by Stella James
Worth The Fight
Written By Stella James
Copyright © 2016 Stella James
All rights reserved
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons living or dead, events or locales are entirely coincidental.
Cover design by Dani René
Acknowledgments
As I always do, I must thank my incredibly patient and loving husband for his unwavering love and support. To my children who continue to show me every single day what it means to love unconditionally, thank you for being mine.
L, R and J – you continue to be my anchors and biggest supporters, I love you. Thank you for always being there to encourage me. You make me not only a better writer but also a better human and there is no way in hell I could do any of this without you.
To my insta-family and friends, you know who you are. I love each and every one of you. Thank you so much for not only supporting my work but for also giving me endless love and encouragement. You truly mean the world to me.
To my fellow Indies who have shown me such insane kindness and love, not only am I incredibly grateful to be in your company as a writer, but I am constantly overwhelmed by your level of friendship and support. Self-publishing isn’t nearly as scary as it was the first time because of all of you. Thank you so much for everything. Every pep talk, every teaser, every share and every comment. Also – if you’ve befriended me in any way, thank you for accepting that sometimes I send you meaningless crap and pointless messages. Thank you for allowing me to talk to you about things that sometimes have nothing to do with writing.
Thank you Dani René for the beautiful cover and formatting – you are my wonderfully talented naughty fairy godmother and I’m so thankful for you. I’m going to cling to you and never let you go (in a mostly non-creepy way).
And lastly, thank you to anyone out there who has picked up one of my books and given me a chance. I truly hope that you will continue on this crazy journey with me. My promise to you, is that I will always work hard to be better. I will do my best to never stop learning and growing as a writer.
Thank you all so very much, the amount of love and gratitude I have for you is infinite.
Xoxox- Stella
This book is for my Grandpa L.
Your painting hangs on my wall, your unfinished manuscript sits on my desk. You always used to tell me that I could be anything I wanted. It only took me thirty years to figure it out.
Better late than never.
I miss you and I think of you often.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Epilogue
Bonus Epilogue
About the Author
Excerpt from Worth the Chance
An excerpt from Running with the Devil
Chapter 1
Kate
I stand at the end of the hospital bed and stare at the man I hardly recognize laying on top of the crisp white sheets. I’ve been in Germany for just over a month now but it feels like a lifetime. His right arm and most of his torso are wrapped in white bandages, his usually clean cut jaw is covered in dark scruff. The body of the eighteen year old boy I once knew is gone and has been replaced with the solid muscles of a man. Swirls of dark ink cover his chest and most of his uninjured arm. But that’s not what makes him unfamiliar to me. It’s the distant and often angry look in his dark brown eyes when he’s awake. It’s the way he turns from me when I speak to him and the fact that he’s hardly spoken a single word to me in return. I’ve spent the last month quietly observing while his mother fusses over him and his dad tries to sell him on the idea that now is the perfect time for him to join the family business. I’ve watched him pretend to care. I don’t blame him for that, or for any of it. I can’t blame him because he’s hurting and all I want to do is take it away, but I can’t. No one can.
My focus is blurred as I continue to stare. This man before me isn’t the same person I’ve known since I was five years old. I fear that version of him is lost, perhaps never to be found again. I am selfish to stand here wondering if I’ll ever hear his laugh again, selfish to even feel a tiny bit sorry for myself over the fact that my best friend wants nothing to do with me. I know I am. But I can’t seem to help myself.
“Katie?”
I step closer to the bed and reach for his hand. I can’t not reach for his hand. He pulls his back instantly and denies me the simple act of giving him comfort.
“I’m here Asher.”
“I need you to do something for me Katie,” he opens his eyes and I can see his barely contained discontent as his gaze falls upon my own.
“I’ll do anything Asher, you know that.”
“Get the fuck out of my room, and go home.”
“But-“
“No. No more Katie. If you want to do something for me, pack your bags and get the fuck away from me.”
I want to fight his certainty. I want to reassure him that everything will be okay. But I don’t. Because for the first time in nearly my whole damn life I feel completely lost. I honour his request and simply nod my response. I hold back the tears that so desperately try to escape and as he turns his head away from me, I turn my back on him. I leave because this is the first time in just over a month that he has asked me for anything.
*
As I lug my heavy suitcase up the two flights of stairs to my apartment, the exhaustion of jet lag is already setting in. Doubt plagues me as I get closer to my front door. Maybe I shouldn’t have left. Maybe I should have stayed in that hospital room and taken the punches that Asher so desperately needed to throw. The day I got the call from his parents that he had been wounded on his last deployment is a day that I will never forget. I was in the kitchen making a grocery list. Such an ordinary thing to be doing when you are suddenly told that one of the most important people in your life is in critical condition and you can’t do a God damn thing about it. Mike and Nadine Montgomery have been friends with our family since they moved to Blue Falls when Asher and I were five years old. They’ve lived on the acreage down the road from my parents for just as long and I was grateful that day that they thought to include me in their travel plans. We rushed to the hospital they had taken him to as soon as we landed. By the time we got there he’d already had one surgery and was stable. As soon as he was allowed visitors his parents went in first while I waited anxiously in the hallway. I wanted to see for myself that he was safe but I waited my turn. His parents went to find the doctor as I stepped into the small, dimly lit room. Machines surrounded the bed, beeping and clicking. I held back the sob that tried so very hard to escape as I stepped lightly to the side of the bed. I sat down in the cold plastic chair and took Asher’s hand in mine. His eyes opened as he turned to me.
“Katie?” His voice was deep and coarse.
“I’m here Asher, you look terrible by the way.” I spoke the words through a smile.
He smiled back and reminded me so much of the boy I used to play with. I remembered the young man I used to watch from a distance when the politics of adolescence insisted that we run in different crowds and I thought of the brave man who passed up a football scholarship to serve his country instead. That one smile summarized all of the different stages of Asher that I knew. He squeezed my hand and closed his eyes and I allowed myself to think that everything would be okay. But by the next morning, that smile was gone and in its place was the blank expression of a stranger.
I unlock my door and kick it shut behind me. My mail is scattered all over my kitchen table, the two small plants that I keep on the windowsill above the sink are brown and dead. That’s Mona for you. That girl can take years off your face with a new cut and colour, but stacking the mail neatly and watering plants is just not her thing. God I miss her. I miss everyone. Cole insisted on picking me up from the airport and I was relieved. My brother and I are close and I knew he wouldn’t badger me with questions. I wasn’t ready to spill everything to Mona and my mother has a sixth sense for knowing when something’s up. She would have hounded me relentlessly and I’m just not ready. The ride home was quiet, Cole talked mostly about his sons. My twin nephews are just about seven months old now and ridiculously adorable. I added a phone call to his wife Lily to my mental list of things to do, along with phoning the office and letting them know that I am back and will be at work on Monday. There’s more to add but I can’t bring myself to care. I kick off my shoes and crawl into bed. I’m asleep seconds after my head hits the pillow.
Chapter 2
Asher
6 months later
I open my eyes and stare into the darkness of the room. I glance at the alarm clock on the night stand and see that I’ve been asleep for three hours. I kick off the covers now soaked with my own sweat and take several deep breaths, focusing on each inhale and exhale like that fucking therapist told me to. He was annoying as hell but the breathing thing usually works to calm my racing heart, I’ll give him that. I count down from sixty and when I reach one, I close my eyes again until my blood stops rushing and the thumping in my skull begins to slack off.
I’ve been officially discharged from the army for six months now. Twenty seven years old and I’m caught somewhere in between being young and feeling old. I headed to Germany two days after graduating from basic training and didn’t look back for nine years. I didn’t come home between deployments, instead I took any dwell time I had and travelled Europe. I knew when I enlisted that I not only wanted to serve my country but I also wanted to see the world beyond Blue Falls. My folks were certain I’d take the football scholarship that I was offered but that was never an option for me. Come to think of it, I imagine everyone thought I’d take it. Everyone except Katie. She knew I wouldn’t. She always knew me better than anyone else. It didn’t matter how much time went by that we didn’t talk or how many times we passed each other in the halls of high school without so much as a hello. She knew me, and I knew her. I remember the first time I met her. I was five years old and my parents had just moved us to Blue Falls. Katie and her mom came over one afternoon, walking up our long driveway, they each carried a pie. She was wearing a white dress with red shoes and she had a bow in her perfect blonde hair. I don’t know why the fuck I remember that, but I do. Our mothers stood there in the driveway talking while we eyed each other up. Finally she handed me the pie she was holding and told me that it would be okay. I don’t know how she knew that I was pissed off about leaving my friends and our old house, but she did. At five years old, Katie Stone saw right through me. We spent the entire summer before kindergarten together almost every day. When school started we sat together on the bus every morning and every afternoon. The only time we split up was at school when I would go play with the boys and she’d play with Mona and the other girls. But as soon as school was done for the day we’d pick up right where we left off. It was the same in high school, I was the stereotypical jock, partying and copping a feel whenever I could. Katie was on the honour roll and spent most of her time volunteering for extra credit. I asked her once when we were sitting in the tree house her dad built why she thought we were such good friends. We were eight years old.
“We’re friends because I see you Asher. We’re friends because I don’t like to get messy, but when I’m with you I don’t mind so much.”
Such a simple answer. But nothing is simple anymore. I’m fucked up and I know it. Seven months ago I was days away from leaving a combat zone in Afghanistan. I had plans to bum around Europe with my buddies, getting laid and getting drunk. I would be living. Instead I woke up in a hospital bed with severe third degree burns, two friends dead and gone and an early retirement.
I open my eyes before the memories come again. The flames, the blood, the bodies. That shit messes with my head. When the doctors were done fixing my mangled flesh as best they could, they sent me to a counselor to deal with my PTSD. Post- traumatic stress disorder. That’s what they call it anyways. I call it a God damn nightmare that I can’t wake up from. Throw in some survivor’s guilt and you have one hell of a cocktail. I hardly sleep and when I do the memories come for me without mercy. I’m pissed off most of the time and everything feels grey. I don’t know how else to describe it. I’ve been home for two weeks now, all of which I’ve spent at my dad’s fishing cabin near the lake. I know my parents are glad I’m home but they don’t understand that I’m different now. I’m not the same kid I was when I left. I don’t know if I’ll ever be that kid again but I do know that I’m better off alone.
I head to the bathroom and turn the shower on, stepping under the spray I feel some of the tension leave my shoulders. I try to distract myself from thinking about Katie. I usually do a pretty good job but when it’s too quiet, her pale green eyes sneak up on me and I have no choice but to relive the last time I saw her. I had just gotten out of another surgery to graft more skin onto my side. She was hovering near the edge of the bed after convincing my parents to get out for a bit and do some sightseeing. She stood there looking like a fucking angel. She was clean and perfect, not a hair out of place. Typical Katie. And in that moment I hated her for it. I hated that I was a mess of painful scars and raised, angry flesh. I hated that two of my friends were dead. I hated that I would never see active duty again. I hated that my head was all fucked up. I hated that nine years had passed and the girl I used to know had grown up into a woman who was so fucking beautiful that she took my breath away. We’d skyped and sent mail to each other but it wasn’t the same as seeing her in person again. Feeling her eyes on me and seeing her smile. I hated the memories all of that brought me. She was my best friend and I couldn’t stand the sight of her. So I pushed her away.
I get dressed knowing full well that sleep won’t come again for several hours, if at all. I make some coffee and grab the tackle box and fishing rod that sit beside the door. The sun is just coming up as I make my way down the narrow path to the boat that’s tied securely to the old wooden dock. For the next several hours I won’t be the injured soldier. I won’t be the has-been football star or the miserable bastard who hates the world. I’ll be a man on a boat, trying to catch a fucking fish.
*
I pour myself another shot of cheap whiskey and embrace the burn as the liquid slides down my throat. My nightly ritual for the last fourteen days consists of eating alone, chopping wood for the small stove and drinking enough booze to temporarily make me forget. When I was honourably discharged from the army I was given pamphlets and contact information for different counselors in my area. Group meetings and weekly sessions with a shrink are apparently the answer to the dark clouds brewing in my head. I disagree. I’ve had about all the therapy I can take and whiskey doesn’t ask me how I feel. Feel. How can I explain something to someone else when I can’t even explain it to myself?
I recline back and prop my feet up on the chair across from me. There’s a chill in the air but I don’t feel it. I stare acr
oss the water at nothing and take another shot before things get too quiet and I am forced to remember all of the shit that I’m trying to ignore.
Chapter 3
Kate
I pull up to my parent’s house just as Cole and Lily are leaving. They’re dropping the boys off in order to get some much needed alone time and I figured it was the perfect opportunity for me to come out and spoil my nephews rotten. My mom stands in the doorway with a chubby one year old on either hip and watches as I pull two massive bags from my back seat. It’s possible I went a little over board on the junk food, but Mark and Jackson are so damn cute I just couldn’t help myself. I haul the bags up the front steps and plop them down on the deck before greedily snatching one of the boys from my mother’s iron clad grip. Judy Stone is a selfish woman when it comes to her grandbabies.
“I don’t think you brought enough junk sweetheart,” she says.
“Pffft, who says this is for them? Maybe I’m going to drown myself in ice cream and cookies for the next two hours,” I pepper kisses all over Mark’s face and pretend to eat him. He giggles and smooshes my cheeks together with his sticky little hands.
“Kate honey, you are a lying asshole. You’re going to sugar them up and leave before your brother comes back and I’m going to have to suffer through another one of his lectures on the inconvenience of sugar before bed time.”
“Don’t say asshole in front of the kids, Judy,” I pick up my bags and head inside so that I can pump my nephews full of sugar and leave before Cole comes back.
*
I set each of the boys up at the kitchen table with a bowl of ice cream and a stack of cookies. What good is being an auntie if you can’t be the provider of goodies? I take my role very seriously.
