Chapter 48 Amber
Amber
When the surgeon emerged to tell us that they'd repaired the veins and patched the trachea, I nearly collapsed. Dex pulled some sort of strings and convinced him to move Cal to a private suite once he left the observation period.
The suite has its own bathroom, which is the only way Katrina is able to convince me to leave Cal's side. It made sense when she said that he shouldn't wake up to find me covered in his blood. It would probably upset him, and since he won't be able to use his voice, we don't want to upset him.
She guided me to the bathroom and under the spray of the shower, slipping the robe down my shoulders and soaping my hair. I didn't realize how much blood was on me until I watched it swirl around the drain.
I think it should be weird, standing naked in the shower having my husband's best friend's girlfriend wash me.
There's nothing sexual about the act, though it's certainly intimate.
I'm too deep in a fog to move, too afraid that the doctors got it wrong, that he won't wake up, that his wound will burst open when I'm not there to help stop the bleeding.
She doesn't seem bothered by the fact that her own clothes get splashed with blood and soaked through as she guides me through the process, wrings my hair, and makes sure I don't slip on the slick floor.
I dress in the clothes she brought me, grateful for the warmth of the velvet pants and the sweater that conceals the fact I'm not wearing a bra.
She changes into her own outfit quickly, and then we open the door to find that nothing has changed.
Dex's head is still draped across the side of the bed, his exhaustion evident. I haven't told him what the note meant, why his best friend would feel so awful that he chose to end his own life rather than suffer through it.
I think he knows, though. I think he can tell that the guilt was just too much.
"That was fast." Parker says, standing and pointing to the chair he was slumped in, offering it to me. But I don't want his chair. It's not close enough.
I need to hear Cal’s heartbeat.
I'm careful of the wires that connect him to various machines. I recognize the heart monitor, the pulse oximeter, the IV, and the blood pressure cuff that goes off intermittently. I avoid it all as I crawl beside him, sure to stay well away from his neck.
I know his heart is pumping, logically. It's right there on the screen to the left of him.
But that isn't enough for me. Those mechanical things?
They don't offer me peace... not the way the slow rise of his chest does, the steady thrum of his heart, the warmth of him that seeps out from beneath the ugly cloth gown.
Somehow, in his arms again, the what-ifs don't seem so problematic. If we weren't in the hospital, it would be just like any other night at home. He's alive, and no matter how mad I am for what he did, I suddenly believe that everything will be okay.
I don't even realize I fell asleep on him until I'm waking up to voices... yelling.
"Shh!" Katrina says. "You're going to wake her."
"Listen, I understand, but I'm not just going to let him get away with this. He needs to know that what he did was inexcusable. And if I wasn't so relieved he was alive, I'd fucking kill him myself."
A sudden movement shakes Cal's chest, and I jump, pulling away so that I can see the soft smile on his lips for me.
I gasp, covering my mouth with my hand to try and stifle the sob.
Relief isn't the word for what I feel. There probably isn't a word for when your new husband ends up being alive after he tried to kill himself, but you're so pissed off at him for doing that to you that you also want to strangle him yourself.
He opens his arm, like he means for me to lay against him so he can hug me. But I'm not in the hugging sort of mood.
I slap his chest instead, so hard that my hand stings.
"You fucking asshole!" I snap.
I'm about to hit him again when I think better of it. I don't want to risk hindering his recovery.
He doesn't exactly need his balls at the moment, though. I'm genuinely considering gifting him with a swift kick there before I realize I shouldn’t spike his blood pressure. I can't hurt him without hurting him.
"Fuck you!" I yell because, apparently, it's all I can do. "How could you do this?"
His eyes are wide, bewildered. He didn't anticipate my rage.
That makes him an even bigger dumbass than I thought.
"You were just going to let me wake up and find out you were gone?"
He can't fight back, and it's infuriating. I need answers.
"Maybe we should give you some privacy." Katrina says quietly, but I can't tell if it's a question. I don't have any energy for her, as amazing as she's been.
All of my energy is going to holding back on physical violence.
"Not yet." Dex says, drawing up to the side of the bed. "He needs to hear this."
"What an absolute asshole he is for doing this to us? I agree!"
"You deserve your anger." He tells me calmly. "It's fair. All of your anger, it's justified."
I clench my fists, irritation surging through me. I don't like him trying to calm me down. I don't want to be calmed down. I want to stew in my anger, to be mad at him, because I've learned firsthand that anger is easier to deal with than pain.
"But you need to stop."
"You're not recovering, Dex." I remind him quickly. "I can still hurt you."
"I believe you could." Dex nods. "But it won't stop me from telling you this. Because Cal loves you, and I love him. Which means I love you, too, Amber."
I swallow my irritation but cross my arms over my chest.
"Your anger isn't healing you. It's keeping you from healing."
I stare at him in disbelief.
My anger isn’t healing me?
Obviously.
"When did you become a fucking therapist?"
"Like, three years ago?" Dex sighs. "I have a doctorate, Amber. I don't practice because I don't want to spend my life analyzing my best friend. Listen, you don't have to forgive him."
"Forgive him for what?" Parker asks.
Neither one of us answers.
"But you can't stay mad forever. It will burn you faster than it will him... and I don't know if he can go on without you."
I open my mouth to try and say something in my defense, but Dex shakes his head.
"We're going to step out and leave you alone for a bit.
If I were you, I'd take advantage of the fact he can't speak.
Tell him everything... no matter how stupid or wrong you think it is.
I promise, I know him better than you do.
And I know that he's in love with you. Nothing you say will change that. "
I stare at him, dumbfounded.
Dex presses a kiss to my cheek, and my confusion deepens.
I turn to Cal to see whether he's as confused as I am.
Instead, he's smirking.
I'm going to wipe that look right off his face the minute they leave us alone.
"Good thing you're not going anywhere." I tell him, standing when he tries to slip an arm around me.
He frowns at the loss of contact.
Now that we're alone, I don't know what I wanted to say to him.
"Do you love me?"
He blinks, clearly surprised by that question. But he doesn't hesitate before he nods.
"Then why would you do this to me?"
His eyes are sad, like he can feel my pain.
He opens his mouth, thinks better of it, and shakes his head. He mimes writing with his fingers in the air, and I look around before finding the pen and paper in the bedside table. When I hand them to him, he catches my hand and holds it so that I have to meet his gaze.
There's an ocean there, depths I haven't yet explored. But I can love the sea without ever diving to the deepest caverns. I can love the moon without ever kissing it. I can love him without ever understanding everything that made him who he is.
I didn't think I could love someone who I didn't know everything about. I didn't think I could love someone who is capable of cruel things.
Callum is a killer. But so am I.
Every waking moment of our time together has been spent by me plotting revenge. And once I finally had it, I didn't know what to do with myself. It was terrifying, so I ran from it by asking for him to do the very thing that he thinks I haven't forgiven him for.
It's on me. I didn't do a good enough job of making him understand that he just got the fallout from all the bad things that happened before I met him.
When I was fully awake, I knew it, and I refused to tell him because I didn't want to give him the upper hand.
It's stupid, considering I don't want control... not when it comes to him.
When he turns the paper for me to see what he wrote, I shake my head.
I hurt you.
"You did hurt me." I tell him. "Trying to kill yourself? Leaving me behind when you're everything to me? That hurts."
He blinks slowly and then scratches a word on the notepad.
Everything?
"Everything." I agree. "I wanted to go back to the way things were before because I don't know how to let someone else be everything to me. But, Cal... what you did before I knew you?"
His eyes fall.
"That was never my problem. From the start, my problem wasn't what you did.
.. it was the way it made me feel. My body loved you before I did, and maybe that part was some weird kind of Stockholm syndrome.
Maybe it was survival, or maybe it was because no matter what you did to me, you came back and kept me safe.
I didn't think that I could trust myself around you because of it, so I ignored what it was.
When you told me you loved me, I thought it was just that you'd grown attached to me, not that you loved me. "
"I—" His voice is a wheeze, a whisper. It sends chills down my spine, across my arms.
"Stop!" I shake my head. "You could damage your voice."
"love—" The word crackles in the middle and sounds more like 'luh'.
"Cal!"
"You."
His voice is strained, faint. It's so unlike him; I want to cry. I want to mourn, because even though he's alive, he thought I'd be better off without him.
That couldn't be further from the truth.
"I love you." I draw up to him and shake my head. "I love you, and I forgive you. For anything, for everything. But I need to say this now, because I need you to know..."
His eyes search mine in earnest, like he's waiting for me to condemn him.
"What you did? Trying to end your life? That hurts way worse than anything you've done."
It hurts in a different way than everything before it.
I surrendered my anger without even realizing that I had. I guess Dex's words got through to me one way or another. Now I'm left with a heavy heart... one that can be unburdened in time.
"The thought of waking up to find you gone? It—" I clutch my chest because I can't even get the words out around the ache there. It radiates to my lungs, making it hard to breathe.
He holds his arms open for me, and I decide I'm done punishing him.
I climb back in the bed with him and bury my face against his chest, and he wraps his arms around me, caging me in comfort.
We share the silence so long I think he may have fallen asleep.
We share the silence so long, I think I may have.
But as I feel his warmth beneath me, I realize there's one last thing that needs to be said.
"If you ever try to leave me again, I'll slit your throat for you. And you know I don't miss."