Finding Us

by S. K. Hartley

  “What do you remember?”

  “You. Holding a gun…” He paused, swallowing hard. “To my head.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Tate

  My head really fucking hurt. It hurt so much I could barely tolerate the throb that radiated through every crevice of my body. Dammit, everything hurt. My stomach, my head, and now my god damn heart as I stared at the one woman who could hurt me like no fucking other.

  “What do you remember?” she asked, her face blotchy from tears.

  “You. Holding a gun…” I paused, swallowing hard. Fuck, even my damn throat hurt. “To my head.”

  I felt the gasp before I heard it, my body instantly coming to life as it recognized the fear in that one tiny little sound. That one sound, the one of fear, did things to me I couldn’t explain. It made me want to throw my body out from the bed and roar like a fucking lion. The sound of fear and pain spiked my adrenaline every time it roughly rolled over my skin, pushing me to shuddering heights where I couldn’t think straight.

  My eyes felt glazed, as if I had been staring for too long without blinking. I was still lost somewhere between slumber and being fully awake. But the painful sob that ripped from Low’s lips had me more awake than I’ve ever been. My head snapped to the left. My head screamed in protest as I did. Fuck, that hurt! I groaned out in agony as I watched the woman I loved crumble to the ground beside my bed.

  “Low,” I croaked. God damn it, I could barely talk and I was becoming more and more frustrated every time I tried to swallow.

  I could feel, rather than hear, her sobs becoming stronger and it weighed heavy on my heart. I still couldn’t get the fucking fog to clear from my damn head. For the most part, I knew I was in a hospital, I knew I was in a bed, and I knew that I was injured… somewhere. Where? I had no fucking clue, but right then it felt like the only thing that was injured was my heart, and yet I still had no clue as to why it did.

  “Low,” I tried again, my voice not sounding so croaky but still hurting like a bitch. “Please. Low.”

  I felt the smooth, soft skin of her palm within mine, a feeling that was so familiar but yet so foreign. The gentle caress of her fingers against the very center of my palm was so soothing it almost washed away the sickening feeling that appeared in my gut. Almost.

  “What happened?” I whispered, the action relieving the pain against my throat.

  “You can’t remember anything after I…” she trailed off.

  I tried to focus on her but all I could see was a mass of blonde hair. She looked like a god damn angel, a glowing silhouette behind her, but something in the back of my painful mind told me she was nothing like an angel.

  I felt the guilt seeping out of her, as if she was bleeding it out right in front of me. Why did she feel so damn guilty? Because she held a gun against my head? My mind was a mess of memories, dreams and things I didn’t know if they were damn real. I groaned as I tried to remember what the hell happened to me, but coming up absolutely blank. Nothing. Fucking nothing other than a suffering scream at the back of mind.

  “I can’t remember.”

  My face was wet, why was my face wet? Fuck, I hadn’t felt so god damn vulnerable in all of my life. I couldn’t move my aching body, exhaustion seemingly taking over every fucking limb. I couldn’t move my god damn head without a thundering pain slicing right through me. I was fucking vulnerable and it wasn’t sitting well with me. At all.

  “Why can’t I fucking remember?” I growled, wilting back as the pain in my throat became too much.

  “Baby, you’ve been through a lot.”

  Low’s soothing voice wasn’t putting me at ease like it normally would. No, right now I wanted nothing other than to get out of this god damn bed and walk right out of this suffocating room. She said I had been through a lot. Go figure. I wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t been through a lot. The problem was I had no fucking clue what it was. No fucking clue. Nothing. Not. A. Thing.

  The wetness on my face was getting on my last nerve, it was getting worse. Was I bleeding or some shit? What the fuck? I tried to move my hand to wipe whatever the hell it was from my skin, but yet again, I was stuck to a motherfucking bed.

  “Tell me, Low,” I said, defeated.

  She paused and I growled. Get the fuck on with it already. Wait, why was I feeling so much rage towards the woman I’ve loved for years? This was the woman who had been at the center of my world for so long and now it felt like she had just dropped off the face of it.

  “Tate, you were shot by…” She suddenly paused, uncontrollable sobs leaving her perfectly sculptured lips.

  Then it hit me. It hit me full fucking force as memories fleeted through my mind like a movie. It was as if I was there but watching as an outsider.

  Guns.

  Men.

  Pain, so much fucking pain.

  Mafia.

  Low. Protecting what was mine.

  Suddenly noises erupted around the room, drowning out Low, drowning out everything. What was that noise? It took me only moments to realize that damn awful noise was coming from my own fucking mouth, as if the shock and the pain were filtering straight from my foggy mind, right out into the room around us.

  I tried to hold it back. I tried so god damn hard to gulp back the noise that just kept on coming. I could feel myself crumbling like a vulnerable child, like the vulnerable child I was all those years ago. My mind was still sifting through memories, years of memories that stayed with me but only now decided to show all their true colors.

  Memories of my mother weeping uncontrollably on her knees in her bedroom, the bed still made as if she hadn’t slept in it for weeks. The vulnerability of my younger self filled my entire body with dread as the memories just kept on coming.

  Empty vodka bottle.

  Pills on the floor.

  A broken heart.

  She was so limp, her body only focusing her energy in pouring out the grief through her tears, through the loud screams that broke the barrier of her lips. My former innocent self couldn’t comprehend what he was seeing, as if it was one of those nightmares my sister couldn’t control. Her tears kept on coming as she lay on the floor in a heap, the woman who was once always made up, always happy and cheery was gone. In her place was someone I didn’t recognize, someone defeated, someone who had given up all hope.

  I stood frozen on the spot as I concentrated on counting every single pill that lay within the fibers of the thick blue carpet.

  Nineteen.

  Twenty.

  Twenty-one.

  I knew exactly how many pills were in that tiny bottle. Exactly. I had been giving them to my mom for the first couple of weeks after my father was killed. They were pills to help her sleep, to help her ease the pain. Tears had already leaked out of my eyes, coating my skin in a fine sheen. I tried to focus through the blur, still counting those little white pills on the floor.

  Twenty-seven.

  Twenty-eight.

  A sigh of relief escaped my lips as it finally registered that she hadn’t taken any, twenty-eight pills were all there and accounted for. I quietly started to pick up the pills, counting each one as I went along, just to be sure.

  I placed the pill bottle on the bedside cabinet once the pills were back in their rightful place, my focus now solely on the woman who was a quivering wreck on the floor.

  “Momma,” I whispered.

  “Tate, go downstairs to your sister, baby. I just need to clean up the room.” She sniffed, her body covered in goosebumps.

  Suddenly, my body and heart were filled with rage. How dare she?

  “No,” I ground out, my voice and childlike self no longer innocent, only tainted. “You’re going to get up and clean yourself up. Get in the shower.”

  “Do as you’re told, Tate!” she cried.

  With sure steps, I grabbed her by her shoulders, using all of my strength to get her body to her feet. I pulled as she protested, all but dragging her into the bathroom. I pretty much thr
ew her down onto the toilet seat as I went to work on turning the shower on, grabbing towels from the bathroom closet as I waited for the water to heat.

  She cried softly to herself as I pulled her back up and pushed her into the shower fully clothed. I had no idea if what I was doing was right, but in that moment I was past giving her sympathy. She had lost her husband, we had lost our father. I wasn’t about to let her tumble down a road we wouldn’t bring her back from.

  I left the room as she wailed on the floor of the shower, slamming the door hard behind me. I stomped across the hallway, my anger boiling as I pushed open the door to my mom’s bedroom. I grabbed the pills, running back out to the hallway and into the bathroom.

  My mother suddenly stopped her crying as she watched me pour every single last white pill down the toilet before flushing them away. Turning, our eyes locked.

  “What would’ve happened if it was Neva who walked in on that? What if she would’ve been too late?” I said, shaking my head in utter disbelief. “Get dressed. Go downstairs.”

  “I’m sorry,” she breathed, standing on shaky legs as she turned off the shower.

  “From now on…” I gulped. “Don’t look me in the eye.”

  With that, I turned on my heel and left her in the bathroom.

  “Coward,” I whispered as I walked into my bedroom and slumped into a heap on my bed.

  I cried myself to sleep that night… and every night after that as my mother did exactly as I asked.

  She never looked me in the eye again.

  My eyes blinked open against the harsh light in the hospital room. I hadn’t even realized I had closed my eyes. The noise previously pouring from my lips had stopped, the only sounds audible were the hiccups coming simultaneously from Low and me.

  My gaze dropped onto Low, who was still crumpled on the floor, holding onto my hand for dear life. Her head was bowed, her shoulders slouched. She looked defeated, exhausted but still so fucking beautiful. She’s my calm before the storm, my own slice of heaven, my best friend, my lover… one day, my wife.

  “Baby,” I whispered, squeezing the tiny hand that was cradled in my own.

  Her gaze lifted, locking with mine. Her eyes were puffy, the soft flesh of her cheeks were blotchy and the tears she had cried blended with her flushed skin. She was a mess, but yet so stunningly beautiful that she could still take my breath away.

  My beauty hiding beneath the chaos.

  “Baby, come here,” I whispered, my voice still husky.

  Without a single hesitation, she leapt to her feet, wrapping her arms around me gently.

  “I’m so sorry,” she sobbed into my neck.

  Her scent surrounded me, encasing me and trapping me. Like always, like it always had. I consoled her as she wept, her sobs now completely uncontrollable as I held on to her. Tears built behind my eyes as I stroked the mass of blonde hair. One more gut-wrenching sob from her and I was right there with her.

  We held onto each other for a lifetime, holding on as we poured our pain, grief and love into the room. Suddenly, my hand was moving of its own accord, my body fighting against the sheer exhaustion that had taken over my body. My hand stilled as it grazed the soft flesh of Low’s waist, since her top had ridden up some. I was hesitant. Closing my eyes, I stopped over-thinking and gently placed my hand on the warm heat of her silky flesh, over her heart. I wanted her to know I remembered, that I could beat myself for ever forgetting.

  How could I ever forget about the woman who stole my heart? She stole my heart, encasing her own inside it before placing it back deep in my chest, but instead of one heart slowly beating… there were two.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Low

  I could feel Tate’s fresh tears running into my own as we both broke open, bleeding out together. We just held each other as if our lives depended on it, his hand softly running lazy circles on the skin of my waist, as if trying to soothe me.

  Our moment was suddenly interrupted by someone clearing their throat. I turned my head, noticing Dr. Carter standing in the threshold of the door with a smile on his face.

  “I’m so sorry to disturb you, but I need to check Tate out,” he said, walking to Tate’s bedside and smiling down at him. “I’m Dr. Carter. Welcome back.”

  “Thank you,” Tate replied warmly. There was something about Dr. Carter that made you feel at ease.

  “Well, your vitals look good. How are you feeling? Any pain?”

  “My body aches, and I have some pain,” Tate said with a wince. Some pain, my ass; more like a lot of pain. “I’m really thirty too.”

  “Okay, buddy. We’ll get you some more water and some pain meds, but first I need to see how your wound is doing. That okay with you?”

  Tate nodded, his hand moving from my chest only to fall into my palm. Squeezing gently, kept his gaze on me as Dr. Carter went to work removing the bandage over Tate’s stomach. My gaze momentarily moved over to where Dr. Carter was now examining Tate’s stitches. I counted twenty-two, but I had no doubt there was internal dissolvable ones too. That’s a lot of stitches. Guilt quickly surrounded the air as I tried to breathe.

  “You’re looking good, Tate. Your stitches are doing well, and if your vitals stay steady, I see no reason for you not to go home in a couple of days.” Dr. Carter smiled. “Now, you’ve been through a lot, your body is going to need time to heal properly, so I would say no strenuous activity for six weeks until we know you’re fully healed.”

  “Thank you.” Tate yawned, exhaustion taking over his strong features.

  “Get some rest, buddy. Tomorrow we can see how you deal with being on your feet. I’m sure you’d prefer your catheter out as soon as possible.” Dr. Carter smiled before taking Tate’s notes and leaving the room.

  The minute the door closed behind him, Tate’s gaze shifted to me.

  “There’s a fucking catheter… down there?” he groaned, his eyebrows pinching together. “Baby, please tell me he’s joking.”

  “Baby, you’ve been out for nearly a week.”

  “Nurses have been looking at my junk, haven’t they?” he groaned again, this time a little less dramatic than before.

  “Yes, but I made sure I was there every time they did,” I whispered.

  Tate’s eyes fluttered closed for a moment as he nodded; he was exhausted. He yawned and, before I knew it, he was snoring gently. Out like a light. I took the moment and made it ours, holding onto his hand, which had slackened within my grasp.

  The warmth of his skin warmed every piece of my flesh, my muscles, my nerves. Everything that was once cold deep inside me from the years of lies was awakened in that moment. The moment where I realized every little lie I placed within the glass confines of my jar of hearts was completely inconsequential. I had spent the last six years focusing on the consequences of my actions, my thoughts, my feelings. For the first time in a long time, I stopped thinking about what would happen, what could happen. For the first time, I was ready to live my life in the moment and share that moment with the people who have stood by me, who knew me for the girl I so desperately wanted to be.

  Because, as someone once said, love conquers all.

  But could I really give up the habits of a lifetime? Could I really give up the feeling of fear with every breath I took, with every step I took? My jar of hearts was the only constant thing in my life: it was the only thing that didn’t judge me. My jar didn’t discriminate: it didn’t care who I was when I placed each little heart inside it. It didn’t care whether I was Low Parker or Willow Knoxx.

  Could I really break the bond stopping me from moving forward?

  As my gaze rolled over Tate’s sleeping body, I reached for the jar I had hidden in my suitcase. My shaking hand left Tate’s as I unscrewed the lid on the jar, the action in itself filling me with fear.

  Gulping back the lump that had quickly formed in my throat, my hand pushed through the threshold of the glass, my fingers brushing against every little lie I had told in the last six
years. Tears filled my eyes as I gently cupped some of them within the palm of my hand, holding on for seconds before letting them slip slowly between my fingers.

  “What’s this?” Tate’s groggy voice pulled me out of my thoughts, my hand instantly stilling inside the glass jar.

  “I… I…” I stuttered, unable to form the words I never thought I would have to say.

  “Baby?” he whispered.

  I jumped slightly as his palm came to my face. He had regained some of his strength and I couldn’t help but lean into his soft touch.

  “Tell me,” he urged, his eyes landing on my hand still completely frozen inside the jar.

  I swore I wouldn’t lie anymore, I swore I wouldn’t keep anything from him anymore. But did I want to tell him about this? Did I want to show him all of the bad, even if it didn’t come with much good?

  Pushing back my thoughts, I finally locked eyes with him. Even if it was going to destroy us, even if he was going to see me for all of my flaws, he had a right to know.

  “Six years ago, Jace saved me and my mother from the hands of my father, from the hands of the mafia. I had just witnessed my father and his men brutally beat a young woman right in front of my eyes. She begged and pleaded for her life, only her cries went unanswered. She had exposed a small portion of my father’s business to the police, and even though the police were all pretty much in my father’s pocket, she still broke the code of the family.

  “I didn’t see that poor girl again. I turned on my heel as I heard a blood-curdling scream leave her lips and went in search of my mother who was somewhere inside the large manor. I found her in her room, crying softly into her pillow on her bed. She had heard the poor girl’s screams from the opposite side of the house. It only took a gentle coaxing to convince her to leave with me. She had already lost her son to the hands of my father, and she wasn’t about to lose me to it too.”

  With a deep sigh, I paused as the girl’s scream became louder in my head. “That night, as the full moon filled the night, we left through my bedroom window while the guards were doing a shift change, the dark night cloaking us. We made it to a small motel just outside of town. We had nowhere else to go. My mother had fallen in love with a mafia boss, her parents had disowned her years before, and you couldn’t have friends – never have friends outside the mafia.