plastered.”

  “Hen… I, I, I’ve had things I needed to deal with, and I…”

  Henley cut Jessica off, “Like a miscarriage you and my brother knew about and didn’t tell me? Jesus Christ, what else do the people I love hide from me?”

  Jagger and Kip walk into the kitchen no doubt following Henley’s shrieks.

  “Henley, I just didn’t know how to…”

  “Didn’t know how to what, Jessica? Was it Caleb’s?”

  Jessica’s head hangs as the admission she’s held private for five years crosses her lips, “Yes.”

  “And why didn’t you tell me? He was my best friend.”

  “It happened six weeks after Caleb passed. You were fresh out of the hospital and grieving like hell. Henley, you were a fucking zombie! How did you expect her to tell you? She was protecting you. When was she supposed to bring it up?” I raise my voice at her.

  “Fuck you, Koi. You knew about this shit and hid it. Who else knew?” she asks.

  Jagger’s guilt shows as his head hangs in his silent admission.

  “You fucking knew and didn’t tell me?” she grits out at him.

  “It wasn’t my business to tell, baby,” he answers without making eye contact with her.

  “Who else?” she asks.

  Fuck, she is trying to figure out who hid it from her. I won’t lie to her.

  “Everyone, except Kip, Stephanie, Rhys, Griffin, and Kathrine,” I answer.

  “So you are telling me all of our parents and friends, except for five hid the fact that after my best friend died, so did his child?”

  “Yes,” I answer.

  She turns on her heel and leaves the room. Samantha, who has remained silent throughout the entire exchange, follows her.

  I hear their shouts, and then the crash. We all run to see the damage. Henley is rampaging through the house slinging shit off shelves, swiping entire surfaces of their contents, and then throwing her hand into a mirror on the wall.

  “Fuck!” she screams.

  She turns her rage-filled face on us, and I flinch. This will not end well.

  “What else don’t are y’all hiding? What else are the people who are supposed to love me, hiding from me?”

  The guilt washes over my face because recognition fills her eyes. Shit.

  “What, Koi?” she grits out. “What else do you need to tell me?”

  I lie, “Nothing.”

  “Bullshit!” she screams.

  She looks at Jagger, then Samantha and Jessica, who all flinch under her stare too, “You all know something. What is it?” she softly asks.

  Not one of us is willing to spill it, so she leaves us all staring after her as she exits the French doors to her deck. Maybe she just needs to be alone for a while.

  “Maybe we should tell her,” Samantha says.

  “She’s right. If she finds out we hid this from her any longer than we had to, this will seem like a toddler’s temper tantrum,” Jagger says as he points to the mess she created in her home.

  “I don’t want to fucking know. I have been kept out of all this bullshit so far, and I won’t fucking lie to her or hide shit from her. It would piss me the fuck off too. I don’t want to know!” Kip says as he exits the room.

  We’ve always kept Kip, Kathrine, Stephanie, Rhys, and Griffin out of the loop when we hid things from her. All of them would tell her, and wouldn’t consider the fallout before their loyalty won over.

  “Take Jessica to your place, Sam. She doesn’t need to be alone,” I instruct.

  Jagger and I find Henley staring into space on her back deck.

  “Get the fuck out of my house,” she says.

  “Hen, listen, nobody wants to hurt you…” I begin.

  “You heard me,” she interrupts.

  “I love you, baby sister. I always will. I get you’re angry, and maybe if I were in your position, I would be too. Sometimes we make decisions to protect
the people we love, and we still end up hurting them. One day you will understand. I am always here, only a phone call away,” I say and leave her home.

  As I enter the car, I call Kathrine to come take care of her hand. She’ll let Kathrine near her because she’s one of the few who hasn’t betrayed her trust. She needs Kathrine because she is one of the few who hasn’t broken her heart.

  Chapter 13

  Henley

  My mind reels over the possibilities of the hidden secrets and hushed murmurs my friends and family keep between them, far away from me. The insane probabilities my mind manufactures drives my rage further into frenzy. I have no animosity towards Jessica for sleeping with Caleb, I never saw him as more than my brother, my partner-in-crime. My resentment does not derive from her miscarriage, it hails from the deceit of it all. Perhaps my reaction would’ve been different if my parent’s and Jagger’s deceit had not still been so raw. The wounds have not scabbed over on my heart, and the people who love me continue to dig their claws into my heart. Forgiveness is eventual and inevitable, but it’s not possible without all the information shared first.

  Kathrine interrupts my pessimism when she kneels down beside me. Her sweet face is filled with sympathy, and I normally despise looks of pity, but Kathrine is such a kind person. I feel a little better with her here. She picks up the hand I smashed against the mirror in the midst of my temper tantrum and examines it thoroughly. She stands moments later and returns with first aid supplies. Kip follows with a flashlight, and Kathrine winces.