“I want a tattoo. Like you and Daddy and Mommy.”
I chuckled even harder. “Ah, well, I don’t know about that, kiddo. When you get older, I promise I’ll give you all the tattoos you want, but you’re still a little young. I think your mom and dad might get mad at me if I did that.”
His eyes widened with fear. “Would Mommy make you leave?”
Nodding assuredly, I replied, “I’m pretty sure she would.”
“I don’t want that.”
“Good. Neither do I.” I reached out to ruffle his shaggy brown hair. “Get to sleep.”
I began to stand when he stopped me again. “Wait. There’s something else I want.”
“Okay,” I drawled, squatting back down. “What’s that?”
“Bring Jake back. I don’t want him to be at the hospital anymore.”
Pressing my lips into a firm line and fighting the tears that stung the backs of my eyes, I nodded. “I’m trying, kiddo,” I said, while being unsure if yelling at the sky and throwing shit against the wall could really be considered trying.
“Okay,” Freddy replied, offering me a satisfied nod. He reached out a hand and patted my shoulder. “Night-night, Blake.”
“Night, Freddy.”
I stood with a sigh and focused on not slumping my shoulders as I walked past Audrey. She closed the door behind her and instructed me to sit in the living room while she made us some tea. As I sat down on the couch, I remembered the first time I’d been here in her apartment. It wasn’t that long ago, only several weeks or so in the past, but it felt like years since I’d first come here, drunk and confused. I’d been so resistant to what I thought I’d always known, and now, I couldn’t leave. She was my salvation and my belief that there was something more to all of this. Leaving would’ve meant to turn my back on the only comfort I had left, and maybe it was enough. Maybe I’d be okay if Jake were to die. I could go on with the hope that he was in a better place, if only I had this woman and her child to need me, to depend on me and to love me.
“Fuck,” I muttered under my breath, running a hand over my mouth and through my beard.
“Here you go.” Audrey came into the living room with two steaming mugs and handed one to me. My mood must’ve been written plainly on my face as hers contorted with concern. “You hanging in there, Kiefer?”
My hand wobbled in gesture. “I’m getting there.”
I took a sip of the tea and immediately sighed at the sharp note of bergamot, warmed by the sweet vanilla. It was a simple comfort and I gladly welcomed it to make itself at home in my belly. Audrey asked if it was good, as if there was a chance at all I’d find it bad, and I nodded. “Very good,” I assured her and put the mug down on the coffee table.
“So, Gus called today while I was at the house,” I began, rubbing my hands against my jeans. “He wants me to take over the shop.”
The brim of her mug had barely touched her lips before she pulled it away with an excited gasp. “Blake! That’s amazing! What did you say?”
“He didn’t give me much of a choice,” I laughed uncomfortably.
Her face reluctantly fell. “Oh …”
“I want it,” I said with sincerity, and her eyes lit up again with excitement. “I’m just having a hard time feeling happy about it.”
She didn’t reply. Instead, she just reached over and scooped one of my hands into hers and held on tightly. It wasn’t long ago when I’d need to call Dr. Travetti and release my troubles to someone who would listen and write things down for analysis. It was funny that now I felt content with simply having someone to listen and hold my hand. It felt like enough.
We drank our tea and went to bed, lying side by side and kissing lazily with our hands clasped and our hearts marching to the beat of the same drum. With a sigh, I laid my head on her chest, my ear pressed to the butterfly I’d carved into her skin, and I was lulled toward the safety of slumber in her arms. I imagined every night of the rest of my life ending this way, after a long day at Salem Skin, and after eating dinner with her and Freddy as a family. I imagined her and me, together in this bed, or maybe mine, and feeling nothing but contentedness that this was our life and that it was as good as a life could be. It’d be all I ever dreamed of, all I never knew I could have, and all I never knew that I could even deserve. I would fall asleep with a gentle smile on my face, knowing this was ours and how nothing would take it away.
But the fantasy was wiped away with the reminder that Jake was alone, trapped in a prison he couldn’t break out of, and I wasn’t able to help him. I couldn’t rip him out, I couldn’t do a damn thing, and I held in my tormented hurt as I silently begged anybody who would listen to do what I couldn’t.
Please. Please, for fuck’s sake, help him. Whatever you need to fucking do, just save him. Please.
Chapter Thirty-Five
ON NEARLY A daily basis, the doctors mentioned the eventual possibility of turning Jake’s machines off if there was a stop in brain activity. But after weeks, it still hadn’t come. Not yet, anyway. He just seemed to be stuck in a permanent state of limbo. Not quite sleeping, yet not dead, either. Audrey was convinced that it was his body’s way of healing after the accident. And maybe she was right. We all knew it’d be next to impossible for him to cope with the doctors’ orders of taking it easy while his bones mended. It was a nice thought and I wanted to believe her, but I was forever the realist and I wasn’t convinced that his body just simply hadn’t let go yet.
Still, I hoped she was right.
What I did find amazing, was how we’d all settled into this new normal way of life. After a week and a half had passed since the accident, I had gone back to work, needing the daily reprieve from the monotony of sitting within the hospital walls without any end in sight. I’d spent my days tattooing and daydreaming about what I was going to do with the shop once Gus and I made my status as shop manager official. And I never let my phone out of my sight. Just in case my parents called.
Now, it’d been about three weeks since Jake’s accident, and it was a few days before Christmas. I’d gone to bed early, exhausted after a day of work, then sitting at the hospital, and cooking dinner and doing laundry with Audrey. She was out of work for the holiday break and we had plans to do some last-minute Christmas shopping before I went down to see Jake, and when I woke up, she was already missing from what I’d begun to think of as our bed.
Stretching my arms overhead, I relished in how refreshed I felt. It’d been weeks since I had slept so well and there was only a faint twinge of guilt in regard to that. I opened my eyes to stare at the ceiling, listening to the sounds of the old house, and smiled when I heard Audrey’s singing voice come from the kitchen. With the assumption that she was making tea and breakfast, I sat up to rub the sleep from my eyes, with all intentions to join her. But before I could press the heels of my palms against my face, I was stopped, rendered stupid and stunned, at the black and yellow figure of the butterfly.
So small and perfect in its design, it was perched precariously at the bed’s footboard and apart from the gentlest twitch of antennae, it was motionless and almost looked fake. My heart hammered wildly in my chest as I reached out slowly for my phone and quickly texted Audrey, telling her to get in here right now to make sure I wasn’t completely losing my fucking mind.