by Joanna Bell
We stayed there staring at each other, just grinning our faces off, for a long time. There it was. She loved me. I didn't deserve a single ounce of her care, let alone her love.
And she loved me anyway.
A tear rolled down my cheek, stinging my raw skin, but I couldn't be bothered to stop smiling, or to wipe it away.
"Come..." I paused, opening my arms. "Come – here."
She crawled onto the bed and into my embrace and we held each other. Any tears cried that afternoon were tears of joy. It had been, I realized as I buried my face in Hailey's hair, so, so long since I felt anything like it.
***
After that day, my recovery sped up. Hailey loved me, and she used her love like a bandage for my wounded soul. She refused to let me talk about my regrets or my fears for the future – what Brody would think when he saw me again, what she would think when I was fully healed and it dawned on her that I was still Jackson Devlin, still the guy who went out of his way to hurt her so many times. She surrounded me with love. When anyone else would have had nothing left to give, she found more chambers in her heart.
Eventually the day came when we both felt I looked enough like myself to see Brody again. I was lucky that the scarring was mainly on the right side of my body and not my face. He still hesitated when he came into the room for the first time, hovering behind his mother and eying me closely.
"Daddy?"
"Hey, kid. I bet I look pretty funny, huh?"
He stepped out from behind Hailey and took a step towards me. "No. Maybe a little. Does it hurt?"
"Sometimes. Not so much anymore."
I swear he'd grown. He looked a little broader in the shoulders and his hair was longer, his freckles more prominent after weeks in the sun.
"Daddy?"
"What is it?"
"I –" he blinked, and two fat tears rolled down his cheeks. "I hope it doesn't hurt too much."
I knew Hailey had already given him a stern warning about jumping on me or hugging me. But nothing could have stopped me pulling him into my arms and burying my face in his neck.
"It's OK, kid," I whispered, meeting Hailey's glistening eyes over his shoulder – we'd both sworn there would be no crying from either of us. "It doesn't hurt too much at all. Is that what you're worried about?"
"Uh-huh."
"Well don't be. The doctors and nurses are taking good care of me. They give me medicine so it doesn't hurt."
My son pulled away and looked at me closely, his eyes traveling over the scars that had healed enough to be exposed to the air and the parts on my right side where the deepest wounds were still wrapped in bandages.
"You got hurt because you came to save us, right Daddy?"
Behind him, Hailey's eyes widened and she shook her head, indicating that if anyone had put that idea into Brody's head, it wasn't her.
"Who told you that?" I asked, swallowing the lump in my throat.
He wasn't wrong, but neither me nor Hailey wanted him getting any ideas about feeling guilty or responsible for what happened.
My son's eyes, the exact shade of pale ice blue as my own, met mine. "No one," he said slowly. "I just figured it out. And Mommy saved you, didn't she? And you almost died?"
We probably should have given him more credit than we did. He was 6 years old. Old enough to put 2 and 2 together, even if his parents tried to shield him from the scary truth.
"Yes, Mommy saved me."
"And you almost died?" He asked again.
I didn't want to lie to him. Neither, I knew, did Hailey. Not if he was straight up asking the difficult questions to my face.
I nodded. "Yeah. But I didn't. And now I'm almost better."
Brody turned to his mother for reassurance.
"It's true," she told him gently, running her fingers through his hair. "Daddy's almost better now."
That seemed to be enough. Children are not so different to adults. Or maybe I should say adults are not so different to children. My son just wanted to know his daddy was OK. And once he did, he visibly relaxed, crawling further up onto the bed before Hailey could stop him and wrapping his arms around my shoulders.
It hurt like hell – but I didn't let him or his mother know it.
***
That night, when my wing of the hospital had returned, after visiting hours, to its quiet, nocturnal rhythms, I lay in bed smiling. I was happy. Badly burned, probably scarred for life and in need of what I had been told would be extensive physical therapy to get back to where I was before the fire – but happy. Happier, I thought, than I had ever been.
There is nothing like the joys of childhood and young adulthood, when you still have no reason to suspect that the rest of your life won't be more of the same. It was bliss to be with Hailey when we lived in Sweetgrass Ridge. When my chores were done I used to drive to the Super Mart to pick her up after her shift, filled with the simple anticipation of seeing her again, of talking to her about normal things – difficult customers, difficult steers.
But it's true what they say – you can't go back. Time passes, people say and do things they cannot unsay or undo. I said some things. I did some things, too. It was easy for her to sympathize with me in my hospital bed, covered in bandages and weakened by the weeks of being in an induced coma. That's not a criticism of Hailey. She has the biggest heart of anyone I've ever met – and like all truly big-hearted people, she doesn't know it. She thinks everyone is like that.
She was different as well. No longer the insecure, defensive little girl she had once been but a successful artist, secure in her own talent. She even carried herself differently, her posture more erect, her chin held just a little higher.
The day was coming when I would be pronounced "better" and allowed to go home. And when that day came, when I was no longer the pathetic, bandaged figure in a hospital bed, I knew it was very possible she would ruminate on all that had gone before – in short, that she would remember what a complete asshole I was – and decide her love for me was of the from-a-distance variety. The kind where you love someone, but you can be with them.
My hospital room momentarily filled with the pulsating red light of an ambulance on its way to the emergency entrance.
Whoever they are, let them be OK.
I never used to have thoughts like that. Sirens and flashing lights meant inconvenience and nothing else. The fire changed me, and in more ways than the obvious ones. Now I knew there was a person in that ambulance, probably frightened and sick, and I couldn't help but feel a pang in my heart for all the frightened and sick people out there because now I knew what it was to be one of them.
Still, I kept smiling. Because Hailey said she loved me and she meant it. No, I didn't know if it was going to last, or if – more likely – I was going to do something to screw it up. It was enough that she loved me on that day. Life showed me that the future is never guaranteed. I knew it then, after the fire, in a way I didn't before. So I would take Hailey's love on that day and I would hold it in my heart for as long as it kept beating, no matter what the future held for us.
Chapter 47: Hailey
It takes a long time to recover from burns as serious as those Jackson sustained. Longer than I thought. He needed skin grafts on one leg and for quite a long time the threat of infection remained. Eventually, normal life had to resume for everyone else. Almost everyone.
Brody went back to New York when school started again. He protested rather vociferously but all the grown-ups agreed it was for the best. Jackson was going to be out of the hospital at some point and it wasn't worth disrupting Brody's life by sending him to school in L.A.
I flew with him on the flight back. I was supposed to go back to work – Candy was getting antsy, bombarding with e-mails about this A-lister or that oligarch who was simply going to drop dead if they didn't have one of my works on their walls before the end of the year.
But I couldn't work. Not with Jackson in the hospital. I just – couldn't. Candy thought I was being dramat
ic – and who knows, maybe I was? All I knew is I couldn't even pick up a paintbrush or a lump of clay or step into the studio without a great blankness coming over my mind.
I went back to Los Angeles and my family took care of Brody, picking up my slack once again without even needing to be asked. Of course my son wanted to spend as much time on the west coast as possible but I limited his trips to every three weeks at the most. Even the 3 hour time difference jet-lagged him and threw him off his rhythm, and me and Jackson were on the same page that the best thing for him was the stability of life and school in New York.
Still, it was difficult. The stress of Jackson being in the hospital affected everyone, including his son. I got the first phone call from a teacher I ever received that fall, when Brody lost his temper with a classmate and threw a box of crayons across the room in anger.
I kept it from his dad, who was getting better all the time. Jackson was getting so much better, in fact, that he would be discharged in time for Thanksgiving if everything went well. He didn't need anything more on his plate than his own healing.
"You don't have to stay out here," he said to me one day. "It's not your job to look after me."
There was no animosity in his voice, no resentment. He was simply speaking the truth.
"I know," I replied, shrugging. "But I can't do anything else right now. I'm not being funny, I literally can't. I can't even make art – and that's weird because I used to think that was the only thing I could do."
Jackson was quiet for a few minutes. We still had that ability, the one we had even as kids, to be together silently without it being awkward or fraught. I looked out the window, which overlooked the parking lot and a small, beautifully landscaped park for hospital patients and their families to stroll in.
"You can never tell what season it is here," I commented. "In New York right now, it's fall. The leaves are falling off the trees and it's getting cold at night. But it's always sunny and warm here."
"Don't you like it?"
"I do, actually. I love warm weather. But it is a little strange. Maybe you're used to it by now?"
I turned back to look at Jackson. He was looking so much better by then – so much more like himself. He was gaining weight after being set a course of physical therapy and regaining his appetite. The slight gauntness that had come into his cheeks a few weeks after the fire was gone and his shoulders were once again corded with muscle.
"Yeah, I guess I am. I miss Montana, though."
I looked up, surprised. "I've never heard you say that before."
"You've never heard me say a lot of things, Hailey."
The fire changed Jackson. I didn't know then if the changes were permanent or not, but I knew he was much slower to anger, for one thing. More likely to think about what he was going to say before he said it.
"What do you mean by that?" I asked tentatively, not sure what to make of the strange, sad expression on his face.
He smiled ruefully. "How long have you got?"
I picked up my phone to check the time. "About 33 minutes until visiting hours are over."
"You're beautiful," he said. "Do you know that? How can I ever have a serious conversation with you sitting there like that?"
I laughed and glanced down at myself. "What, in leggings and Lacey's Fun Run t-shirt? Have you developed a thing for disheveled women?"
Jackson said something jokey in reply. I would have heard it, if my eyes had not happened to alight on the sheet and notice... something.
Right away, he noticed me noticing and grinned.
"What?"
"Jackson," I whispered, cheeks burning like a teenager's. "Is that what I –"
He chuckled. "What do you think? How many fucking weeks have I been in this place? I swear to God I'm going to get a repetitive stress injury to the wrist – it's going to be fun explaining that one to the physical therapist."
"WHAT?" I burst out, if one can burst out in a whisper. "Are you joking!?"
He gave me a look like I might be the dumbest person on earth. "Why would I be joking? What else is there to do in this place?"
I couldn't help laughing and shaking my head. "Oh my God. I thought – Jackson, this whole time I thought you weren't – I thought you couldn't."
The whole time, I'd been so diligent in my efforts to leave my seemingly unquenchable urges when it came to him at the hospital door, so as not to interfere with his 'healing.'
I'm not going to lie, the mere sight of that telltale bulge under the sheets did something to me. A soft, yielding warmth sparked to life low and deep in my belly. I still wanted him as much as ever.
"Oh I definitely could," he replied, slipping one hand down under the sheet to adjust what was now evidently a growing problem. "I think I jerked off before I ate solid food when they took me out of the coma."
I closed my eyes and sighed heavily, almost ashamed of my reaction.
"What?" Jackson teased, having not lost an ounce of his ability to read me. "What are you sighing about?"
I looked up. "Is that true?" I asked quietly, as the warm feeling in my belly spread throughout my body.
He nodded, grinning cockily. "Yeah. Why?"
Because for some reason the fact that you cared about getting off more than eating makes my knees weak.
I didn't say that. Part of me was a little embarrassed by what a turn-on it was. I thought about checking the time again but then quickly decided I didn't care. I stood up and took a step towards the bed. Jackson reached for me.
"Come here," he rasped, not hesitating, grasping my hip and then sliding his hand around to my ass and pulling me even closer.
There was no sound from outside the room. No nurses' conversations to overhear, no visiting families murmuring to each other. I met Jackson's eyes and reached down, taking the hem of my t-shirt in my hands and pulling it off over my head.
"Fuck," Jackson whispered.
I unhooked my bra and let it fall to the floor, my nipples hardening instantly under his gaze.
"Fuck, Hailey."
He ran his fingers over my breasts, tracing the outside curves down to the undersides, cupping the fullness of my flesh in his hands and running his thumbs over my nipples until a little cry fell out of my mouth. The air in the hospital room was cool, adding to the feeling of nakedness as Jackson sat up, pulled me close and drew a circle around one nipple with the tip of his tongue.
"Ohh," I sighed, pushing my fingers into his hair. "Jackson..."
"I love your tits," he said, looking up just briefly before closing his mouth around that same wet, achingly sensitive nipple. "I fucking love your tits, Hailey."
He pinched my other nipple between two fingers, gently but just hard enough to send a sweet, immediate bolt of lust straight down between my legs.
"Oh God," I gasped, leaning my head back as my clothes began to feel especially cumbersome and heavy, as it began to become difficult to stand up.
"Come here," Jackson growled, wrapping an arm around my waist and moving to pull me up onto him.
"Wait –"
"No. I need you now."
But I wasn't asking him to wait because I thought we should stop. I couldn't have stopped anyway, even if I did. I was asking him to wait so I could push my leggings and panties down over my hips, down past my thighs to my ankles and kick them off. I moved to crawl onto the man my body was burning for but that time he held me off.
"Hold on. I want to look at you."
So I stood there naked, my body weak with how much I needed him, and let him look at me. Let him slip two fingers between my legs, between my lips.
His eyes closed and he drew in a long, deep breath when he felt how slick I was for him.
"OK," he said, throwing back the sheet. "Come here. Now, Hailey."
Jackson's cock was thick and rigid, the head slippery with pre-cum. I almost wanted to admire it for longer, to touch it, kiss it, take it into my mouth. But there was only one place he needed it to be. I let him pull me up, my le
gs straddling him and, when I felt him holding himself against my opening, meeting his eyes.
There it was – my addiction, my drug, the thing I would never be free of wanting: the look in Jackson Devlin's eyes when he needed me like that. When he needed to feel my warm, snug wetness around every inch of him.
I forced myself not to close my eyes, not to break eye contact, as I slid down over his swollen head, gasping as my body opened for him. With one thrust, he pushed himself the rest of the way in.
It had been so long. So long denying myself. Right from the very first second my body was on edge, already in that place where no matter how much I was getting of him, it wasn't enough. Where I already needed it faster and harder.
"You're close, huh?" He asked, when we'd barely gotten started. It just turned me on even more that he still knew me that well, that he could still read my every little sigh and bitten lip like a musician reads a piece of music as he builds up to the crescendo.
"Jackson," I breathed, already unable to form sentences.
Months in a hospital, third degree burns along almost the entire right side of his body, existing mostly on shitty hospital food for that whole time and he still felt scarily powerful underneath me. I could feel the latent strength in his limbs, sense the degree to which he was holding himself back from really letting go.
I lifted my arms above my head and arched my back, showing off my breasts, my body, for Jackson. I wanted him to see me. I wanted him to take in every part, to feel how badly I wanted to turn him on, to please him.
He cupped his hands over my breasts again, his fingers less gentle now. When he pinched my nipples I cried out briefly before barely remembering where I was and clapping a hand over my own mouth.
Jackson pulled it away. "No," he whispered, pushing himself up so he could kiss and lick one of my nipples. "I don't care who hears you."
He was thrusting himself up into me, lifting his hips off the bed over and over. And every time he plunged deeper inside me, it felt a little better than the last. I was close. I leaned forward and put my hands flat on his chest so I could push myself down on him harder.
