I’d parked the bike up and followed the receptionist directions up to the ward Mrs. Perry was on and found her with a doctor.
“What’s going on?” I glance between the pair; the doctor has Luna’s hand clasped tightly in his and the urge to rip it off has my fists tightening at my sides.
“Reid, right?” he asks, stepping outside the waiting room and closing the door a little.
“Yeah” I cross my arms over my chest, bracing myself for an onslaught of emotions. The last time a doctor said that to me was right before he told me to sit down. Sit down on an old plastic hospital chair to learn that your entire world had just crashed and burned.
“I’m Cash, I’m a friend of Luna’s and a doctor here” he smiles softly but I don’t return it.
“Delilah has had, what we suspect is a heart attack. They’re still assessing her, and we should now more once we run some tests but right now we just have to keep a close eye on her”
“Okay. Thanks”, I give him a brief handshake before he heads off down the hallway and I turn my attention to Luna. The curled-up bundle of tears is shaking like a leaf, her usual strong and bouncy persona long gone. I sit down in the chair beside her pulling her quivering body into mine and holding her tightly as she let the sobs rack through her. I held onto her as I struggled to hold myself together. I knew what she was going through, that fear of not knowing what the outcome was going to be feels like a never-ending limbo. When you have no clue if you’re about to be alone for the rest of your life or spared the totally terrifying outcome, at least for now.
Besides, even if I couldn’t bring myself to let Luna go, she’d been kind to me since my arrival here and it was the least I could do in return. I wanted Luna, badly, desperately but I couldn’t allow her to keep me. I was too far past the point of no return that I wasn’t about to let her dig herself down to my level. Up is the only way this precious girl should be going.
At some point Cash came back to take Luna into her mother, I walk with her to the door and then let her go. My fingertips brush with hers as she runs to her mother, her monitor beeping next to her signaling how very much alive she is. I’m haunted by the images of my own parents. They never got this far. Aurora had made it to the Emergency room but died shortly after. My mother and father had been taken straight to the morgue. The cold, plain and dimly lit room dances in front of me, taunting me with what could have been. What if my mother had made it to a ward with a beeping monitor the same as Delilah’s next to her? What would my life be like now? Would I be any happier?
I turn back to the waiting room, unable to watch the tear-filled reunion a second longer. Austin and Rachel are sat chatting quietly amongst themselves. The stench of hospital suddenly assaults my nose, the concoction of bleach and death stings in my lungs. Without Luna’s innocent, floral, musky smell to mask it I can’t handle it. I can’t handle being here without her by my side.
“Don’t even think about it Reid” Rach has my eyes snapping up to her, her eyes boring into me like lightning bolts.
“You bail on her now and I’ll turn your balls into a pretty fucking handbag” she gets to her feet, her red hair glistening under the bright fluorescent lights, wagging her finger in my face. Austin pulls her back and gives me a glare of warning.
“I’m going to grab some coffee” I turn on my heel when my voice breaks, the truth of Rachel’s words sitting heavy in my stomach. I can’t leave Luna like this, I know my Ma’ would be turning in her grave if I did so. I’d just have to stick it out and when Mrs. Perry was back on her feet I’d distance myself.
Instead of heading to the café, I walk straight outside. The fresh air cracks my ribs as I inhale lungsful of it, trying in vain to get rid of the burning bleached smell that seems to be permanently left on my skin. I don’t know how I’d be of any help to Luna if her Mama doesn’t make it. I couldn’t look after her when I could barely look after myself. I tried and failed to pick myself up after Aurora and the baby. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t bring myself to believe that I deserved to live while they didn’t. It was a disaster, I was a disaster and Luna didn’t deserve that.
Sucking in a breath and my pride along with it, I gather up the courage to go and hold the girl whose life is falling apart around her. Once she’s back on her feet, I have to walk away. It’s the only option I have.
My life fell apart around me and I had no one to hold me, no one to hold me upright and force me forwards. It was the least I could do to stop her from feeling the pain I was.
I grabbed everyone a coffee with the money I didn’t have, and we spent the rest of the day at the hospital, Luna was back and forth between the waiting room and her Mama’s room before she eventually dragged me in there with her. It felt awkward at first but Delilah, or Mrs. Perry as I still called her made sure that didn’t last long. The fears I’d had earlier about being too close to Luna faded a little, but I didn’t cling onto the hope. Whenever I was around her everything felt better, but I knew this wouldn’t last. We said goodbye to her Mama and I took Luna home, walked her up to her door and bid her goodnight, just like my parents taught me to do. We didn’t talk about the shit that happened between us, I just made sure she got home okay and told her I’d be there to pick her up in the morning. I’d arranged with Jock to collect her Chevy and take it to the garage on his lot to see if it was fixable. I called Gus and explained the situation and he in turn asked Wyatt to cover my shifts, so I could be around if Luna needed me. Besides the kid had wrangled me into working his weekend shifts so he wasn’t that bothered. The next few days went by in a blur of hospital visits, tests and results. Mrs. Perry was given the all-clear with blood pressure tablets and a strict diet to follow and she was discharged much to Luna’s relief. I kept my overwhelming feeling of happiness inside as I helped them both into the taxi we’d ordered to take her home. I couldn’t exactly take them on my bike, now could I? I’d be sure to kill Mrs. Perry off and that was the exact situation I was trying my damnedest to avoid.
“Meet you at the house?” Mrs. Perry glances up at me, happiness gleaming in her sparkling blue eyes much like her daughters. The inability to say no to these women was starting to grate on my last nerve but I was only a man. A weak one at that.
“Yes, Ma’am” I tilt my head, my overgrown hair falling slightly across my eyes. I close the door on them and head back to my bike. I’ve gotten used to riding her this week, especially with Luna on the back with her arms wrapped tightly around my waist. I’d laughed when she squealed when I hit the main round out of town up to the hospital, the speed made her giddy and the sound it ripped from her was making it harder and harder to walk away from her. The town was tiny, it was inevitable that we would be bumping into each constantly and now I’d just made it the most awkward thing imaginable.
On the ride up to Mrs. Perry’s house I run through the list of possible things I can say to Luna to make her realize that we aren’t good together. She’s this perfect, pure surfer girl from a small town and she’s fallen for the bad boy city punk with a sealed fate and nothing to offer her other than his black soul.
Something inside me told me I hated Luna for even being here in Delia. If she wasn’t here maybe, just maybe I could have carried on with my quiet existence and never had to deal with these fucked up things in my head.
I helped Luna get her mother settled at home, the nurses that would be coming by to check on her arrived and sent us on our way much to Luna’s annoyance.
“Come on. You deserve a break” I find myself telling her, my hand going instinctively to the small of her back and setting my goddamned self on fire.
“We can come back tomorrow, she’ll be okay with the nurses” I smile, trying my best to reassure her some more but what do I know? Life doesn’t come with certainties that’s what’s supposed to make it fun and thrilling except when it doesn’t, it just makes it shit and depressing.
“Can we do something tonight? I just don’t want to go home and mope” Luna huffs from behin
d me as she straps the helmet under her chin.
“Sure” the word leaves my lips before I can think of what I’ve just agreed to. I’m supposed to be staying away from her, not actively spending time with her. Again, the damn manners my Ma’ whooped into me won’t let me say no.
“Beers and Pizza?” she beams up at me, her cheeks finally filling back out with color after being a ghostly white all week.
“Sounds perfect” I mumble, distracted as she flicks one of her long legs over my bike, the simple movement making my balls tingle. Clearing my throat, I don’t concentrate on how she looks straddling my bike, the image conjuring memories of the ways in which she’d ridden me just a few nights ago.
Be Happy Reid.
Aurora’s voice in my head has my face falling. The sweet, gentle sound swims around my head making me nearly scream. How dare she speak to me when she has no idea what I’m feeling? Has no idea what I’ve been through over the past ten years? I almost double over when her sweet, innocent voice filters its way into my blood stream. Luna’s eyes go wide with worry as she catches my movement, but I swallow past it. I don’t need this right now and neither does she.
Flinging my leg over the bike I grip the handle bars, the engine roaring to life and drowning out any living or dead people talking to me. I ride us back to town, the wind and the engine the only noise I can hear, until I pull over outside the pizza place.
How dare you speak to me now? After all this time? Why now?
We order a large margarita pizza, neither of us up to the challenge of eating anything heavier before we head next door to the corner shop and pick up two packs of beer and a bottle of jack. I need to drown out the voices in my head if I’m going to be any help at all to the little dove. Tonight, is about her, not me. I have my own fucking demons, tonight I need to help her banish hers. Luna blushed the second the bottle of whiskey was in her hands, and I refrained from telling her that the memories swirled around my head too. If I told her, she’d only get more attached and that was the last thing I wanted. Instead I merely smiled and hauled her ass back to the bike and headed home.
Somehow my blonde beauty managed to balance the pizza without an ounce of cheese out of place by the time we got back to the cabin. Maybe I was on auto pilot driving back here, but Luna didn’t seem to mind, and I didn’t want her to continue wallowing in everything that had gone on this past week. Granted, I’d wallowed in my own shit for nearly ten years, but Luna didn’t deserve that. This girl was spinning me in circles just being around me and I didn’t know what I supposed to do with that. A past like mine couldn’t just be forgotten, the pain was still as raw as it was the day I’d found out. Was I sick of banging on about it? Hell Yes.
If my pain had an off switch it would permanently be in that position, never, ever to be switched on again. But this was my reality. Every god damned day hurt, every morning when I had to get up and out of bed, face another day with the knowledge that I was still very much alive and breathing while the rest of my world lay dead and I was totally and utterly helpless to do any-fucking-thing about it.
Somehow Luna had made it a little less painful. Scratch that. The last few weeks with her had been the most fleeting and freeing I’d had. I was breathing normally, waking up next to her gorgeous curves made the mornings all the easier. My morning coffee seemed to taste nicer, the sun felt warmer against my inked skin. Everything and nothing felt that much more with Luna that it ever had done with Aurora.
Maybe it was because I was an adult now and had that much more freedom with Luna than I ever had with Aurora. It was always a curfew or my parents kicking us out, or me having to drive her home in my Pop’s car. We could never be us with the typical teenage restrictions that were placed over our heads.
The guilt over that was a constant reminder, the weight of it on my shoulders and in my stomach as if it would never disappear. That was the reason why I could never condone a relationship with someone else. Aurora never got the chance to be the woman she whole heartedly deserved to be, and that was on my head. We had been safe ever since I’d taken her virginity in the field just behind her parent’s place. It was slow, romantic even. It was perfect for us, just on the edge of Bancroft, the house was large enough that no one would ever find us out there, but soon enough we couldn’t get enough, we got reckless and then the day she came to me with the news of her pregnancy would forever be at the forefront of my mind as a life-changing memory. One that never got to be.
As I opened the door to the cabin, Luna at my side carrying the pizza all I could think about was marrying her and having babies with her. Was that crazy?
Possibly.
Yes.
I couldn’t ever put myself in that situation ever again, hence why at the ripe old age of twenty-five I’d taken out a silly finance agreement that would take me until I was dead to pay off and gotten myself a vasectomy. Gus couldn’t offer me health insurance, hence why I’d practically broken the bank to make sure it was never going to happen again.
I couldn’t get a woman pregnant, no matter how hard I tried. I wouldn’t and couldn’t go through the agony of losing another innocent baby. Numerous surgeons tried to talk me out of it because I was so young, but I persisted. I couldn’t lose another poppy seed. When I said I couldn’t give Luna the things she so obviously deserved, I meant it. The lyrics to my latest song dance in front of my eyes, the words never seeming to end.
My little poppy seed, how you should have grown, but life is cruel and now we’ll never know.
I hated the not knowing most of all. The not knowing what sex the baby was. Or what he or she would have grown up to be. I would have accepted anything our child wanted to be, as long as they were kind and strong-willed. I wanted my child to be able to conquer the world they lived in, be happy in their own skin and feel anything but the shit I feel running through my blood every day. I would take any ‘label’ for my kid as long as they were happy. Gay, straight, pangender, bisexual, transgender, trans-fluid.
I DIDN’T CARE.
I wanted them alive and breathing. And mine.
But now, with my zero to nil sperm count it would never happen.
“Beer?” I ask Luna, dropping the two boxes on the kitchen island successfully distracting myself, well...from myself.
“Please” her sweet voice forces me back to the now, her scent lingering around me when she’s only been at the cabin all of two seconds.
I always wonder what she’s seen in me. Why does she feel the need to be near me? To talk to me and be my friend?
Granted I know she’s more than that to me, but I will never ever admit it. I couldn’t. Instead I grab two bottles of beer and join her on the couch, ignoring, or trying and failing miserably to ignore the pull I feel to her as we tuck into the pizza silently. Almost the entire box is gone by the time Luna groans around the slice in her hands and I realize I haven’t offered to get her food since her Mama was in hospital, see.... proves my points totally. I’m not good to take care of her. A low growl escapes my lungs when I wonder when the was the last time she actually ate something.
“That was so good” she moans again, my cock twitching behind the zipper of my jeans. I watch her as she innocently wipes at her mouth with the back of her hand when suddenly her eyes go wide as she stares straight past me. I anticipate some sort of mental breakdown, tears or hysterics owing to the scare she’s had this week but instead all I hear is,
“Oh my god”
“Reid! Why haven’t I seen these before?” she albeit screeches, jumping to her feet and heading for the door and floor length window at the back of the cabin that overlooks the lake. Shoving her feet into my boots she swings the door open from the kitchen that leads onto the back deck and wraps her thin cardigan around herself. The slightly chilly end of summer breeze wafts into the cabin, taking all of the heat from the log burner with it. I follow her outside, the creak of the decking sounding louder under my weight. Glancing out at the small lake out back, the millions of firefl
ies that make their nightly trip here are all lit up, whizzing around the place and turning into some Disney-magical fairyland.
“This is stunning” Luna gawps, her elbows coming to rest on the wood railings holding the fence up. The meadow surrounding the cabin was usually buzzing with wild-life first thing in the morning, I’d caught a glimpse of the fireflies a few nights this week but hadn’t investigated it further. Their lights almost like fairy lights strung up, bobbing in the wind as they flew and dipped, rose high and then dropped low. It was beautiful.
The air silent except for the odd chirp of a cricket and the sound of our quiet breathing. I move behind Luna, my feet coming to stop on either side of hers, my too-big boots with their laces undone hanging from her ankles as my arms mimic her movement on the railing. I encapsulate her to my chest, caging her in as she gazes out at the beautiful nature show. The distant chirp of bugs and insects, and the stunningly beautiful light show has something beating at my chest. The vibrations of the continuous thump spreads through my veins until the tips of my fingers are tingling against the wood. Instinctively I inhale, my nose flaring and my chest aching as Luna’s comforting smell invades my lungs. The fireflies dance around us, their light bright enough to blind you as they fly past. Something inside me clicks, like a cog has finally come unstuck.
Be Happy Reid.
"You should never have come back here Luna" I mumble into her hair, the freshly washed smell mixed with the scent of the sea forcing my eyes back open.
"Why?" she asks quietly, knowing full well how I reacted the last time. She fails to hide the hurt in her voice too and that only breaks me even more. I can’t bring myself to hurt her deliberately, the ways in which I’d planned to make her see how much of a dreadful person I actually am suddenly didn’t matter anymore. The truth was always the best way to let people see you, for you. The raw, ugly and the unfiltered beauty of the truth would always outweigh the darkness of a lie.
Delia Bay Page 16
