That's a Relief (Promises, Promises Book 3)

by Victoria Klahr

  And despite my desire to recede into oblivion, I fight.

  I fight for him.

  ***

  “She’s waking up,” someone’s deep voice says. “Go let him know. And get a nurse in here.”

  “Dad?” I croak in a voice that sounds way too deep and scratchy to be mine.

  “Hey, Josie Bean. Yeah, it’s Dad.”

  I try to peel my eyes open but they’re so heavy, I can barely lift them. It feels like minutes as I fight with my stubbornly strong eyelids. Finally, after a ridiculous amount of struggle, I see my dad sitting in a chair next to me. Clothes wrinkled and stained with oil. His bald head looks like it hasn’t been shaved in a few days.

  Where am I? Where’s … “Seth?” A flash of his face conjures up in my memory. A face contorted in pain and anger and fear. “Dad, where’s Seth?” I don’t know what’s going on, but I know deep in my soul that I need Seth right now.

  I suck in a sharp breath and release a heavy hiss as I try to sit up. “Ah, what the…” I look down and notice for the first time that I’m in a hospital gown. I look around and notice the sterile hospital room.

  Everything crashes in on me.

  “Dad,” I start, holding a hand to my stomach. On top of the stab wound. Proof that I couldn’t protect myself from him once again. “Dad …” The sobbing starts and I don’t think I can stop it. I take one look into my dad’s eyes and know without asking. I’ve only seen him cry a few times in my life. “The baby …?” My arms wrap around my stomach.

  Dad leans forward and puts his hands on my face. “Josie, they couldn’t do anything for the baby. She was too little.”

  “No.” I shake my head as though that will make his words go away. A girl? My little precious innocent baby girl. “No, this isn’t happening. Where’s Seth?” Another memory of him being handcuffed and fighting to stay with me enters my thoughts. “Oh, god. Is he in jail?”

  “Josie, you need to calm down. Seth’s fine. It was self-defense. They just needed to get the facts from him.”

  Hysterical with grief, I rock back and forth, hugging my stomach. I was caught off-guard and Michael stabbed me. “I killed my baby. I let him kill my baby! No, no, no, no, no, no, no.”

  “It’s going to be okay, sweetheart. You’ll get through this.”

  I shake off his comforting arm and continue to rock. The pain in my stomach is excruciating, but for some reason it’s better than the pain my heart feels knowing that my baby is gone. “My baby’s gone,” I cry. “I killed my baby. I let him take her from me.”

  “Her wound’s opening, we need to calm her down so she doesn’t make it worse,” a new voice says. Arms try to stop my movement, but I wrench away.

  “Get out! Don’t touch me!” I scream. “Just let me die … please. Just let me go.” I didn’t think it was possible to cry this hard. My chest aches with the raw pain. “Just let me die, please,” I whisper to myself. “I can’t take this. My baby’s gone. I never even got to hold her. I never got to tell her I loved her.” She deserved a better mom than me.

  “Make it stop,” my dad’s choked voice pleads. “Give her what she needs for the pain.”

  I look up and see the tears tracing his jaw. I hurt everyone I love. “Where’s Seth? I need Seth, Dad.” A nurse starts to put something into my IV stream. “No!” I yell at her. “I need Seth! Don’t drug me up more.”

  But it’s a useless plea. They think I’m crazy and need to be sedated with drugs. “Dad! Please. I need Seth. Go get Seth!”

  “Brooke’s getting him, Josie. I promise, he’ll be here.”

  There’s something about his promise that doesn’t feel right. A brief sensation of ice hits my bloodstream and I feel my heart getting heavier, the need to scream weakening. “Seth,” I try to call out. “Seth!” I need to see him. To tell him how sorry I am. To make sure he doesn’t think any of this is his fault.

  I call for him until the medicine drags me into another blissfully hollow sleep.

  Chapter 33

  Seth

  Shooting someone is easy.

  As my finger rested against the trigger of the gun I had aimed at Michael’s chest, a message was sent to my brain seeking permission to shoot. My nervous system responded immediately with the action and I fired the bullet. All six rounds, easily shot by the simple movement of my finger.

  Yes, shooting him was easy.

  The constant replay of watching someone die by your hand, though, that … that isn’t easy. Everything I didn’t couldn’t wouldn’t process that day screams at me every time I allow myself a moment of silence.

  For the hundredth time today, I have to swallow back another bought of nausea as I watch the bullets I shot tear through a human’s chest. Each bullet burning a hole through his skin and creating a never-ending supply of blood down his body.

  But it’s his eyes that haunt me the most. The once vengeful and hate-filled irises dulling slowly as his life slips away. The way he falls to his knees and looks at me in shock. Shock that I just sentenced him to death. That I took his life from him as if I were a god who could control who was allowed to live and who should die.

  I feel his blood on my hands. No amount of washing them or wiping them on my jeans makes that go away. No amount of sleep or reassurance that it was the right thing to do takes away the fact that I killed someone.

  No matter the fact that I’d do it again if it means Josie is alive, I still shot and killed another human being.

  You failed her anyway, you piece of shit.

  Maybe that’s what makes this worse. Despite my actions, despite the fact that I made a life-altering decision to become a murderer, Josie is still in the hospital. Still lying there minus the life we were so happy to bring into this world.

  She deserves better than you.

  Blood. So much blood on these hands. I wipe them for the hundredth time today on the front of my jeans, trying to empty my thoughts by reading the, “How to Give Your Man the Best O” article I have open in my lap. The pages of the magazine crumple under my fists. I give up and throw it on the seat across from me, bending over myself and gripping the strands of my hair.

  I should be in there with her! She should be waking up to me.

  “Seth,” a feminine voice calls. My hands automatically drop to slide against my thighs as I look up at Brooke. I stand up abruptly, almost tripping as I make my way to her.

  “Is she awake? Is she okay? Does she know about the baby? Does she want to see me? Wait. Don’t answer that yet. I don’t think I can handle it if—” I swallow hard and shake out my hands. I wipe them on the sides of my legs and take a deep breath. “Is she okay?”

  “I don’t know, Seth. Tony told me to let you know she was waking up. I didn’t get a chance to really see her.” I stare out the window overlooking the hospital parking lot, a place I’ve become quite familiar with in the last couple days. Three days, to be exact. Seventy-two hours of agony waiting to find out if Josie would pull herself out of sleep.

  The doctors said it was up to her. As if she could consciously make a decision whether or not she wanted to wake up and face reality. I told her to fight. Fight because I need her and love her, but what if that isn’t enough? What if she doesn’t care?

  One persistent fear beating in my skull for days has been the thought that she’ll never want me again. That everything she said a week ago is still true. Even if it isn’t true, the fact that I couldn’t save her from losing our baby is a pretty fucking good reason for her not to talk to me again. A baby she never felt like she deserved, since she took away her last pregnancy willingly. A baby that she’ll now feel is retribution for her past.

  I wouldn’t want me.

  You fuck up everything.

  “Seth!” Brooke says, snapping in front of my face to get my attention back. Fucking voices in my head.

  Glaring at Brooke for never breaking her annoying habits even in a time like this, I ask, “Will they let me back in?” Of course, the bigger problem right
now is whether or not the hospital staff will allow me back in the room.

  It wasn’t a good time after they released me from the police station. I ran to her room, where I found her motionless but still with a heartbeat beeping on the monitor. I kneeled by her side for hours before someone came in.

  The most simplistic way to describe why I was banned from her room would be to say that I lost my shit.

  When they told me they couldn’t save our baby, but she had a pretty good chance of conceiving again in the future … I couldn’t take it. Couldn’t handle the excruciating pain in my chest. They couldn’t fucking save our baby! The most innocent soul in all of this shit storm and she was lost to us before I could even tell her I loved her. Before I could see if I would make a good father one day.

  One of my biggest fears since I found out Josie was pregnant came true with those words and I. Fucking. Lost. It.

  I threw the chair against the wall, screaming through the pain. Why her? Why is Josie in a hospital bed? Why the fuck did our daughter have to die before she even got to take her first breath? Why couldn’t the doctors save them both? Tony tried to hold me back, reassuring me that everything would be okay and to calm down, but the rage was too strong. The hurt was too strong. I apologized to a very still and cold Josie, kissing her one last time before security dragged me out of the room.

  Brooke rolls her blue eyes and turns to walk to the elevators, long blond hair swishing behind her. She’s always so put-together. Ditzy and annoying, but a good friend for Josie right now, since I’m a fucking mess. “Let’s be honest, Seth, are you really going to let them stop you?”

  “Probably not,” I sigh, closing my eyes as the elevator doors shut.

  My heart pounds against my ribcage. The pain of everything that happened a couple days ago still fresh. I would risk jail time if I could get a glimpse of Josie alive. Even if the first thing she tells me is that she can’t look at me or forgive me for what happened.

  I wipe my palms against my jeans as the elevator shoots up to her floor. Deep down, I know I shouldn’t blame myself for what happened. Any sane person would tell me that there was nothing else I could have done. She pushed me away. Michael was the one who pursued her, who violated her, who stabbed her.

  A sane person could grasp that. But I’m not sure I fall into that category anymore.

  My breathing turns rapid as we near her door. I hear her cry. A cry so filled with sorrow and pain that it stops me dead in my tracks. I turn to Brooke, eyes wide and filling with tears, and see her reacting the same. I run my palms through my hair and then down my thighs again, trying to stop the quiver in my jaw. She can’t see me break down, too. She needs to heal.

  Tears drip down my cheeks, hearing her call out my name, screaming no over and over again. “Brooke,” I croak through the tears. “I don’t think I can do this. I can’t be strong for her right now.” Everything inside me is pulled tight. My nerves are at attention and my ability to function is taut from the strain of the past few weeks.

  “You have to, Seth.” She grabs my hand and squeezes it tight. “It doesn’t matter if you’re strong or not right now. She doesn’t need your strength. She needs you. Seth Montgomery. The love of her life. The father of the baby she just found out was killed. She needs you two to heal together, not for you to pick up her pieces.”

  Squeezing my eyes shut, I nod my head. She’s right, of course. Josie would never expect me to be okay after everything that happened.

  “Okay,” I say softly, starting toward the door again.

  My phone rings before I turn the knob. I hear Josie’s screeching cry of pain and I almost don’t look at my phone. But I already pulled it out. Already saw that my mom was calling. Already started to answer to let her know I’d call her back later.

  “Hey, mom,” I say quickly before she can speak. “Josie just woke up, and I’m going in to see her now. Can you—”

  “Seth,” Mom cries into the phone. My hand flies to the center of my chest. The thread holding me together fraying in the middle.

  “Mom, what’s wrong?” Josie’s crying in the background makes my heart race harder. I need to get to her. She’s calling for me and I’m so close. “Mom,” I force again, trying to push back the feeling of falling.

  A sob reaches my ear. In fact, the sobbing doesn’t stop as she tells me what’s wrong. “It’s Dad. He had another heart attack. He didn’t make it.”

  My phone crashes to the floor. Dazed, I slide onto the ground, everything around me losing focus. The sounds of the waiting room, Josie’s crying, Brooke asking what’s wrong—it all fades.

  The only thing I hear is that tiny strand keeping me grounded and in reality finally snap.

  Chapter 34

  Josie

  It’s been four days since I woke up for the first time in the hospital. Four days since I found out I lost my baby. But, oh, the good news is that I shouldn’t have trouble getting pregnant again in the future. Four days I’ve been crying for Seth, and four days that he still hasn’t come to see me.

  I’ve had to heal alone. I’ve had to come to terms with the fact that in six months there will be no baby filling my home, alone. I’ve had to cry alone. I’ve had to find the strength to get out of the hospital bed and move on. Alone.

  Dad drives to his house with one hand on the wheel, the other holding onto my limp hand. I look out the window forcing myself to breathe every few seconds. Sometimes I think I’d rather not be breathing. Sometimes I wish I had never woken up at all.

  I’m angry, and sad, and hurt, and really fucking scared. Out of everything that happened, I remember the fear in Seth’s eyes the most. The way he told me he loved me like he was terrified that he would never see me again. The pain in my stomach can’t rival the pain he’s made me feel by not coming to me.

  And yes, it’s fucking selfish. He lost the baby, too. He should be able to grieve without me sucking even more energy from him. But I am selfish. I’ve been told this by the two men I fell in love with in my life. I want him here with me. Not my dad. Not Brooke.

  If I have to live and breathe in this world after everything that happened, then I need him here to do it.

  Dad guides me to my bed, since walking up the stairs puts more strain on my wound. I could have left the hospital earlier if I hadn’t thrown a fit that first day I woke up and tore my stitches back open. Now, high on anti-depressants and anti-anxiety medication, I’m in a perpetual state of numbness, with only a few slips of unbearable pain.

  “I have to go to the bathroom,” I mumble before Dad helps me into my bed. Unexpectedly, a tear slips from my eye. I swipe it away before I can reflect on why it’s there. My meds must be wearing off. “I can get in bed by myself.”

  I shut myself in the bathroom before Dad can protest and lean against the sink, breathing hard. This has been the hardest part of recovery. They said the bleeding could last up to four weeks. Every single time I use the bathroom, the blood is a reminder of what I’ve lost, reopening any wounds I start to heal.

  I manage to get through it without freaking out, but Dad doesn’t miss the rapid tears falling down my cheeks when I walk back to my room. Despite my efforts to push him away, Dad helps me get into bed, placing a book on the nightstand next to me.

  And for the first time in my life, I realize I have no desire to read. To live through a tragedy or happily-ever-after of another.

  I get a good look at Dad before he leaves the room and notice he changed. In fact, he changed into a suit—something he’s only worn for a wedding or a—Daddy’s—funeral.

  “Dad,” I call to him before he leaves my room. He turns back around to face me. “Where are you going?”

  “I’ll be back in a couple hours. You go on to sleep, and I’ll be back before you wake up. I put your phone on the nightstand, so if you need me, call or text. I’ll be nearby.”

  “Dad,” I say again a little more forcefully. I sit up in the bed and press my hand against my stomach. “Where the hell ar
e you going?”

  “Dammit, Josie. You can’t just let things go.”

  “I swear, I will get out of this bed and follow you wherever you’re going if you don’t tell me right now.”

  Dad grunts and sits down on the edge of the bed. “We didn’t want to tell you after everything that happened. I thought it’d be better for you to heal first.”

  My first thought goes to Seth. Is he hurt? Did he hurt himself? “What happened, Dad? Tell me what’s going on.”

  He closes his eyes and a hand rubs across his bald head. “George had another heart attack, Jos. Gayle woke up the morning you woke up and found he had passed in his sleep. It was a shock to everyone.”

  I want numbness back. I don’t want to feel this pain again. Losing someone else I love is too much. And fuck, here I go again being so freaking selfish, while Seth is out there somewhere mourning his father. “Oh, god, Dad. How is Seth? This can’t be happening right now! Seth has got to be losing it. Have you heard from him?” I wipe more tears from my eyes. “Wait, is today the funeral? I have to go.”

  Pushing the covers down, I stumble out of bed and head to my closet.

  “You’re not going. Go lie back down, Josie Bean.”

  I shoot a glare at him and pull out a black dress. Swallowing hard, I turn to face my dad. “I can’t believe this. I can’t believe you kept this from me! Seth must be freaking out after … after everything. Goddammit, Dad. I need to be there.”

  “You need to be in bed healing. Gayle understands that you aren’t coming.”

  “I’m not worried about what she thinks, Dad! I’m worried about Seth. Do you have any idea what must be running through his mind right now? We lost the baby and he didn’t even have time to process that before he realized he lost his dad, too.” I sit on the bed and close my eyes, picturing what he must be feeling. “He’s going to blame himself,” I say to myself. I shake my head. “I need to be there.”

  Dad watches me for a minute, then grunts and turns to leave. “Get dressed. I’ll be back in here in five minutes to get you.”