"I'm just going to let you visit a little bit. I'll be back shortly to check on you." The nurse pats my shoulder again and walks out, shutting the curtain behind us.
"Hi." I squeak.
His eyes bore into me. A mixture of agony, anger, relief, and sadness play like a record on repeat in his gaze. The noises from the hallway are muted and the only thing that I can hear is my nervous breathing.
“How are you?” I ask when he doesn’t say anything.
“What have the doctors said today?” Rose asks from the side of the room. His eyes shoot over to his and then flit back over to me.
He ignores her, too.
I’m also noticing that he isn’t even passing a glance at his child.
“The baby is doing well.” I’m hoping that if I give him enough good news, maybe he’ll speak up. Say something. Anything. To me, at least.
“Rose says that he’s a good baby. Doesn’t fuss much besides when he’s hungry.” I look down at Wesley and a smile automatically comes to my face. When I look back at Jackson, he’s still staring at me. His eyes haven’t once strayed from my face.
He swallows, and I watch as his throat works. Like he’s holding back from speaking the words he so badly wants to say. Can he not speak, either?
Or has he chosen to once again live in the silence?
“Do you know when you’re getting out of here? I haven’t talked to the doctor, but I’m hoping I can get out of here within the next couple days.” It feels awkward, talking to nothing. It’s why I barely talked to Jackson throughout the years. I won’t give up on him though this time.
I can’t.
“I got a name for him.” My voice pleads this time. “Wesley Logan.”
His nostrils flare and his eyes grow a fire. It makes my heart speed up.
Finally. Something.
“Good thing you’re giving the baby up. No use in having a kid when I can’t even fuckin’ walk.” His voice rasps for the first time. His voice sounds so unused and worked over. Tired. He sounds utterly tired.
And his words are like a dart right into my heart.
“Um, actually… that’s the thing. Colton and Amanda stopped in, and I told them I was going to keep the baby.
He closes his eyes, seemingly asleep since his body doesn’t move a muscle until he tears me into shreds with his words.
“You really are fucking stupid, aren’t you?” He says, eyes still closed, and his head stays tilted to the side. “I can’t walk, and I’m never going to again. I can’t—I can’t fucking do this with you. I want you, and that baby, to get out of my room. Get out of my room, get out of this hospital, and get out of my life.”
“But—” I start.
His eyes open, and fury lays beneath the surface of his irises that are just begging to be released. “Go, Cara. Get out of here.” He looks like he wants to rage and tear this room apart, but he can’t.
And I think that’s the saddest part of all.
With tears streaming down my face, I drop my head between my shoulders and let out silent sobs as I feel Rose come up behind me and start pushing me out of the hospital room. The baby’s cart pops up beside me and I lay my hand on his stomach as we exit his room.
Then he obliterates my already beaten heart. “You’d be smart to go and ask Amanda and Colton to take the baby back. No point now.” He mumbles, and I wouldn’t have been able to even hear him if I didn’t know Jackson. Rose might not even have heard him.
But I did.
I clench Wesley’s baby blanket in my hand as I hold back a scream wanting to be set free.
“Looks like it’s just you and me, Wesley.” I whisper to him, wishing I could change things are already certain, and hoping for things that will never be.
3
Jackson
Long after Cara has left, I’m still devastated from the look on her face. She looked at me hopelessly, like she wanted me to be someone else.
Like she wanted me to be Logan.
Someone who would stand by her through the muddy waters of life and not shut down. Go dark.
Go silent.
But I can’t, because I’m a fuckin’ cripple and there ain’t no fixing me this time.
It’s better off if she goes and lives her life and leaves me to wither away into a pile of bones. And of course, now she wants to keep the baby. Now that I’m a useless breathing body that can’t contribute anything. And I’ve got no idea if that shit is ever going to change.
The doctors haven’t given me any indication if I’ll ever walk again. I’ve done test after test and the doctors looks on their face when they see the results gives me no hope of the future. Their eyes speak the words they won’t say. There is hopelessness mixed with fear in them as they stare at me with a frown. They don’t want to be the one to say to Rich Malone or the son of one if his partners that he’ll never be able to stand, walk, or piss into a toilet again.
If I were home and not trapped in this room surrounded by people, I’d have ended it days ago.
But I can’t, because they keep a close watch on me and I’m constantly being guarded.
Fucking Randall.
My fucking father. I hope he’s rotting in hell with the worst of them. I’ve asked Easton and Rich what they did with him. No one says a word. Hugo won’t even say a peep about it. I hope it’s just because there are ears around the corner. If they think they’re saving me from his gruesome death, they really don’t know me.
I hope they ripped his organs out one by one and then fed them to him as his last meal.
He deserves the worst of the worst. Maybe this is my penance for my bad deeds, because if I were dead, I’d find his ass and be his own personal devil.
The fact that he plunged a knife into Cara’s pregnant stomach is enough to make me want to tear apart this sterile fucking room. If I could move a muscle, that is.
Cara.
Her stupid decision in deciding to keep the baby. It only took her nine months to make this decision. I know she’ll make a good mother. The faces that she’d make at her stomach when she thought no one was looking. She wanted the baby as much as she wanted air.
I wish I could be there to help her, but with the darkness I feel seeping inside of me, I know I won’t be able to be there for her.
I’ll only ever bring her down.
I close my eyes, because there’s nothing to do besides blink these days. I can turn my head from side to side, but once I hit my shoulders, it’s like I have no body. Except for when I look down, it’s still there. Limp, useless, fucking pathetic.
I’ve chosen not to speak because I have nothing to say, but when Cara came in the room the words just flooded out. As they always have lately. She gets me to be about as normal as I can be.
My teeth grind together violently. The only girl in my life, and it’s over.
There’s no use in trying. Why would she ever want to be with a fuckin’ cripple? Someone who will never be able to walk, possibly ever move again?
She’ll have to… what… roll me from side to side so I don’t get bed sores?
Give me a bath because I can’t soap myself?
No. Hell fucking no.