Mia will recover but she won’t want anything to do with me… and I, I think I don’t give damn what she wants.
“I said no, damn it!”
It doesn’t quite register to either of us that I just threw the cup of water to the wall until the door swings open and the cop peeps in, looking between us like we’re criminals.
“Is everything okay in here?” he questions.
“Yeah. His reflexes are shit, as you can see,” Cole grumbles then plops down in the chair beside my bed.
The cop raises an eyebrow, then leaves without another word, closing the door behind him, leaving a heavy silence between Cole and me.
We stare at each other.
He’s stubborn but so am I.
We’re equal in so many ways but fuck me if I’ll backdown from this fight.
“Fuck!” Cole mutters after a while. “I just don’t fucking understand you. Why are you allowing yourself to suffer like this? I know you! You always calculate way ahead than the rest of us slackers and now, you’re lying there like a fucking dry ass pussy, waiting to be taken.”
“Fuck you!”
“Yes, Mia doesn’t remember everything, including you. But if there’s something I’ve learned about that girl is she’ll pull through. She fucking loves you and we both saw the way she looked at you just now. That look in her eyes… that was a look of love, even I know that!”
“She has fucking amnesia.”
“Retrograde amnesia and I heard at this stage the chances are it’s temporary, she just needs to rest and heal from the pain.”
Heal from the pain?
He saw her first before I did. He saw the state she was in, but he didn’t see her light being extinguished in my fucking arms when that asshole shot her.
“Stop.”
“Mia will rally, and she’ll find a way to claw her way out of the oblivion. You know why? Because of that genius mind of hers and her huge heart.”
“Aww, isn’t that cute? And when will that be, huh?” I ask sarcastically. “Fuckin twenty years from now.”
“When she’s ready, dude the fuck?”
“Fuck that shit! You and I both heard what Nicky said.” Nicky came over to talk to Dad about Mia. Nathan was looming over her like a fucking dark cloud, but now he’s been taken downtown, but no one knows how long that will be for.
I’m fucking sure that when he gets back, he’ll want to control everything about Mia, make sure she points the finger at me.
But I won’t have him abuse her ever or use her ever again, so I just have to go behind bars to give him some sort of win against John.
“Yes, that only means that when Mia is ready, you need to be there,” Cole says, sitting up straight now. “If that asshole pops up to cause trouble, we can put a hurt on him so bad, he’ll go burn in hell where he belongs. Let me just go now…”
What part of this isn’t he getting?
“Goddamn it, Cole, I said no!”
“The fuck?” he says, getting up now and I force myself to sit up, ignoring the waves of pain as much as I can. “Dude…”
“Weren’t you fucking listening to anything I just said? You do that then what?” I growl, not caring about the anger and fear that’s so clear in my voice as I look at my best friend. “If you talk, he’ll find a way to block you. You saw the kind of pull he has to set me up.”
“That’s what I’m saying, we—” he starts but I cut him off, too livid with this entire situation and with him to stop.
“That bastard will punish you for nothing and when that fucking happens, who will fucking look after them, damn it?”
Silence.
I watch as the realization dawns on him.
“Ah fuck, J…”
“Who the fuck will watch over them? Liam and Mia, who will keep them safe because you and I will both go down?”
We stare at each for a beat.
“Who the fuck do I trust to take care of them beside you? If we both go down, then what?” I’m breathing hard and fast, glaring daggers at him. “You want us to fight fire from behind bars, is that it? And what about your sister?”
“Don’t fucking talk about her,” he grits out.
“You never talk about her, but imagine she wakes up one day and finds your fucking face on T.V. for murder?”
“She has seen my face on T.V.”
“As opposed to seeing it in person, huh.”
Checkmate.
The silence only intensifies my angry at him for not seeing it, and my fear that he’s now realizing the danger but just in case he doesn’t get it or thinks I’m joking, I hold his stare and I say, “I’ll never fucking forgive you if you leave them defenseless.”
Cole doesn’t look away or scoff. He holds my gaze, all the good vibes and bullshit out the window.
“Bro, doing this will be for them,” Cole says. “And to be quite honest, this is for me too. I’m selfish enough to admit I need you. College, football and all the fucking shit we talked about on that beach for hours until John and my dad would find us, wouldn’t be the same without you. It’s been a few weeks of early practice and it’s all wrong.”
“You’ll live. You’ve survived worse already,” I mutter under my breath, but he hears me.
“Fuck that. People survive, sure, but trust me, a part of them dies and never really comes to life no matter what they do.”
Story of my life right there.
“But you’re my best friend. I’m an asshole sure, and maybe if you had pissed me off a bit, I’d be comfortable to let you rot behind bars, but I can’t. I can’t let you suffer for what that asshole did to her!”
It’s in that moment that I see it clearly. What I thought was fear before isn’t that at all. It’s desperation to bring some semblance of justice back.
“Yeah well, life isn’t fair,” I grumble.
“There must be a way out, still,” Cole says, standing up now and then he starts pacing. “Mia and Nicky’s testimony about Nathan may be dismissed as hear say, one because Mia has amnesia, her testimony cannot be trusted and two, Nicky might just be a woman scorned. With no evidence abuse and Nancy dead, trust me, he’ll swing around and blame you.”
“You see, that’s’ why I’m willing to—"
“No! Even with all of that, there’s always a flaw…” he says then trails off, dropping back down in the chair. “Little Liam is still mad at you.”
I blow out a breath and then look away, my body sagging into the mattress as tension seeps out of me.
“Yup.”
“He’ll come around.”
“I wouldn’t hold my breath.”
We’re silent for a while.
Cole just sits there with me, not saying a word. When the silence gets too heavy, he gets up and switches on the television.
“Don’t you have some place to be?” I mutter, staring blankly at the screen, my throat working when he changes the channel after a college football game comes up.
“I do.”
“Then go.”
“Nah, I’m good. Told you before, one of us was going to be a housewife,” he says sarcastically. “Might as well get my hours in now since you’ll be useless for the foreseeable future.”