31. Korine
31
KORINE
“There’s my baby,” Mama croaks with a weak smile. She’s lying in bed, dressed in a hospital gown, tubes stuck up her nose, needles piercing her arms. Over the last day and a half alone her hair’s developed twice as many grays and she’s lost some of the pleasant plumpness to her round cheeks.
Yet somehow, like always, she’s a beacon of light. She’s hope personified in every possible way.
It’s almost disorienting after so much pain and trauma. In the aftermath of what happened with Ken, I was admitted to the hospital. For the last day I’ve been heavily medicated and stuck in bed from my fractured rib (among other injuries).
Seeing Mama so hopeful reminds me there is still good in the world.
My heart aches, my eyes tearing up. “Mama… how are you feeling?”
“C’mere, baby. Gimme a hug. Don’t you dare get all sad and mopey.”
I go to her, careful with how I wrap my arms around her. She’s tender to the touch, every part of her more fragile than glass. I kiss her cheek and stroke her graying hair like she used to do to me when I was a little girl.
Her eyes twinkle. “Baby, don’t worry about me. How are you and my golden boy? Tell me he kicked that big bully’s behind.”
“Ken’s in the hospital. There was a chase that ended by the ravine. He tried to shoot himself… but it didn’t work out so well. He survived,” I say, swallowing against the sudden soreness in my throat. “Blake’s… not doing so well, Mama.”
She frowns. “Why not?”
“He’s in custody. They’re…” I shudder out a sigh, my lungs pained. “They’re going to try to throw the book at him for everything that’s happened. I just know they’re going to make him take the fall.”
“But he was defending you.”
“It doesn’t matter. Not in their eyes. They’re on Ken’s side.”
“Well… fuck them! They’re bullies too!”
“Mama…”
“Listen to me and listen to me real good, Korine,” Mama says, her tone chiding. “You can’t control what those fools are going to try to do. Just like you can’t control any other evil that comes for you. All you can do is hope and pray, because I promise you, good will prevail in the end. It always does, one way or another. Even if sometimes it takes a little while longer.”
I’ve sat down on the edge of her hospital bed, inhaling a deep breath at the same time I’m absorbing her uplifting message. That’s the thing about Mama—with her warm voice and gentle demeanor, she’s able to make the wariest pessimist see the sunshine through the clouds.
That pessimist often being me.
My gaze drops to my hands in my lap.
It hasn’t been easy looking on the bright side. Just in the last couple days, I’ve once again experienced one of the most traumatic moments of my life. Ken put Mama in the hospital. He beat me and took me captive and would’ve done more had he not been stopped. But he’s gotten his way in some fashion if Blake’s going to be criminally charged.
How can I be optimistic when I’ve once again brought trouble to his life?
I involved him from the moment I turned up on his doorstep battered and broken…
Blake would scold me even more than Mama if he knew about these thoughts. He’d insist he regrets nothing even as he sits in a jail cell. That makes the situation worse. Intensifies the guilt that’s anchored inside me.
“He loves you, baby,” Mama says softly. I look up in surprise, blinking as if it’ll help me hear better. Mama simply smiles and covers one of my hands with hers. “You know that, right, baby? Blake Cash is in love with you. And when a man loves you—a real man, not that big bully you married—he’ll sacrifice anything for you.”
A choked sound leaves me. Half gasp, half disbelieving scoff. “Mama, it’s complicated.”
“No, it’s not. It’s love. Just about the purest, least complicated thing in the world. The man loves you. So he did what he had to do to protect you. Now you show you love him by supporting him. Don’t look at me like that—I know when my baby’s in love. Hell, I knew when you were twelve and in tears ’cuz you didn’t want him to think any different of you ’cuz you got your period.”
“Mama,” I groan. “How are you just as embarrassing about it now as you were then?”
“It’s my job.”
The guilt recedes, if only slightly. Enough for me to break in a slight smile. “I care about Blake… so much. I don’t want to be the reason his life’s ruined.”
“It won’t be, baby. It’ll work out. Trust an old biddy like me. I know a thing or two even if I forget sometimes.” She pats my hand, then lays her head back against her stack of hospital bed pillows. Her eyes close and a serene expression washes over her face. “Just don’t forget to get married and have a few babies before I’m gone. I want to be around to see it.”
I shake my head, puzzled. “I can’t conceive. You know that.”
“I know you couldn’t with that man. Which tells me he was all wrong for you. Whereas my golden boy is all right for you. It’ll be different, baby.”
I don’t bother arguing with Mama. I kiss her on the brow and promise I’ll be back soon. On my way out, I stop by the nurses’ station to chat with the nurse on shift that’s overseeing her care.
When I’m sure I’ve won her over, I slip in another request…
“I was wondering if you could provide me the room number of another patient,” I say a few minutes into our conversation. I flash her a friendly smile. “He’s my husband, but due to all the commotion lately, we’ve been separated. His name’s Kenneth Stricklin.”
All I have to do is flash my ID card with my last name and she’s providing me his exact floor and room number.
I ride the elevator up, my insides a topsy-turvy mess of nerves, but also another sensation altogether—the sharp, prodding determination for revenge.
Ken’s room is quiet and unguarded when I walk up. I push open the door and slip inside. The blinds are shuttered close, allowing for shadows to edge around the corners of the room. I ease closer to the bed where Ken lays pale and despondent.
His face still bores all the evidence of the confrontation from a couple days ago. Swollen flesh. Purple and blue bruises. Widespread gashes.
There’s a thick bandage around his brow, from where I presume the gunshot wound is. He’d tried to shoot himself only for the bullet to miss. It cracked his skull but otherwise caused no other damage. He’s survived.
I don’t stop ’til I’m at his bedside and he’s looking over. His cold gray eyes flicker with surprise; he was expecting anyone but me to turn up.
I stare down at him, my expression grave but otherwise unreadable. On the inside, the nerves have fluttered away to make space for the sheer contempt that sweeps in. I’m staring at the man who spent years making my life a living hell.
The man who beat me repeatedly, who tormented me, who thought so little of me he crushed me to the point I no longer existed.
It would be so easy to just… end him.
In this moment, when we’re alone and nobody’s watching. I could grab a pillow and snuff the life out of him.
Just like he did to me… slowly over time…
“Kor,” he chokes out. His eyes water. “I knew you’d come. I knew you’d seek me out. Kor, you’re my wife. Anything I’ve done was for you… for us...”
“I want nothing but the worst for you.”
His brows knit. “W-what?”
“You made my life a living hell. You almost destroyed me. You sure as hell tried your hardest to break me. For so long, I thought you did.”
“Kor, I only ever gave you the best?—”
I hack out a cold, loud laugh that cuts him off. “The best is being left swollen and bleeding on the floor? Save it, Ken. You did what you did, because you’re an abusive piece of shit who went on a power trip. You never loved me and never wanted what was best for me. You saw me as a weak woman to own and take your every frustration out on,” I say, glaring down at him. My face resembles his so many times, a cold slate with no empathy to be found. “But, guess what? I’m going to get the last laugh. I’m going to break you the way you tried to break me.”
Fury crawls onto his features and he almost leans up from his sprawled positon on the bed, as if he’s forgotten how injured he is. Something tells me if he could, he would rise up in this moment—he would do what he’s always done and seek to physically dominate me.
But, then it seems to dawn on him that he has no power. For once, I’m in control.
I smirk at him. “You have no idea how tempting it is to just… grab a pillow and hold it over you. No one would even know. It would be over before they do.”
His eyes widen. “Kor… wait a fucking second…”
I pick up a pillow from under the stack propping him up. “This is what it feels like, Ken. To be helpless and at someone’s mercy. It’s not very fun, is it?”
“Kor, stop… this isn’t funny!”
I move closer, letting the pillow hover over him as if I’m about to bring it down at any second. He begins squirming in place, trying to push himself up enough to either knock the pillow away or press the help button.
Watching him panic nurtures the darkest part of my soul. It satisfies the part of me that yearns to inflict some kind of pain on Ken in the way that he always made me suffer.
I let the moment stretch on for a while before the pillow drops from my hands and I take a step back.
“That would be too easy,” I say calmly. “I won’t ruin my life just to ruin you. You’re going to suffer all on your own. Karma’s real… and you’ve got plenty of it coming your way.”
“Kor… Kor, come back here!” he calls after me. “You’re my wife—you can’t leave me!”
“I already have, Ken. It’s over because I say it’s over.”
He calls my name all the way ’til I’ve reached the door and walked out of his room. Calls that are raspy and desperate. Calls full of panic from a man who’s lost all control.
Believe it or not, that in and of itself is enough revenge.
Once I leave the hospital altogether, I have one stop on my mind. Sydney swings by to pick me up in Mason’s truck, leaning over to push open the passenger’s side door. I hop in and thank her for coming.
“No problem. Let me guess. The police department?”
I nod. “If you don’t mind.”
“We’ve tried, Korine. He hasn’t been granted bail.”
“He will be this time,” I say, determination hardening my tone. “I’m going to make it happen.”