Surviving the Pain (A Baby Saved Me Series Book 1)

by P. J. Belden

  Before he could come up with his next thought and try and piece together where he was, fists started pounding into his face, stomach, ribs. The grunts above him were words, but he couldn’t make them out. The fists stopped suddenly, and he’s jerked upward. The odd thing about it all was he couldn’t feel the pain he was sure he should feel right now.

  “You better explain yourself, Grey. Or I swear to God, I will kill you myself.”

  His blurred vision wasn’t making things any easier to figure out. “Sage?” he slurred the name that felt foreign on his tongue. “What are you doing here?”

  “What the fuck? Seriously? You come in here and try to rape my girlfriend, and you have the nerve to ask me what I’m doing here? What the fuck is wrong with you?”

  Sage dropped him to the floor beneath him. With a struggle, Grey finally sat back up and looked down as he tried to get his bearings before looking around him. That’s when he saw that his pants were down, and his erection was in full view for everyone to see. Looking up then, he saw Ember curled in a corner crying with Sage kneeling down next to her whispering something to her. She turned then and looked at him, and he saw the handprint around her throat.

  “Oh God,” he breathed. “What have I done?”

  “Grey,” Ember croaked, her voice hoarse and broken.

  He didn’t stop trying to get himself dressed. Grey would never forgive himself for what had almost happened and for what did happen. That thought caused him to pause, and he looked at Sage instead of the woman that he’d just… Swallowing hard, he braced himself for the answer.

  “Did I… What did I do?” His once alcohol shrouded brain was now assaulting him with images of what he believed just happened.

  “Get the fuck out, Grey,” Sage growled, and he knew he meant it.

  “Ember…” his voice broke off. “I’m…”

  “Get the fuck out now!” Sage roared with rage in his voice.

  Stumbling to his feet, he finished zipping his pants and hurried out of the door. Everything in him wanted to apologize to Ember, but he couldn’t. Not when he didn’t know exactly what happened. Maybe when he wasn’t so drunk, he’d be able to piece everything together and know where to go from there.

  “Sage was probably making a mountain out of a molehill,” Grey said to himself.

  Grey woke the next morning with a major hangover and his body hurting all over. Whoever said drinking your pain away was the best solution was a damn fool. When he’d arrived at the bar, he’d just intended on having one beer and going home. But more images of how much he was losing kept hitting him, the more he drank, the stronger the drinks got. Eventually, he didn’t even remember why he’d come in there to begin with and then the rest of the night was a blank.

  Climbing to his feet, he looked around him for some idea as to what might have happened last night. His condo looked the same as it always did, though, offering no clue as to what the rest of the evening held. Wiping his hand over his face, he groaned in pain. Walking into his bathroom, he looked in the mirror and gasped at the sight of his face.

  “What the fuck happened to me,” he asked his reflection as he lightly poked the swollen and tender flesh of his face.

  Looking down at the watch on his wrist, he cursed when he saw the time. They were to meet at the park today for family park day for Hudson. For a moment, he debated the repercussions of going looking like this, but he couldn’t not be there for Hudson. After all, Hudson looked at him like his father.

  Grabbing some clean clothes, he quickly changed but not before noticing, even more, bruises. The ones on his chest and sides were dark and very angry in color. Whatever the fuck happened last night, the other guy won. He chuckled to himself at the thought, grabbed his keys and ran out the door. The drive to the park was five minutes. Five minutes and a million and one questions ran through his head.

  Just barely, he could remember stumbling out of the bar and walking, but nothing more than that. He climbed from his car as he continued to wrack his brain for answers. Who the hell did he fight with? What the hell were they fighting over? Looking up as he rounded the bend that brought the meeting area into view, he smiled when he saw Hudson climbing up the jungle gym. His eyes roamed over all the faces of Isa, Bex, Holden, Aspen, Sage… Sage?

  “Where’s my buddy,” Grey called out instead of focusing on the fact that Sage was crashing their family outing and ruining it.

  Everyone’s head snapped in his direction, and every single one of them wore a glare on their faces. Sage, however, looked like he was prepared to commit murder. It wasn’t until his eyes met Ember’s that his steps halted in progress to get to them. Her eyes were broken, and there was fear, bone shattering fear in them. At that realization, it was then that he saw the dark bruise around her neck. Everything hit him with sudden clarity. His knees crumbled beneath him and he fell to the ground.

  “God, please, no,” Grey kept repeating as he looked at Ember. “No, no, no, no,” he cried as the images he couldn’t remember came back into focus. His shoulders slumped, and he dropped his chin to his chest. Gut-wrenching sobs escaped him as everything kept hitting him. What he’d done to Ember, Sage beating the shit out of him. Looking up, he saw Sage, Holden, and Aspen walking toward him. At this point, he didn’t care what they did to him. He knew now that he deserved whatever they threw at him.

  “Grey,” Holden growled as they stopped in front of him.

  “Please tell me I didn’t. Please. Please, God, tell me I didn’t hurt her,” he pleaded with his head dropped and his eyes on the cement sidewalk in front of him.

  “You fucking held her against the door, and when she fought you on a kiss, you started strangling her. You tried to force yourself on her! Of course, you fucking hurt her!” Sage yelled, but not loud enough that Hudson could hear them thankfully.

  “I didn’t know,” he shook his head and watched his tears hit the pavement. He looked up then. “You have to know that I’m not that kind of guy.” He looked at each man in the face. “Don’t you?”

  “Damn G! I don’t know who you are right now, but you fucked up big. From the looks of you, Sage didn’t do enough to you if you’re still walking,” Holden growled.

  Grey stumbled to his feet, his stomach turning. “I didn’t know what I was doing. I went to the bar after I left the apartment. Honestly, I didn’t remember anything until I saw her… her…” he gagged as he thought of the bruising on her neck. “I’m sorry,” he said looking at Sage. “I love her. I’d never dream of hurting her. Please believe me on that. I’ll leave. I won’t torture her like that. Sage, man, I swear… God, I’m so sorry.” His voice broke, and tears continued to fall mercilessly down his cheeks.

  Sage huffed out a breath. “Sorry isn’t enough. You need to get your shit together. You may not have her heart, but because of the shit you pulled last night, you may not even have her friendship anymore. And I can’t blame her on that. Get out of here.”

  Without saying another word, Grey turned around and walked back to his car. As he sat behind the wheel for a moment trying to pull himself together, he kept replaying those images. Both the way he thought the moment was going and the way it actually happened. Starting his car, he backed out of his parking spot and headed in the direction of home. When he got there, the silence got the better of him. His thoughts continued to beat him right in the heart. How could he have done something like this? This wasn’t who HE was. He’d never hurt a woman and never has. Picking up anything and everything he began to break anything that got in his way of feeling every ounce of pain he’d inflicted and deserved to have back tenfold. He screamed loudly before he walked into his kitchen grabbed a knife and watched as the slow slide of silver against his tan skin and the inevitable streak of red as he cut deeper. He continued to stare at the red sliding down his wrists before the world around him dimmed, and he no longer felt anything.

  Ember sat in her big living room window staring out at nothing. She tried to ignore the pain that still radi
ated in her throat. Sage had left to get her some meds for it with the promise that she answered the door for no one. Something wasn’t right. She felt it deep in her soul. She told Sage to go check on Grey for her. While they were at the park earlier today, she watched him break down in front of his friends. Ember saw it in his eyes that he truly hadn’t remembered any of it until that moment. She’s scared to death of him right now, but it didn’t mean she stopped caring about him.

  Last night as he attacked her, she heard his speech, his voice. He wasn’t there completely. However, even knowing that, she wasn’t sure that she could be alone with him ever again. Well, at least that’s how she felt right now. Hudson was down for bed so she had time to think. Thinking wasn’t really her friend right now. When she thought, she remembered. When she remembered, she relived it. The phantom pains that filled her, suffocated her, all seemed so real once again, as if he was standing there doing it to her again. No, Ember could say with certainty that the man that attacked her last night was not the Grey she’d grown up with. No, that man was totally checked out last night. The problem she was struggling to figure out was if that man that was in her apartment last night was the real man? Or was it the man that did everything for anyone and went above and beyond for his family and friends? She didn’t know, and it was really bothering her.

  When Hudson had woke up this morning, he stared at Ember forever. Then he was scared to touch her. After that had passed, he started crying. She didn’t know how to explain it to him, and she really didn’t want to, so she didn’t. All Ember did was tell him that she was okay, but it’d be sore and ugly looking for a little while. That seemed to appease him enough that we carried on with the day.

  Needless to say, she didn’t sleep last night. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw him, felt him. Sage was out on the couch, and she didn’t want to bother him, so she stayed up in her room working on another blanket for Hudson. He had a special blanket for every year he was alive. Now that Hudson was old enough to talk, she made them of whatever he loved at that time. He will be able to have these blankets and look back at how his tastes changed as he got older. She embroidered his age on them as well for easier distinction between the years. By the time she heard Hudson stirring this morning, she’d almost finished embroidering his name and age on it. If anything, she was productive.

  Looking at the time, she realized that Sage had been gone for several hours. Her stomach started flipping over itself. Something wasn’t right. No, something was wrong. Ember could feel it. Climbing from the window seat, she began to pace the living room. All matters of thought ran through her head. What if he’d been hurt and needed help? Ember stopped pacing and looked down the hall and wondered if it was too irrational to wake him up and go looking for Sage. But then she remembered that Sage took her car.

  “Damn it!” She swore.

  Just as she was about to panic, even more, the door opened, and Sage walked in. She didn’t even give thought to anything other than the relief she felt that he was there. If Ember needed any more proof of her love for Sage, this was it. She ran to him with tears falling from her eyes and wrapped herself around him, holding him tightly. Her legs tightened around his waist, her arms around his neck and she kissed him just as his hands came up to cup her butt.

  Sage just barely caught Ember as he walked in the door. The moment she wrapped her legs around his waist, he forgot everything. Nothing else mattered, but the woman in his arms. He’d protect her, save her, love her for the rest of his life. Nothing would come between them.

  Squeezing her ass in his hands, he walked her back to the counter, without saying a single word. Setting her down, he moved closer between her spread thighs. God, he wanted to take this further, but he knew it wouldn’t be right. For a few more moments of bliss, he slowly started to pull away.

  “What’s wrong?” Ember asked her voice husky from arousal and Sage about caved.

  “We need to talk,” he forced himself to see reason through his lust clogged brain.

  “What?” Ember looked confused and maybe a little hurt.

  Letting a growl of frustration leave his lungs, Sage dropped his head to Ember’s shoulder. “Make no mistake, I need you, badly, but I think if I told you this afterward you’d be angry with me.” Lifting his head, he looked her straight in the eyes. “When we make love again, I don’t want anything clouding it. I want it to be a start of our forever, not the reminder of something else. Do you understand me?”

  Ember nodded her head in understanding. Grabbing his hands, she pleaded with her eyes. “What’s wrong? Are you leaving me again?”

  “Wild horses couldn’t drag me from you again,” Sage told her fervently. “I went to check on Grey as you asked me to.”

  “Oh, God,” she breathed. “Tell me everything.”

  “After I got your medicine, I went over there. I stood there outside his door, and I was torn. The best friend – well used to be best friend – or the love of my life. I should have never left the room last night then the both of you wouldn’t be suffering like this.” He placed his finger over her mouth when she went to interrupt him. “Let me get this out.” With her responding nod, he continued. “I should have never let him in the apartment. I knew right away he was drunk and yet I still let him in near you and near my son. Worse yet, I left a drunk man still hung up on my woman alone with her. No matter how I look at last night, I could have stopped it. Nothing you say will change that. I failed him and worst of all I failed you. I accept that, and I will do everything I can to avoid that in the future.

  “However when I went to his condo, I could hear him breaking down. There was a lot of screaming and things breaking. Knowing how I’d feel if I just found out what he did, I let him get it out. You know as well as I do that he’d be easier to talk to given that time. Besides, I’m the reason he doesn’t have you. Regardless that he warned me away several times before I actually saw you that first time, he was doing what he felt was best for you. Or at least that’s what I thought until that day in the park at your car. I saw in his eyes then that he was thinking of himself right before he kissed you…”

  Ember sucked in a breath as her mouth hung open in shock. “You were there that day? That was what he saw before he kissed me. He kissed me because he wanted you to think I was yours. That’s why you asked me about a boyfriend?”

  “Well, uh…” he stalled.

  “Sage, if you lie to me now, I’ll never be able to trust you for as long as I live.”

  Shaking his head, he smirked at her. “Damn, I love you.” He pressed a quick kiss to her lips before pulling back and swallowing the nerves and sense of betrayal he felt telling her this. “I’d met up with him after the park that day. He said that you two were together and that you were finally happy. Told me not to ruin it for you. He said that if I really loved you, I’d leave and let you be happy. I tried. I tried to stay away. I loved you enough to let you be happy if you’d truly found it, even if it killed me. But I just couldn’t stay away. So when I ran into you, I had just gotten back from talking to Chunk… He said to tell you ‘hi’ by the way. And that’s when I bumped into you. I couldn’t… I couldn’t walk away. If that makes me a prick, then I’m a prick.”

  She sat there silently shaking her head back and forth for a moment. “I can’t believe he did that. Why would he do that?”

  “Because he does love you. I don’t know this for sure, but I don’t think it’s the same love I have for you or that I hope you still have for me. But it is love. He thought he was protecting you. But the reason I stopped something I desperately wanted…” Sage made his point by running his hands up her thighs as he said that. “… is because when the noise stopped I knocked on the door and he never answered. After the silence had stretched on longer, I worried that something may have happened. So, I kicked down the door. I found him in the kitchen on the floor unconscious. His condo was trashed, and he laid in a lot of blood. It wasn’t until I knelt down next to him to check his pulse tha
t I saw where the blood was coming from. The fucker tried to kill himself. I rushed him to the hospital. They took him in the back and about an hour before I came back, he’d been stabilized and believed to make a full recovery.”

  “He… He tried… to kill… himself,” she stuttered out before a hard sob wracked her body. “It’s all my fault.” She sobbed as Sage cradled her in his arms. Pulling back, she looked at me. “Can I go see him?”

  “He’s under a seventy-two-hour watch, no outside visitors. After he’s released from that, then I’ll take you up there to see him. I promise.”

  Nodding her head, she mumbled, “Okay.” Then she fell back into his arms clinging to him for support that he hoped like hell he was giving her.

  Grey groaned as he opened his eyes for the second time. Looking around the dimly lit room, he was still shocked to know that he was in the hospital. What shocked him more was that Sage had saved him. For as much problems he’d caused for him, Sage still saved him. Thinking back to when they were thick as thieves, no one could separate them. They were brothers by the significant meaning of the word. Sage had always been there for Grey. He never made fun of Grey for the life he lived, never even told another soul.

  If anyone deserved someone as wonderful as Ember, it was Sage. Yet, he’d spent the last five years fighting him from his happiness because, in the end, Grey was selfish. He didn’t factor anyone else’s feeling into his broken heart. Not Sage’s. Not Ember’s and especially not Hudson’s. He just wanted that story for himself. He wanted a story that wasn’t even his to have. It was never the Grey Matthews story. It was – and has always been – the Sage and Ember story. They were destined for each other. Grey knew that back then, and that’s why he never spoke out about his feelings. But the more time went on, he couldn’t hold it in.

  “Mr. Matthews, it is good to see you awake,” a seductive rumble came from the other side of the room.