Chapter 37
THIRTY-SEVEN
Emmett
Ro was right about the food here; it’s ass.
Actually, no, that’s an insult to asses.
I think the oatmeal that I had for breakfast was scraped off of the floor somewhere, and the blueberry muffin came from the same factory where baseballs are made.
I bet if I threw it at the door, I could shatter the glass with it.
When a nurse comes in after what feels like my tenth conversation with Weber to take out my IV line and tell me that I can finally take a shower, I could almost kiss her right on the mouth.
Pulling off the gown – which is somehow draftier than it would be if I were completely naked – I look in the bathroom mirror and run a hand over the matching set of rectangular burns marring my chest which sandwich a deep, angry bruise that sits at the center.
I hold back a laugh, remembering Ro telling me that I had looked ‘microwaved.’ If she wasn’t so mad at me, I would text her a picture of the burns and crack a joke about my upgrade from being microwaved to being deep fried.
She wouldn’t appreciate that right now, though; maybe when she sees me in person, if she ever even wants to again.
The shower is quick, but it’s hot and I get clean, so I don’t really care.
I don’t even care that I have to leave the door cracked and listen to my dad saying ‘check in’ every five minutes – which is admittedly an improvement over having the door wide open while I pissed up until today.
I felt like I was covered in a layer of puke and grease before I got in the shower, and it feels so good to finally scrub that off.
I’d love a good shave, too, but I haven’t earned razor privileges; I’m working my way up to forks, at least.
It feels even better to slip into my own hoodie and a pair of sweatpants, each with their drawstrings removed, before joining Dad back in the room. I don’t think he’s gone home for more than a few hours at a time, and according to the bags under his eyes, I think he’s slept even less.
“You don’t have to stay,” I tell him while I drop onto the bed. “It’s been three days. I’m safe. You can go home.”
With a pat on my leg and a soft smile on his face, he tells me, “You don’t know this because you don’t have kids, but when one of them is in the hospital, you stay with them.”
“Even if he’s fine, up and moving, and only stuck there on technicality?”
“Even if,” he tells me. Something flashes behind his eyes just for a second while he looks at me – pain - but he quickly shoves it away, reaching instead for the deck of cards waiting on my bedside table.
Tapping them against the rolling table we’ve been eating all of our meals on, he asks, “Do you remember how to play War?”
We play through the deck twice, and I’m grateful that he doesn’t take it easy on me or try to let me win.
The game is just as competitive between us now as it was when I was a kid and he first taught me how to play.
I don’t tell him how much better I can breathe knowing that he isn’t handling me with kid gloves and treating me like he’s afraid that at any second, I’ll break again.
My eyes land on someone standing over the counter of the nurse’s station, talking to one of them. Dark, neatly-styled hair sits on top of his head, a thick stubble of matching color and neatness covering his jaw. His cream-colored sweater seems almost too formal for this place; too nice.
“You should go grab a coffee,” I tell Dad while he shuffles the cards for a third game.
Lifting his watch, he lets out a chuckle and tells me, “I’ve had three already, and it’s not even noon yet.”
“Dad, I need some space.”
“Oh.” Realization crosses his features – what he thinks he’s realized, I’m not sure, but he claps his hands together as he stands. “Got it. I’ll give Rowan a call and be back in a bit, alright? I’ll let the nurse know and she can check in on you. I’ll be right outside.”
As he leaves the room, he pulls his phone from his pocket and heads down the walkway that leads past the nurse’s station. My breath halts while I watch him walk past Nash, completely engrossed in the little screen in his hand.
As Nash approaches my room, he stuffs one hand into the pocket of his dark wash jeans, and I look away from him, reaching instead for the deck of cards. I pretend to shuffle them as he steps closer and raps his knuckles against the frame of the sliding door.
“I’ve been calling you,” he tells me as he walks into the room.
“I saw. Nineteen whole times.”
“I was worried.” Inviting himself closer, he moves away the table that Dad and I were using for our game and he settles onto the bed, closer to me than I want him to be. “You tried to die on me.”
“Most people would be happy about a parasite dying,” I bite, and he flinches at my words.
“Emmett, I’m sor—”
“They’re your words, Nash. Own them.”
With a heavy sigh, he rests his hands on his thighs and pushes himself to a standing position, heading back toward the door.
With his hand braced on the door frame, he turns to me.
“I’m glad that you’re okay,” he tells me as the thumb of his free hand affectionately traces the crucifix around his neck.
“I thought you and God broke up.”
“Apparently, we found something that we could agree on. Stay well, Emmett,” he tells me.
“You told me that I belonged to you,” I snap as he turns to leave. “You said that you wouldn’t leave me. And then you threw me away like a piece of garbage.”
He stops in his tracks, taking another deep breath before running his fingers through his perfectly-coiffed hair. Turning back to my room, he slides the door shut and draws the curtain behind it to give us some illusion of privacy.
“Do you know the definition of the word sacrifice?”
“I know what a sacrifice—”
“The definition of sacrifice,” he says, cutting me off, “is the act of giving up something valued for the sake of something else which is more important.”
A laugh floats out of me; not because it’s funny, but because he seems like he’s genuinely being serious. Acting as if he’s deluded himself into thinking he’s done me some huge favor, as if the cruel things that he said to me and the way that he manipulated me were somehow for my benefit.
“Calling me a parasite desperate for love was to...help me, that’s what we’re saying?”
“No,” he responds through gritted teeth. His hands ball into fists and come down on either side of my legs, pressing into the mattress. Hazel eyes bore into me with a heat so intense that I might melt beneath their gaze.
“I have thought about you every single day since you walked out of my house,” he tells me. “I’ve imagined your head underwater and your skin raw and picked away.” He takes my hand in his and raises it to inspect the side of my thumb, where the skin is raw and picked away.
His lips brush against the skin there before bringing my hand to his chest to feel that his heartbeat is strong and steady beneath the wall of his body.
“I wanted to tell you that it was okay. I wanted to tell you that I understood and that you would be fine. I wanted you to be fine. When those words came out of my mouth instead, I felt sick, pretty boy; but it made you hate me, and I could be okay with that if it meant that you wouldn’t hate yourself. ”
“You didn’t answer any of my calls.”
“I’m sorry,” he tells me, and I believe him. “I thought that it would be better for you. I was trying to help you let me go.”
He wraps an arm around me as he maneuvers himself to pull me backward into the bed, pressing his chest against my back, and I let him.
“You’re not a parasite, Emmett,” he tells me. “You are the best thing that has ever happened to me. You saved me. You never stopped belonging to me.”
My eyes close as I welcome the warmth of his body against my own, and all of the hate that I’ve tried so hard to make myself feel for him over the past three months is nowhere to be found.
“Did you do this because of me?” He asks the question so quietly I almost can’t hear him.
“No,” I tell him as his body tightens around mine and his cheek presses against my own.
“There’s something just…always there. It’s like a big bundle of tangled string.
Some of it’s thin and fragile. Some of it’s covered in rot.
If I try to untangle it, it hurts. If I try to ignore it, there’s a numbness that lasts for a while.
The options are feeling nothing or feeling pain.
I know it’s stupid; I’m a grown man, I’m successful, I—”
“It isn’t stupid.”
I turn to face him, letting my hand rest on his side. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him look at me the way that he is now; something gentle rests behind his eyes and a barely-there smile pulls at the corners of his mouth.
I believe what he said earlier, about not meaning to say what he did that night. As angry as I’ve been, I’ve believed that for a while, now. I know him. I might be the only person in the world who does; and in this moment, I think he might be the only person in the world who really knows me.
“I’m so mad,” I admit, scrubbing the sleeve of my hoodie across my eyes. “I’m mad at myself for failing, I’m mad that my dad won’t go home, I’m mad at all the people who keep coming in here and invading my space.”
“Mad is better than numb,” he tells me. “And it’s a lot more helpful than pain.”
Cupping my face in his hand, Nash’s lips meet mine and when he licks his way past them, I’m met with the subtle taste of one of his cigars.
I melt into the kiss, bringing my hand to the back of his head to run my fingers through his hair, and he pulls my body closer to his.
As he drapes a leg over my hip, I can feel tension release from my body.