by Brandi Aga
I’m disoriented from the loud sounds of the ringing in my ears from the gun going off. Maddy’s crying and Ryan is shouting but it all sounds so far away. I run to put Maddy in her room and lock the door behind me from inside so no one can go in.
I come back out to the literal scene of the crime that just went down in my living room slash dining room, and both Roman and Ryan are standing over Blaze’s slumped over body.
“Baby.” Ryan puts his hands on my shoulders like he’s about to try and explain the alphabet to a toddler. “He’s not doing good. Not breathing right. I need you to help him, okay? It’s okay. I’m right here.” That’s when I realize he’s using that voice on me. The gentle, patient one. I must look like I’ve lost it.
“Okay, let me look at him.”
“Okay, good. You have to go,” he says, looking to Roman.
“What?” we both question at the same time.
“Can’t be here when the cops get here. Not if you want to keep seeing her. Just go.” Roman looks around the room like he’s fighting an internal battle within himself. For me, maybe. Or simply only for Maddy, I don’t know. Maybe he just doesn’t want to go back inside. Not after getting a taste of freedom after all this time.
Ryan picks up on his internal struggle and assures him that we’ve got this. “Just get the fuck out, or don’t, it’s your last chance.” He puts his cell phone to his ear and leans it on his shoulder so he can help me while he talks. Once I’m able to take in the scene around me, my nurse mode seems to kick back in as if it never left. My hands are shaky, and I still can’t hear a damn thing, but I can do this.
“Leylah. Tell me to stay.”
I shake my head. “It won’t change things, just go.” I shift all my attention over to Ryan so he can give me what I need to get through this. After struggling to make the right decision, Roman takes that as his cue to leave. I’m okay with it. Surprisingly, more than okay. I don’t want him to go back to prison any more than he does. Not for my sake, but our daughter’s. She doesn’t deserve to have to feel that pain.
“Help me pull him out a little bit. I need to see if there’s an exit wound.” Ryan pulls Blaze’s body over a few inches away from the kitchen island so I can get to him easier. I put my fingers on his pulse points and there is one but it’s all over the place from whatever drugs he’s on. Between that and the blood loss, he doesn’t have long. I also don’t see an exit wound. He could be bleeding internally, and we won’t know it without getting him to the hospital. I put my hands to his chest and pump air into him with everything I’ve got.
“Don’t. You. Freaking. Die,” I chant between compressions to his chest. CPR is nothing like in the movies. You can’t stop. You keep going to get a pulse or keep going to keep one. You stop and the damage done will be irreversible later. My arms are already jelly and sweat pours down my face, but I don’t stop. I feel for a pulse again, and it’s there but faint. As long as I can keep it steady until real help arrives. I just hope they hurry before my body gives out. I’m literally breathing for the both of us and I can only go for so long without someone else’s help.
“They’re sending an ambulance. What do you need me to do?” Ryan asks me all kinds of questions, and I send him through the motions to help but I don’t physically hear anything. Not until I’m being pulled off Blaze and two EMTs take over what feels like an eternity later. It’s almost like having an outer body experience and I just came crash landing back down into my own body at two hundred miles per hour.
“They got it, Ley.” Ryan wraps his arms around me, and I can’t move. My body rests limp against his. My bloody hands hanging down by my side.
“We need to check her out.” Stranger after stranger is poking and prodding around me.
“I think she’s in shock.” I think I hear Ryan tell the paramedic, but I’m not sure who is who. Bright lights shine in my eyes and my heart is beating so fast. All of a sudden, I’m hit with a wave of exhaustion and confusion and I just want to take a nap. I look down at my blood covered hands and it’s the last thing I remember seeing before everything goes black.
Machines beeping and hushed voices cut through my dreams. Is it my dreams? Or am I dead? Everything hurts. Do you still feel pain when your dead? I slowly try to fight through the fog to hear what’s going on around me, or at least I feel like it’s slow. Apparently not slow enough because everything is screaming at me. The beeping, my body, the voices. Why does everything hurt so bad?
“Leylah, can you hear me?”
I blink several times until I can clearly see the once blurry woman standing beside me. An unfamiliar face isn’t what I wanted to see. I look down and palm my middle with sore arms just to find that my belly is flat. My baby is gone as if it never existed.
“Leylah, relax.” The nurse puts her hand on mine to calm me down. I do as she instructs and breathe in and out until I slow my heartrate to normal.
“Hey, babe.” Ryan’s right beside my bed, too. I just didn’t see him before. Everything happened so fast, and yet I have no recollection of time at all right now. “You wanna hold him?” He gently rocks a now unhappy baby after all the ruckus I made my machines make.
“He’s okay?” I wince as I give my best effort to sit up a little bit taller. I realize now that I’ve been out for quite some time. I clear my throat that feels like sandpaper when I try to talk, and my lips are dry and sticking together.
“He’s perfect! Six pounds, four ounces, nineteen inches long,” the nurse declares, handing me an extra pillow to support him in my lap. “So you don’t hurt your belly. Your incision.” She gestures to my abdomen where I’m guessing they took my baby from. Holy balls. I had a c-section and never even knew it. He was early, too. I knew doing those compressions all that time that one of us wasn’t going to come out of it unscathed. Which reminds me of the whole night all over again and I feel sick to my stomach.
Ryan places the tiny baby burrito on the pillow in my lap.
“I’ll be right back with your medicines. Give you three some alone time.” The nurse ushers her way out the door with her electronic charts and gadgets and leaves us alone for the first time since everything happened. Ryan grabs a chair from across the room and pulls it up next to the side of the bed.
“I don’t remember anything,” I admit.
“Anything?”
“I mean, I remember that, but nothing afterward. Like how I got here. And him.” I take his little baby beanie off and rub my fingers over his hair. So much blonde. Completely opposite of his big sister. “Where’s Maddy?”
“She’s fine. She’s at the sitter’s house. With everything that happened, I figured she’d be better there until we get things cleaned up.”
I nod, relieved she’s not at home after that. It feels tainted, dirty. I don’t know how I’m going to feel walking back into it when I have to leave here.
“You passed out. Your blood pressure skyrocketed to stroke levels and his was bottoming out,” he nods toward the baby, “so they drove you in and knocked you out to take him by c-section. I didn’t even get to scrub in with you till they were pulling him out, it all happened so fast. You’re going to be sore for a few days.”
“He looks just like you.”
Ryan grins. “I know. I knew you’d give me shit for that.”
“I do all the work and then he comes out looking like a mini Ryan. Totally unfair.”
“Oliver,” Ryan suggests. “Oliver James.”
Tears hit the corner of my eyes unexpectedly and the importance of his name hits me right in the feels. Ryan’s Papaw’s name. “He and I had some heart-to-heart walks up and down the halls while we waited for you to wake up. We came up with his name while we waited. We thought you might like it.”
“I love it. It’s everything I wanted and then some.” I dab my eyes with the tissues he hands me, and he kisses the top of my head. If he thought I was emotional before, the feelings I have now are going to blow his socks off.
We spend the
next hour ogling our brand-new baby. He was here with me last time I did this, but it was definitely nothing like this. I felt abandoned by Roman and a burden to Ryan. Not this time, though. This time, I feel such an outpouring of love. I feel like I could burst open like a pinata and little tiny hearts might just float around the room. It’s not just the hormones, it’s Ryan. The way he feels standing next to me is what I’ve been waiting for all this time. But he’s been there all this time, it’s just taken me a lot longer than it should have to realize it. To feel it. And boy, do I feel it. If I could only ever have one feeling for the rest of my life, this would be it.
“It’s crazy what they found at Erin’s place.” After our moments of intimacy, his voice becomes harder and strained. I know this topic pushes all his boundaries, but we can’t sweep it under the rug. His choice of words though, ‘Erin’s place’, confuses me.
“What do you mean? Did he make it?”
“He did. He’s here, too, if they haven’t already transported him over to County. It sounds batshit crazy when you say it out loud, but apparently, he’s been stalking us. Or me rather. He had all kinds of pictures of me going to work and coming home. Keeping track of my whereabouts, I suppose.”
“But why?”
“I don’t know, babe. Revenge? Jealousy? He was on some shit. That alone makes people do crazy things. You know that. Plus, that’s something you’re going to have to talk to Roman about, I guess. Though from the look on his face that night, I don’t know that he knows either.” Oh God. Will it ever not bring me shame to hear his name leave Ryan’s lips?
“Later,” I agree but don’t feel like talking about Roman any further right now.
“Oh, they found Cloud.”
“What? Where?”
“Erin’s apartment,” he cringes. “She’s okay. She’s with Maddy at the sitter’s, too.”
I lay my head back on the pillow and rest my eyes. This is all so fucked up. My best friend teamed up with a drug addicted psycho that couldn’t handle the life he chose, so he came after mine instead?
He wanted to hurt Roman. How do you hurt the one person that can’t be broken? Hurt me.
Oliver starts to cry, that sad helpless newborn cry. I lift him up to my chest and lay him on me, skin-to-skin, and he stops crying. Ryan rests his arm across us and lays his head on the side of the bed. I know in this exact moment that this is exactly where I’m supposed to be.
Me: What’s going on?
Me: You guys good?
Me: Anything new?
I stop texting after the first forty-eight hours of radio silence. I caught the first flight back to California. Didn’t want to be caught dead anywhere near the state of Texas when the shit hit the fan. I was already too close for comfort being in her house. If she would have told me to stay, I know I would have. I’d have laid my life down or gone back to prison. Either way, I put it all in her hands. Dick move to put that on her shoulders, but I couldn’t make the decision myself without her approval.
I’ve sent multiple texts and haven’t received a response yet. It’s stupid of me to do that, even, but I need to know.
I should have brought Maddilyn with me. I should have stopped him from going there in the first place. I should have done a lot of things that I didn’t do.
I’ve lost two days of my life to my latest alcoholic binge. Veronica’s sent me texts and came to the shop, but all I can do is sit here in the dark corner of my office and drink away my regrets.
My phone pings sometime later in the day. I had drifted off to sleep in my office chair.
Leylah: Everything’s okay.
I close my eyes and rest my head in my hands, relief coursing through me at just those two little words.
Me: Where’s Maddilyn?
Leylah: She’s fine. At the sitter’s house.
Leylah: I’m still at the hospital. Phone was dead.
Me: And you’re okay?
I can’t bring myself to ask the other question. Is B okay, too? I decide I’m not going to incriminate myself through text messages. Through all of Veronica’s bitching, I may have learned a thing or two. I’m still a fuck-up but I listen sometimes.
Leylah: Yeah. Had the baby. He’s perfectly healthy.
Me: Congrats.
I remind myself to thank Ryan for that night next time I see him. He’s an asshole and so am I, but we love the women that we love and when it comes down to it, we’d do anything to protect them. I can’t fault him for that.
Now that I know everything’s okay on that end of the world, I grab my keys and drive to V’s. I’ve got a lot of shit to mend on this side of the world before everything aligns as it should.
I grit my teeth and turn the knob, in hopes that it turns and lets me right in. I’m shocked as hell when it does. I knew for sure after I left all of her messages unanswered again, she’d shut me out for good this time.
All the lights are off and her bedroom box fan that she sleeps with is on. I can hear it as I walk down the hall. I may be big on my feet but I’m quiet as a church mouse and she doesn’t hear me coming.
I stop in her bedroom doorway and watch her sleeping. She works so hard while I’m out there tearing up lives and breaking up gun fights. Shit’s exhausting. I should join her world. It looks pretty cool from where I’m standing.
I take my boots off, step over my discarded clothes, and climb into bed beside her.
“What are you doing here?”
I pull her in to me as close as she can get. “I missed you,” I whisper. Her confused state doesn’t know what to think of me here. She drapes her arm over me and gently traces circles around my skin with her middle finger.
“Is it over?”
I look down at her, even though I can’t see her face, and the level of patience this girl has given me is astounding. I forget what I’m dealing with when it comes to her, how smart she is. She’s not just another piece of ass to hit it and quit it. She’s proven that a hundred times over just being here with me right now.
“Yeah, V. It’s over.”
My pain meds have all but wore off and I’m waiting on the nurse to bring me some more. I of all people should know better than to wait to ask for it till the pain is already rearing its ugly head. My incision is screaming at me and I could sleep for days, but I’m all too aware of how lucky I am and blessed to be okay after everything that’s happened over the past few days.
Ryan ran home to check on Maddy and get us something to eat while the nursery gives Oliver a quick sponge bath. I’m about to indulge in a luxurious catnap while I have a moment alone.
I’m just about to drift off to sleep when there’s a soft knock on the door. It’s so quiet, it could almost pass for a knock on the neighboring room’s door. I lay here for a minute, and hear it again, louder this time and I know someone’s here. So much for sleep.
“Hello?” I hear the voice call out, and immediately wish I could disappear. I am so not in the mood for this.
“Hey, Janice.” Of course, she comes when Ryan isn’t here. I’m sure that was her intention, she was just hoping to catch me alone anyway, so she can tear us apart some more.
“I heard about what happened. Ryan told me. I hope you don’t mind I stopped by.” She props her hip up on the side of the bed and sits at my feet. I move over slightly, but the movement makes me cringe. “No, no. No need to move, I’ll just be a second.”
“The baby’s in the nursery.”
“I would love to see him, though that’s not why I’m here.” She crosses her arms over her purse on her lap and takes a deep breath as she looks around the room. “I know I can be a bit impertinent.”
“Oh…Okay.” I’m not exactly sure what she’s wanting me to say, here. I don’t feel like ‘yes, I agree’ would fly.
“Anyway, my point is, I was out of line for what I said to you in the mall.”
“Ah. Ryan told you?”
“He did, but it’s more than that. I have been this way for a long time and punished you
unfairly. Both of you, really. You’ve been in Ryan’s life for a long time now, and I hardly know you. I’ve been doing some thinking and I realize that if my son loves you, then you must mean something awfully special to him and I want to know that part of you too, if you’ll have me.”
Hell has frozen over. Speechless. Shocked.
She finally pats my feet and stands to go. “I know it’ll take time, but let’s make this better.”
“I’d like that.”
In perfect timing, my nurse shows up with the next round of my pain meds. I welcome her with open arms. Janice takes that as her cue to leave and I don’t argue.
“Once you get settled, let me know and I’ll come by and see the baby. I’ll let you rest now.” It’s going to take a lot more than just a few words to get me to open up to this woman that’s hated me for no fault of my own for years. I’ll let my guard down little by little but she’s right, it’s going to take time.
Just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse than Janice walking through my door, Ryan walks in sheepishly with a redhead on his heels. Fuck, the fate of this day is just shoving all my least favorite people straight at me.
“I don’t know if I should do this right now. I don’t know if I can do this.”
Ryan and I might have fighting words later if he leaves me alone with her. She senses my anger and rightfully so.
“He didn’t bring me here, if you’re wondering. Don’t be mad at him. I was coming here to see you and ran in to him on the way up.” Ryan rounds the bed and stands by my side.
“Why would you come here?”
“To see you. And apologize.”
“Apologize?” I laugh. “You stole my cat and kept her from me for a long time. You stayed by the man’s side who wanted to hurt me and my husband and almost killed my unborn child.” I’m all but shouting by the time I’m finished and all the effort it takes to recite my anger leaves me in physical pain, but I can deal with it until she’s gone.
