by Jo Davis
His sigh was one of relief, his voice filled with affection. “I’d wondered, after our difference of opinion about Forrest Prescott. You’re not still mad at me?”
“I wasn’t. I was mad at myself. I didn’t want to admit you were hitting too close to home.” She hesitated. “Deep down, I knew I was settling for a ‘safe’ man because Tommy frightened me.”
“And I know why.”
“Yes, you do.”
“He doesn’t any longer?”
“I’m not afraid of him. I’m afraid of me. Or, I was. Maybe not so much now.”
“You’re putting way too much pressure on yourself. Relax and go with the flow.”
She smiled. “You sound like Tommy.”
“Smart man.”
“You know what? I do trust him,” she said in a sudden epiphany. “And when he comes out on the other side of this, I’m going to tell him everything. I know he’s not anything like the bastard who hurt me.”
“Good for you, sweetheart. I’ve been waiting a long damned time to hear you say that about someone who can make you happy.”
She squeezed him tight. “When are you going to find some lucky woman to make you happy?”
He laughed. “They call me the breeze, baby.”
“I don’t believe that bull for a second.”
“Let’s get your life in order first, shall we? Then you can meddle in mine. Tit for tat.”
“I’m going to hold you to that.”
She would, too. As soon as Tommy was okay.
14
Lights flashed overhead, bright. Blinding him.
Disjointed voices spoke in sharp, urgent tones, but he couldn’t make sense of what they said. Or where he was.
His body was lifted, moved. Settled somewhere new. The lights stopped spinning, but one was like a giant eye, skewering his brain.
Blurry forms hovered above him, dressed in white. Were they angels? Was this heaven?
If so, the hurting should stop. And he told them so, or thought he did. After all, if pain was supposed to be a distant memory in heaven, he’d gotten screwed.
“H-h-hurts.”
Gentle hands smoothed his brow. “I know it does. Easy.”
“Mr. Skyler, you’re in surgery, and you’re going to take a little nap. When you wake up, your friends and family will be here for you, okay?”
What? Surgery?
“Not heaven?”
Which, of course, came out noth theven?
“Not today,” the kind voice told him. “Count backward from ten, Mr. Skyler.”
Huh? Well, all right.
“Ten . . . nine . . . uh . . .”
What came next?
Didn’t matter. He was too tired to count anymore, and the figures above him vanished into darkness.
What a weird thing for an angel to ask him to do, anyway.
Consciousness filtered in slowly, marked by sounds. A rustle, quiet conversation. Strange beeps. Smells came next. Antiseptic and cleaner. Familiar perfume as someone leaned close. Vanilla.
Then touch. A hand on his face, his arm. He liked this best and strained for more, though he wasn’t sure his message came across.
He drifted, wondering whether he was dead. Or simply waiting to cross over.
That question was answered soon enough, when the agony returned.
He felt as though he’d been beaten with hammers. There was no place that didn’t scream in misery. He must’ve made a sound, because someone was there in an instant, trying to soothe him.
“Tommy? Oh, thank God! Don, he’s waking up!”
“Son, can you hear us?”
“Mom . . . Dad.”
“Son, do you know where you are?” Dad.
“I—no.” He tried to open his eyes, but his lids were so heavy.
Mom’s voice drifted to him, choked with tears. “You’re in the hospital, baby. You were hurt on the job, but you’re going to be fine. Just fine.”
This didn’t make much sense. He attempted to process this as painful awareness seeped into individual parts of his throbbing body. Automatically, he tried lifting his arm, but it was weighed down as though by a brick. “How? What—”
“Don’t worry about that right now. Just rest,” his dad said.
Wasn’t like he had a choice. He was so tired.
Sleep claimed him once more.
When awareness returned, it was much sharper. So was the relentless pain. His chest and ribs were locked in a vise, his face and hand throbbing.
This time, his lids obeyed and opened, though reluctantly. His bleary vision began to adjust, taking in his surroundings. He was lying in a bed, wires and tubes attached to every available patch of skin. Had someone said something about being injured, mentioned surgery? They must have, but the memory vanished like smoke.
Another fact penetrated his brain—he was surrounded by flowers. Practically a garden, with several balloons dancing around. They made his head swim.
He was in the hospital, then. Had the shit knocked out of him, but he was alive. Okay. He could deal with that.
One issue at a time. Blinking to clear the grit from his eyes, he took stock of himself.
A strange pressure and a sensation of tightness on the right side of his face was bugging him something fierce. Opening his mouth and stretching his facial muscles caused it to pull and sting, and his immediate reaction was to bring his hand up to touch the area.
Problem was, he couldn’t move his arm. Hadn’t he tried before? Damned thing felt like a rock.
His gaze slid down to where his right arm rested on top of the blankets. His hand and wrist were heavily bandaged, the wrap extending halfway up his forearm. A burn? Must not be broken, or it would be in a cast. He could deal with that, too.
He brought his left hand up instead to feel his face. The IV in the back of his hand pulled, making him wince, but he managed to reach up and brush his fingers over his right cheek.
“Jesus.”
The entire right side of his face, extending underneath his jaw to his throat, was covered in gauze. Damn, he must’ve . . . what? Had a car accident?
No, that wasn’t right.
Fire? Yes. Flames, smoke. He was looking for an exit when a heavy object fell on him.
The warehouse! It all came back in a rush. The urgency to get out, the terrifying roar of the building as it fell.
“Hello?” His voice emerged as little more than a croak. Just as he began eyeing the bed, searching for a call button, the door opened with a quiet swish and his dad walked in, carrying a cup of coffee.
The older man’s eyes lit up. “Holy Christ, it’s good to see you awake. How do you feel?”
“Like a building fell on my ass,” he rasped. “What day is it?”
“Still Friday, almost six thirty in the evening. You’ve been in and out, trying to wake up for a couple of hours.” His dad set the coffee on the bedside table and gave his son a careful hug. “I’m glad as hell you’re all right.”
As his dad pulled up a chair, Tommy saw the suspicious moisture in his eyes that he dashed away. “Am I all right? What about these?” He lifted his good hand and gestured to indicate the bandages.
A strange look flashed in the older man’s eyes, and was gone. “Don’t worry about that right now. We’ve got plenty of time to discuss it when you’re better.”
“I’m not better?” Alarm began to niggle at his brain.
“More alert, I mean. You’re exhausted and you’ve been through quite an ordeal, whether you recall it or not. I want you to sleep,” he said, the love and protectiveness apparent in his tone.
“I’m not ten, Dad. I know when I need to rest, and I will, after you give me the rundown.”
“I’d rather wait for your mother. I took her home to rest herself for a while, but she’ll want me to get her soon, especially when I call and let her know you’re awake. That sweet girlfriend of yours, too. She went down to the cafeteria to get a quick bite to eat—”
“You�
�re stalling.” That scared him more than anything. His dad was the most up-front, honest person he knew, and if he was trying to put off the conversation, whatever had to be said wasn’t good.
“Son—”
“Tell me.”
The niggle of alarm grew exponentially. He knew that expression on his dad’s face, the one that conveyed sadness, worry, and a little guilt for being the bearer of bad news. His dad let out a weary sigh and dropped his gaze to the floor. When he met Tommy’s eyes again, he nodded, resigned.
“When the roof fell, a piece or two of metal caught you on the right side of your cheek. Laid you open pretty bad from your temple to your throat. You’re stitched from here to here,” he said, drawing a line on his own face to indicate the path.
“Oh, my God.” He raised his hand again, felt the bandages. “I want a mirror.”
“Not yet. There’s more. Christ, this is so hard,” he said, choking on the words. “You had a piece of metal embedded in your wrist as well. Son, your hand was nearly severed from your wrist. The surgery took hours, but the specialist said they think the reattachment will work, barring infection. You’re on heavy antibiotics.”
Tommy stared at his dad in shock. “Reattachment? What are you . . . are you fucking kidding me?”
“I wish I were. You’re going to need physical therapy, and in time, you might regain some use of it. I’m so sorry, son,” he said sadly.
“Regain . . . no. No, I’m a firefighter, at least until I figure out what else I want to do.” His voice rose with his panic.
“Shea encouraged me to try being a walk-on at the Titans’ training camp. She said I could be anything I wanted and . . .”
He trailed off, gazing at the bandaged lump. Concentrating hard, he attempted to wiggle his fingers. Nothing. He looked up at his dad, panic morphing to terror.
“I—I can’t work like this. I can’t go back to my job, or play football. I can’t do shit. It’s over, isn’t it? Every dream I’ve ever had. Everything. Oh, God, Dad,” he whispered, his voice breaking.
Scooting close, his dad wrapped his arms around him, held him close. Tried to comfort him as he had when Tommy was a boy with hurts that a hug from Dad could fix.
But nothing could fix this. He was done.
My fucking hand was cut off.
And the best he could hope for was to keep it as a permanent reminder of what he’d lost.
“Your life isn’t over, son,” his dad said hoarsely. “Just going in a different direction. There was something else in the cards for you, that’s all. You’re going to be fine, and you’ve got your friends, your mother and me, and that pretty lady to help you through this.”
Shea. How could he face her as less than a man? He felt sick.
“What do I have to offer her now? I don’t know how I’ll make a living and on top of that, I’ll be scarred for life.”
“Physical therapy will help, and you’ll find a job.”
“I want a mirror, Dad. Now.”
He had to see for himself. To know what he was up against.
Suddenly looking old, his dad went out, presumably to ask a nurse about Tommy’s request. He was gone for a few minutes and when he returned, he brought a medium-sized handheld mirror.
“Help me with the gauze.”
Tommy held the mirror in his lap while the older man carefully peeled off the edges of the tape at his temple. He lowered the gauze pad enough for Tommy to be able to examine most of the wound.
Left hand shaking, he raised the mirror, turned his head to the side, and angled it to see—and almost dropped it.
“Oh,” he moaned. “Oh, no.”
He didn’t recognize the face in the reflection. A black line of railroad tracks pulled his angry red flesh together and marched down the side of his face to his jaw and beyond. Nobody would ever mistake him for some handsome actor again, would they?
In a word, he was hideous.
The mirror slipped from his hand and plopped onto his lap. His dad silently removed it, retaped the gauze, and waited, anxious, gripping Tommy’s forearm to lend his support. Hot, bitter tears slid down Tommy’s face and his chest felt like it would explode.
He couldn’t be that lucky.
Settling back on the pillows, he closed his eyes, wishing for oblivion. Darkness. He’d longed to be a man Donny would’ve been proud of, to make something meaningful out of his life. What would Donny say now, if he could?
Maybe his brother was the lucky one after all.
Shea crept into Tommy’s room and laid her purse on the rolling table next to a pot of flowers. Mr. Skyler sat at his son’s side, hands clasped in front of him, head down.
“Mr. Skyler?”
The man raised his head and gave her a bleary, sad smile. “Shea, you can call me Don.”
“Okay, Don,” she said, a little nervous. They hadn’t spoken much, given the circumstances, but his folks seemed to be nice people who were desperately afraid for their son. “How is he?”
“Sleeping, doped on painkillers. Woke up for a bit and had questions about all of this.” He flicked a hand to indicate the bandages. “I answered them as honestly as I knew how.”
Shea moved to stand beside him and studied Tommy’s pale face, the half she could see. Dark circles were smudged under his eyes and he still had dirt in his hair. But he was here, breathing. Alive.
“How did he take the news?”
“About like you’d expect—badly. He insisted on looking at his face, too.” Don appeared miserable. “He was absolutely devastated. I haven’t seen him like that since he lost his brother.”
“Oh, no.” She laid a hand on his shoulder, heart twisting as she gazed at Tommy. “I was hoping to put off his seeing himself a little longer.”
“Me, too. But once that boy gets his mind set on something, a team of horses can’t budge him.” Don met her eyes. “And I’ll tell you another thing, he’s got it in his head that he has nothing to offer you now.”
Oh, God. “That’s his emotions talking. They’re bound to be all over the place for a while.”
“We know that, but he doesn’t. Not yet. He’ll find another career, other interests, and in the meantime we’ll all be here to support him.”
“Isn’t that nice? I feel so much better.”
Startled by the bitterness, the anger, in Tommy’s raspy voice, Shea looked down at him. His eyes were open, and the dullness there frightened her even more. Gone was the playful sparkle, the hint of promise.
“Son, we love you and we just want to help—”
“Well, you can’t.”
Don’s expression was wounded, but he stood firm. “You don’t think so now, but you’re upset. We’re here for you, whether you want us to be or not.”
“Upset. What a tidy word.” His laugh was ugly. “Do I look upset to you? I don’t know.”
Don gave a resigned sigh and stood. “I’m going to give you and Shea a chance to talk while I run home and get your mother. I know she wants to see you before visiting hours are over.”
“Don’t bother, okay? I’m tired and I’ll be asleep.” Tommy stared at the opposite wall, not meeting his dad’s scrutiny.
“If you’re sure . . .”
“I am. And if you’d take those fucking balloons with you, I’d appreciate it. Tell the nurses to give them out in the kids’ ward. Where the hell did all those flowers come from, anyway?”
Don shared a pained glance with Shea, and she could swear he was silently wishing her luck with their surly patient. “You have a lot of friends, son. They’re just trying to cheer you up.”
“Fantastic. Do you think there’s a plastic surgeon with a magic wand hiding in one of those pots?”
Don just turned and busied himself detaching the ribbons on the balloons from the various arrangements. Clutching them, he said, “Your mother and I will see you in the morning. Call if you need anything before then.”
His father was almost to the door when Tommy called out.
; “Dad?”
Don looked back. “Yes?”
“Thanks for being here,” he said, voice anguished. “I’m sorry I spoke to you that way.”
His father’s face softened. “Never thank me for being your dad. As for the other, I understand, believe me. See you in the morning.”
“See you.”
After the older man was gone, Shea took his vacated seat and steeled herself for the conversation to come. She didn’t need a crystal ball to see the man in the bed was about to do some serious backpedaling. Anger and confusion fairly vibrated around him, and the wall quickly being erected between them was as impenetrable as a fortress.
She’d spent so long being afraid to love him. Now she was terrified of losing him.
Reaching out, she rested her arm on his pillow and ran her fingers through his hair. “You don’t know how scared I was when I found out what happened, and that they were looking for you. When they brought you in, I was there, and I was scared I’d lose you. Thank God you’re going to be all right.”
“Is that what you think? That I’ll be all right? That I’m happy as shit to be twenty-three years old and facing the prospect of no job, no future? That I’m thrilled to carry a reminder of my failure on my face for the rest of my goddamned life? Excuse me if I don’t leap for joy and praise God that I’m not dead!”
His shout echoed in the small room like a bomb, explosive and every ounce as destructive. His eyes were wild, like a trapped animal ready to chew his leg off to escape confinement.
“Well, you’re not dead,” she said calmly, taking back her hand. “And it’s not fair of you to wish you were when so many others might have begged for the second chance you received. Especially your own brother.”
He flinched, but his steely tone didn’t change. “Don’t talk about Donny to me. And what the hell do you know about second chances?”
Grief swept her, and her voice broke. “I know that my baby never got a second chance. I know that I’d give almost anything if she’d had one.”
That stopped him cold. “Your—your baby?”
“My daughter. You see, I made the mistake of falling for a football player, the big man on campus. This plain Jane was easy pickings for a guy like him—he crooked his finger and I ran to him, grateful he asked me out. But when things went too far and I said ‘no,’ he didn’t take that for an answer.”
