“Why? Why won’t you tell me who ra—”
“Don’t! Please, don’t say it. I can’t hear that right now, Eric. I don’t know if that’s what happened. For all I know, I got drunk, I had sex, and this is the consequence. Also, no one made me cut my arms; that was me. I wanted to kill myself. That isn’t on anyone but me.”
“You’d rather die than be a mom?”
I lay my head against the pillow and clear my throat. “No, of course not, but I’m not cut out to be a mom, Eric. Look at me. I’m under psychological evaluation. I have twelve-inch cuts down each arm. Part of me wishes I was still dead. A kid deserves more than that. I panicked! Did it influence the decision to cut my arms? Yes. I was scared. I’m still scared. I can’t take care of myself. How am I going to take care of a baby?”
He doesn’t say anything. There’s nothing to say.
He knows I’m right.
I wish like hell I wasn’t.
A few hours later, I walk out of the room after she falls asleep. I lean against the wall, completely fucking drained. The ridges of the scars along my back start to itch from the stress of today, and I close my eyes, telling myself that my dad isn’t here. The wounds are old. They aren’t who I am.
Liar.
They made me the man I am today.
What I’d give to know the name of the man who took advantage of her. I want the entire story. I swear, if I find out that he touched her without consent, I’m going to strap him to my table and cut every inch of flesh like my father did to me.
“Goddamn it.” I scrub my fingers over my brows then rub my eyes. I’m so damn tired. The whole world is weighing on me. Well, maybe not the entire world, just Jo. The one woman who I thought I’d be able to date when she came home, but that’s not going to happen. Shooting my shot is out the damn window. She’s not going to want anything to do with me after what’s happened to her.
My stomach is in sickening knots. I don’t have the comfort in knowing what will happen with her tomorrow or the next day. I don’t know if she’ll want to keep the baby or give it up for adoption, but I know one thing…
She isn’t alone. No matter how she wants me—friend, lover, nothing—I am here. I’ll love that child like it’s my own. I never gave thought to having kids, and by the looks of it, neither did Jo. It’s her choice. It’s all her choice.
Jo has to choose to live.
Jo has to choose motherhood.
I can’t push it on her, or she will end up hating me before I can get her to fall in love with me. Even after all of this, I feel something with her that I want to explore. I want to prove that I can be there for her. I can be worth it. I can show her that she is worth it. I’ll help her find herself.
I’ll be her stepping-stone, her armor, the softness when she needs to cry. The first time I saw her, she was happy, smiling, took what happened to her with a grain of salt, but I fucking knew. I saw the shadows in her eyes, the pain she held, the mask she made sure no one could see through.
I could.
Pain notices pain.
Abuse recognizes abuse.
With every slash against my back, a memory played in her eyes.
The two of us, we are cut from the same cloth, even if she doesn’t want to admit it. I’ve had most of my life to deal what happened to me. Jo didn’t have that. She made it the best she could without asking for a damn thing. She still hasn’t asked, but she doesn’t need to.
“Are you okay?” Jo’s doctor’s aged voice grabs my attention. I open my eyelids, grainy with exhaustion, and stare into his big eyes.
“I’m fine. I just need a minute. Some food too.” My stomach rumbles, reminding me that I haven’t eaten since breakfast yesterday. I’m starving.
“She’ll be okay. I know it doesn’t seem like it now, but I’ve seen my fair share of cases like this in my time. You just get a feeling, a gut instinct about people, and sometimes I know when someone is too far gone. I don’t think she is.”
“Code Blue. Room 564. Paging Doctor Abernathy. Code Blue. Room 564. Paging Doctor Abernathy,” the woman blares over the intercom.
“Excuse me. I need to go.”
I watch him scurry down the hallway, disappearing as he takes a left in hopes to save a patient’s life. I miss that. I miss the codes in the hospitals and being rushed into surgery. I shouldn’t complain. I have enough work to keep me busy at the club, but it isn’t like this. I miss the rush of going into surgery.
Don’t get me wrong, I stitch up club members all the time, remove a bullet or two, but I never get to see a bad car accident. An accident where the body is mangled to the point that survival seems impossible, but then somehow, the person fights for their life, and it’s up to us to save them. It’s pressure, it’s anxiety, it’s terrifying, and I fucking miss that feeling.
At the end of the day, it’s hard not to feel like a superhero after the rush of saving a life. It’s usually short-lived because I’ve learned if there is someone who lives it’s because someone has died. There is a balance. That much I believe.
My phone vibrates in my pocket, but I’m too tired to answer, so I let it ring until it goes to voicemail. I turn in the opposite direction, away from the emergency room, and toward the vending machines. I pass a few nurses, some wearing pink scrubs, some blue, green, all color-coded differently to show which department they work in. A few check me out, and I give them a kind, half-smile in return, but I’m not interested.
I’m interested in the woman laying in bed, fighting her battles all alone. Maybe it’s because I know what it’s like—to be alone, to struggle, to feel that impending doom. She’s screaming on the inside, and the only person who can hear her is me.
I pull out my wallet and insert some cash into the machine. I punch the number for a questionable looking sandwich I shouldn’t eat, but I’m going to anyway. The silver spring uncoils, and right as my sandwich is about to fall, it stops.
“Are you kidding?” I slap the side of the machine to try to knock the sandwich loose, but it doesn’t work. “Of course, you’d take my money.” I bang my head against the thick plastic then kick it.
“You know, sometimes things need a gentler touch,” a sultry voice says from beside me.
I peer over my arm and see a short, curvy woman with beautiful long red hair, smirking at me. “Is that so?” I ask, only flirting in return so I don’t hurt her feelings. She’s wearing pink scrubs and on the left breast says her name, Mindy. She’s cute. Sane. Not fucked up.
Which is cool if you like that kind of thing.
I like my women to be a bit of a mess.
“Oh, yeah,” she says, running her hand up and down the side of the machine. She taps the top of the machine three times, then kicks the bottom, and then adds another whack in the middle.
“I’ll be damn,” I say, impressed. “Isn’t that fancy?”
“Just a thing or two you learn once you work here long enough,” she says, leaning against the wall and crossing her arms under her ample tits. Her eyes land on my name on my cut, and immediately I’m annoyed.
She’s one of those.
She’s a biker bitch.