When I Fall

by J. Daniels

  He backs me into a tree, fists my shirt with both hands. Every vein in his neck is threatening to burst. His face is boiling, sweat beading beneath his hair line. Nostrils flaring, he looks ready to eat me alive as he gets nose to nose with me.

  “Don’t ever fucking tell me to think about my wife! You hear me?”

  I nod.

  “Fucking say it!”

  “Ben, ease up.” Luke’s voice comes from my right. It’s close so I know he’s moved into the woods.

  I hold my hand out, keeping Luke back, my eyes staying glued to Ben’s.

  “I hear you, man. But are you hearing me? Mia’s fucking scared. She called us all over here but she doesn’t need any of us. She needs you. And what the fuck are you doing?”

  Ben visibly shakes as he takes in a breath. “My entire world is about to be ripped from me.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “No?” he challenges. “What the fuck do you know, Reed? Can you tell me my wife is going to be okay? Can you tell me I’m not going to lose her?” Tears well up in his eyes. “I can’t fight this. Do you understand that? There’s nothing I can do if this shit decides to take her. And what about my boys? How the fuck am I going to explain this to them? You tell me how.” He releases me, taking a step back, staring me down for an answer.

  I keep my back flat against the tree, letting my hand fall to my side. “I don’t know. I don’t want to think about that.”

  “Yeah, well, I have to fucking think about it. I’m going to have to tell my sons their mother is dying.”

  “Stop saying that! Jesus fuck!” Luke yells, pointing at Ben. “You don’t know shit right now! Your woman is in there bawling her eyes out, needing you, and you’re out here coming up with the worst possible scenario in that thick as shit skull of yours! Man the fuck up and go to her!”

  Ben whips his head around and charges at Luke, getting up in his face, snarling like a caged animal. “Man the fuck up? Who the fuck are you to say that to me? Weren’t you the sorry ass motherfucker bailing on my sister last year because you couldn’t fucking handle how you felt about her? And you’re telling me to man up?”

  “I came back!”

  “Yeah, after I called you, dickhead. And now look at you. You’re still fucking scared to make that shit permanent. If anyone needs to man the fuck up, it’s you two idiots.” Ben glares in my direction.

  “What the fuck did I do?” I ask, moving away from the tree.

  Luke pushes against Ben’s chest. “Shut the fuck up! When I ask Tessa to marry me is none of your fucking business!”

  Ben snorts. “Right. Well, until you do, you ain’t got shit to say to me about this.” He looks at me. “Neither do you. Are you just going to stand there and do nothing while CJ takes out your girl?”

  I grit my teeth. “Leave her out of this.”

  His jaw ticks with a smile. “Did I hit a nerve, Reed?” He moves closer, tilting his head, that fucking grin stretching across his face. “What are you going to do about it? Huh? Are you going to let him move in on that pussy you’re strung-out on? Does she even know how pathetic you are over her yet?”

  “Ben,” Luke warns. My hands curl into fists.

  I help him eliminate the space between us. “I’m pretty sure she’s figuring it out. What’s your point?”

  His smile fades, a distraught frown replacing it as he looks between Luke and myself. His shoulders drop.

  “My point is that until you two assholes wise the fuck up and lock down your women for life, neither one of you will know what this shit feels like. I could get a phone call any second telling me Mia, my Mia is going to die. I can’t fucking handle that. I can’t think of my life without her in it, because I don’t fucking have one. What am I supposed to do if something happens to her? You’re both telling me to go inside and be there for her, and I can’t. I can’t let her see me like this. I’m supposed to be strong and I’m fucking terrified. I won’t let her worry about me when she’s the one . . .” Pausing, he wipes at his eyes, then rubs his hand over his face. His head stays tilted down as Luke and I exchange worried looks.

  “I have to think that this is it,” Ben says, the pain strangling his voice, making it sound like he’s been swallowing broken glass. “I have to start thinking she won’t be here with me. If I let myself believe anything else, and someone tells me I have to say goodbye to her . . . I told her I would never do that, two years ago after I got shot, I promised her, but I always knew something could happen to me. It’s the fucking job. But her being taken from me, leaving my boys without their mom, I’ve thought about how she would go on without me, but I never thought I’d be the one trying to figure this shit out. I can’t do it. If she dies, I die.”

  A soft gasp cuts through the air.

  Everyone’s attention is drawn to Mia.

  Standing at the tree line, she stares directly at Ben with a hand to her mouth. Her pain is silent, no cries, no whimpers, while Ben just announced his unintentionally in front of her. She heard him say he can’t do it. If she dies, he dies. Stuff she doesn’t need to be hearing right now.

  “Mia,” Ben chokes out, but doesn’t go to her. Doesn’t move an inch.

  Paralyzed by his own suffering, he stays glued to the ground as his breathing becomes violent, as the air between the two of them begins to pulsate with his agony. She must see it, his devastation, crippling him and keeping him captive. It strips the discomfort from her eyes.

  Slowly lowering her hand, she nods, as if to say she understands, or it’s okay, or I love you, then stares at Ben for another long second before turning and walking back to the house.

  Ben drops his head, pinching his eyes shut through a groan.

  I realize now there’s not a fucking thing I can say to help him get through this. Not after that.

  He turns and picks up another 2x4. I press my back against the nearest tree, slide to the ground, and rest my forearms on my knees. My head falls back as Ben strikes the trunk. Luke mimics my position a few feet away. Wood splinters in the air. Another 2x4 is broken, then another. Time passes as the pile of fragmented wood stacks high off the ground. I retrieve more lumber when Ben needs it, but doesn’t ask. Above the house, the sky burns in oranges and reds as the sun moves closer to the earth. Tessa walks down to the tree line at one point and asks if we need anything. Ben answers for the group.

  “Go back inside, and don’t come down here again unless you have news for me.”

  Luke glares at Ben, knuckles white, but doesn’t say shit to him about upsetting Tessa. Just cracks his neck from side to side and resumes looking at the dirt.

  Another ten boards are broken before I close my eyes.

  I try to think about anything that’ll take my mind off this horrible fucking mess, but nothing settles me. Nothing fills my head but images of Nolan and Chase missing their mom, crying over her, getting older and wondering where she is. Or Ben, a ghost of the man he is now, never getting over it, never accepting that she isn’t still here with us. He’s preparing himself for the worst, and fuck, maybe I should be to. What if this is it? What if Mia dies and we all lose her? What the fuck then?

  “Ben.”

  Mia’s voice snaps my eyes open, grabbing all of our attention so fast, it’s as if she’s shaking each one of us with it. The three women are standing at the edge of the yard where the tree line begins, Tessa and Beth flanking Mia’s side.

  I get to my feet. Luke does the same. Ben steps forward as I look down at the phone in Mia’s hand.

  “Ben.” Placing a hand on his shoulder, I’m ready to point out what I think brought the women down here, but he must already see it.

  “Angel,” he whispers, his voice shattered. He moves through the trees and cups her face in his hands. Luke and I move closer.

  Mia stares up at Ben, their foreheads touching. She smiles and he crushes his mouth against hers, lifting her off the ground. I collapse against the nearest tree, my legs ready to fail me as relief surges through my ve
ins.

  She’s smiling. She wouldn’t be smiling if it wasn’t good news.

  Mia’s words are broken up by Ben’s frantic assault on her. I manage to pick out something about the lump being nothing, benign or some shit. That’s all I need to know.

  “Thank fuck,” I say, rolling my head to the side. “Did you think he was going to hit me?”

  I look over at Luke, expecting a response, an acknowledgement, something. He’s staring at Tessa like a man possessed.

  Body stretched, eyes fixated on her with a darkening intensity, chest heaving in quick bursts. He moves past Ben and Mia, grabs Tessa’s face, and pulls her against him as his mouth drops to her ear. Her body goes still. Slowly lifting her eyes, she stares up at him for a long second, then nods. Luke kisses all over her face.

  Beth takes a few steps to her left, blushing at the two of them.

  Ben sets Mia down on her feet. “He’s sure?” he asks, keeping her in his arms. Mia nods her head. “Where was that fucker yesterday? He was supposed to call us. And why the fuck couldn’t we reach anybody all day? Does he know what we’ve been going through?”

  Mia smiles. “He was in surgery all day. He apologized for that.”

  “Give me the phone.”

  “Why? So you can threaten his life?”

  “Fucking right.” He kisses her again. “You’re really okay? We don’t need to worry about anything?”

  “I’m really okay.”

  Ben grabs her face again. “Mia, baby, I’m sorry I couldn’t . . .”

  “Shh.” She silences him with a finger to his lips. “I love you.”

  He closes his eyes, visibly relaxing, and kisses the top of her head. “I love you. So much.”

  I push off from the tree. “I need a beer. Anybody else feel like they need one?”

  Ben lifts Mia again. She squeals in his arms. “Fuck yeah. You know how close I was to hitting you?”

  I smile at Beth as I walk through the trees. “You know how close I was to hitting you? Calling me pathetic, like I don’t know.”

  Ben laughs. “You do need to handle that shit.”

  I nod, looking from Beth to Tessa and Luke, who are standing a few feet away.

  Luke lifts his head when we reach his side. Tessa’s climbing all over him like she needs his air to breathe, wrapping her limbs around his body.

  “We’re going to head out,” he says, looking at the group, his hands planted on Tessa’s ass. “Really fucking good news, Mia. We’re all really happy you’re okay.”

  “Soooo happy,” Tessa agrees, kissing Luke. She grabs his face and stares at his lip. “What the hell? Why is your mouth cut?”

  “Sorry about that, man.”

  Tessa glares at Ben after he speaks. “You hit him? Are you serious?”

  “Ben, you didn’t.” Mia leans back to look into Ben’s face.

  “It’s fine, babe. Your brother punches like a little bitch.”

  Ben shifts Mia against him, flipping off Luke.

  “Come on,” Tessa urges, pressing her lips against Luke’s neck. “We need to go,” she whispers.

  The group of us head across the yard toward the house. I fall in next to Beth.

  “Hey.”

  She lifts her head, smiling gently. “Hey.”

  “Wanna have a beer with me? Or do you need to go?”

  Her lips pull down. “I would love to stay and have a beer with you, but I’ve missed several calls from the bar and one from my aunt’s house. The messages just tell me to call them, but I can’t reach anybody at either number. The answering machine at the bar keeps picking up.”

  “Were you supposed to work tonight?”

  “No, but maybe they need me to come in. That might be why they were calling me.” She looks ahead of us, smiling when Mia giggles against Ben. “I’m so glad everything’s going to be okay. She told us about what she overhead. About him not being able to live without her. That broke my heart.”

  I turn my head, watching Ben carry Mia into the house, her hands threading through his hair while she kisses him. Beth and I continue down the driveway as Tessa and Luke get into their separate cars.

  I look over at her. “Yeah, I realized I didn’t have shit to say to him after that. Not that anything I had already said to him did much of anything, besides piss him off more. I should’ve just stood there and offered myself up as a punching bag.”

  Beth opens her car door, lifting a teasing eyebrow. “And mess up that pretty face? What about your service to the state of Alabama? You wouldn’t want to send all the women here packing, would you?”

  I smirk down at her as she settles into her seat. Grabbing the door, I prevent her from shutting it. “I don’t care about all the women. Just a handful. As long as they stick around, that’s all that matters.”

  She looks up at me, holding my stare through several deep breaths. Blinking away, she anxiously reaches for her belt. “I should go. Find out what’s going on with my aunt and uncle.”

  She backs out of the driveway, hesitating to pull down the street when her eyes can’t seem to leave mine. I don’t look away when she finally manages to pull her attention to the road and drive away from the house.

  She didn’t want to leave.

  If she hadn’t gotten those phone calls, she’d still be here talking to me, smiling, getting comfortable with me again. That’s what I want, and I’m going to get her there. Fuck CJ. That’s my smile. Nobody’s making her that happy but me.

  I step up to the front door, hand on the knob, listening to the sounds of Nolan giggling somewhere in the house. Ben and Mia need this time together, just them and the boys. After all this shit, it should just be the four of them, healing with each other. I don’t need to stick around for that.

  I get in my truck and back out of the driveway.

  Staying off the main roads, I take to the back ones I like to take when I’m not in a rush to get home. It’s after six o’clock now, so there’s no need for me to go back to the job site. Work’s closed for the day.

  Windows down, I inhale the cool night air as it blows against my face. Silence surrounds me, the only noise being the wind whipping around the bed of the truck. The tight coils of tension in my shoulders slowly unravel. I focus on the road in front of me, the quiet night, the faint smell of flowers nearby. My phone rings on the seat and I glance down at the name flashing on my screen.

  I hit speaker phone, grinning like a fucking idiot.

  “Miss me already?”

  She laughs, but there’s a nervousness to it. One I’d have to be fucking deaf to ignore.

  “Yeah, I . . . okay, this sounds really crazy, and stupid, and you’re probably going to laugh at how ridiculous I’m being right now, but is there any way you could talk to me for a little while? I know you hate talking on the phone, but I’m, I just . . . I would really, really love to talk to you right now.”

  I move the phone to my lap while my hand shifts gears. Her voice worries me.

  “Beth, what’s going on? Why do you sound like that?”

  The squeak of a mattress comes through the phone. “My aunt and uncle had to go out of town. That’s why they were trying to reach me, to let me know that they had to leave. I got home and found a note from them in the kitchen, and now I’m going to be in this house by myself for a few days and I’m freaking out a little. I just, I don’t like being alone, Reed. I don’t like not having someone to talk to.”

  I shift again, picking up speed while a pressure forms in my chest. She’s not freaking out. She’s fucking scared. Her breath is anxious against the phone, she keeps moving around on the bed, restless. Getting her to talk would be one approach, but she needs to hear my voice right now. She needs to know she’s not alone.

  Cue the most random shit I can think of.

  “I had this dog when I was little that I rescued. He was so nervous all the time, like his fucking hair would fall out if you sneezed around him. Or if you made any sudden movements when he was near you he’d
piss everywhere, and then he’d lay in it.”

  Beth laughs quietly as I turn onto another road.

  “Oh my God.”

  “We would’ve gotten rid of him, but we felt bad because his previous owners abused him, so it wasn’t his fault he was like that. Those assholes kept him tied up outside all day, neglecting him, and they gave him the worst fucking name.”

  “What was it?”

  “Butter.”

  “Butter?” she chokes on a giggle. “Why would you name a dog that? That’s so weird.”

  “Yeah, I know. I tried changing it and calling him Hulk, ‘cause I was obsessed with wrestling at the time, but he wouldn’t respond to anything except Butter. I fucking hated that name. I wanted this bad-ass dog, you know? I didn’t want to be hollering out the name Butter when he got off his leash.”

  “Did he look like a bad-ass dog?”

  “Fuck no. He always had these stupid bows in his hair that Riley would put on him. She wanted him to be a girl.” I pull into the driveway, taking the phone off speaker as I step down from my truck. “I caught him in my bed one day chewing on one of my shoes, and I yelled at him, and then I remembered that he always pees when you yell at him, and he was on my fucking bed.”

  Beth gasps. “Oh my God. Did he pee in your bed? Oh no, no, no.” She starts laughing again.

  “You want to know?”

  “Yes!” she cries.

  “Come let me in and I’ll tell you.”

  Her laughing cuts off. “What? Let you in? Are you at my house?” Movement sounds through the phone, the mattress springs, hinges of a door swinging open, her footsteps on the stairs. “Reed, are you really here?” she asks breathlessly a second before the door opens.

  I lean my shoulder against the frame. “That asshole peed all over my bed. I was so pissed,” I say into the phone.

  Eyes wide, she slowly lowers the phone from her ear, then lets go of it completely. It crashes against the floor, mine hits something when her tongue wets her lips. She lunges at me, wrapping her hands around my neck and presses her full, perfect, fuck, I love this mouth, against mine.