Chapter 38
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
I blink at the glowing screen through crusted eyes, and Mark's name stares back at me in bold letters, the brightness making me wince.
"Hello?"
My voice is gravel.
"It's Mark. You sitting down?"
I grip the arm of the couch. "What happened?"
"They're keeping him. Bail hearing won't be for at least a week. Maybe longer."
The room tilts.
"A week? He has to stay in there for a week?"
"That's not necessarily the best-case scenario. It might happen sooner."
"But he was defending me—" My voice cracks, rising with desperation.
"Mark, Julian was defending me. Daniel attacked me first. He had his hands on me, he was hurting me.
Julian saw it happen and he stepped in. That has to count for something, doesn't it?
Self-defense, or... or defense of another person, isn't that a thing? "
"I know. The lawyer knows. But Daniel's condition changed things."
My stomach drops.
"What do you mean, his condition?"
Mark exhales. Long and heavy.
"He's in the ICU right now," Mark says, and I can hear him choosing his words carefully, like he's walking through a minefield.
"Daniel sustained a spinal injury from the fall.
It's serious, Liza. The doctors—they've made the decision to put him in a medically induced coma while they assess the damage and try to reduce the swelling around his spine. "
The words don't land. Not at first.
"Spinal injury?"
"Yeah. Serious. A really serious spinal injury," Mark confirms, his voice tight with tension.
"The doctors—they told his family that even if he does wake up from the coma, there's a very real possibility that he'll be paralyzed.
From the neck down, Liza. They're saying he might never walk again.
Might never move anything below his shoulders. "
The phone slips from my hand. I hear Mark's voice, tinny and distant, calling my name.
Paralyzed.
From the neck down.
I try to imagine what Daniel's life would actually look like if that prognosis becomes reality—if he really does wake up and can't move anything below his neck.
Trapped inside his own body. Unable to do the simplest things for himself.
Dependent on nurses, machines, other people for everything.
Eating, bathing, breathing, maybe. The man who controlled every aspect of my life, who grabbed me and hurt me and wouldn't let me go, now unable to control even his own limbs.
Because of Julian.
Because of me.
I scramble off the couch, my bare feet slapping hard against the cold hardwood floor. Each step feels heavy, like I'm wading through water, my body moving on pure instinct while my mind struggles to process what Mark just said.
The kitchen seems impossibly far away, the distance between the living room and the sink stretching out like it's miles instead of feet, but somehow I make it. I lunge forward just in time, gripping the edge of the counter with white knuckles as my stomach rebels violently.
Everything comes up—the stale coffee I drank yesterday, bitter and acidic, then bile, burning and sour. Then nothing. Just horrible, painful dry heaves that wrack my entire body, making my ribs ache and my throat burn with each convulsion.
I heave until there's nothing left.
My legs give out and I sink to the floor, cheek pressed against the cool cabinet door. The phone's still on the couch. Mark's probably still waiting.
I can't move. Can't think.
Daniel might never walk again.
Julian's in jail.
And I'm the reason both their lives are destroyed.
I close my eyes and see it all over again. Julian's fist connecting. Daniel falling. The sickening crack of skull against concrete.
I wanted Daniel gone. Out of my life. But not like this.
Never like this.
A sob tears out of me, raw and animal-like. I curl into myself on the kitchen floor, arms wrapped around my knees, and let it come.
The floor is cold against my cheek, grounding me just enough to realize I've left Mark hanging. I push myself up, wipe my face with the back of my hand, and stagger back to the couch. The phone's screen is cracked, but it lights up when I pick it up again. Mark's gone.
I take a shaky breath and tap the screen to call him back, my fingers trembling so badly I almost drop the phone twice before I manage to get it pressed against my ear.
He answers on the first ring.
"Mark, I'm—I'm sorry," I manage, voice fraying.
"Liza, it's okay. Really."
His patience makes my throat tighten again. "No, it's not. This is all my fault."
"It's not," he insists. "And we're doing what we can for Julian," Mark continues, his voice taking on a firmer, more reassuring edge. "I've already got a criminal attorney lined up—someone good, someone who knows what they're doing. He specializes in cases like this."
“Thank you so much, Mark.”
“I would do anything for Julian,” he tells me.
“The very first thing we're going to do is push hard for a bail hearing—get him out of there as soon as we possibly can.
The attorney I've hired is already on top of it.
He's reviewing the case details as we speak, looking for any angle we can use to expedite the process and make a strong argument for Julian's release. "
Hearing this doesn't erase the knot in my gut, but it loosens it, just a bit.
"Thank you," I say, trying to believe the guilt doesn't need to consume me whole.
"So listen," Mark continues, his voice calm and steady, "we'll also arrange for you to visit Julian. It's gonna take some strings, but we'll get there."
A small relief washes over me. "I don't know how to thank you."
"Just hang in there, okay? Julian's going to need you strong."
Strong. A word that feels foreign and surreal when all I want is to collapse like a house of cards.
"Yeah… okay," I whisper.
Mark pauses, a kindness coating his words. "Have you eaten anything? Rested?"
"I—I'll try."
"You need to. He'll worry if you're not taking care of yourself."
Mark's words ache with truth, like salt on an open wound. A reminder that Julian has always put others before himself, has always—always—put me first. And here I am, unable to fight against the flood of self-loathing and helplessness.
"I'll do my best," I promise, voice barely a whisper.
"Good," Mark replies. "I'll keep you updated as things progress."
As the call ends, silence swallows the room whole. I clutch the phone to my chest, a laughable lifeline, as if it can somehow bridge the distance separating me from Julian.
I will eat, I will rest, I will do whatever it takes to gather the strength Julian will need me to have when I see him.
For now, though, all I can do is hold on to the fact that I am not as alone in this as I feared.
The fluorescent lights in the grocery store are too bright, making my head throb.
I reach for a box of crackers—something bland, something I can force down.
My cart barely has anything in it: bread, peanut butter, a carton of eggs.
The basics. I'm so tired I could collapse right here between the cereal and the canned soup.
My phone buzzes in my pocket and I nearly drop the crackers.
I fish the phone out, squinting at the bright screen. Mark's name flashes across it, and my heart lurches sideways in my chest. I fumble with the device, nearly dropping it as I swipe to answer, my fingers clumsy and shaking.
"Hello?" My voice cracks.
"Liza, good news. We got the bail hearing moved up. Tomorrow morning, nine a.m."
Tomorrow. Not next week. Tomorrow.
"Really?" The word tumbles out, disbelief coating every syllable.
"Really. Judge had a cancellation. We got lucky."
Lucky. The word feels alien in the context of everything that's happened, but I'll take it. "Thank you, Mark. God, thank you."
"Get some rest tonight, okay? And be there early."
“Yes,” I reply, eager.
Tomorrow morning. Nine a.m.
I just have to make it through one more night.
The courtroom smells like old wood and stale air.
I sit in the back, fingers knotted in my lap, watching the proceedings unfold like a bad dream I can't wake from.
The prosecutor rattles off the charges, and each word feels like a punch to the chest. Assault.
Battery. Potential manslaughter if Daniel dies.
But then Julian's attorney steps up, laying out the evidence: the escalating threats against both me and Julian, the restraining order, the letters, notes and black roses, the handcuffs still bearing the marks on my wrists. Self-defense. Protection of another person in imminent danger.
The judge listens, stone-faced, flipping through documents.
Finally, she speaks. "Bail is set at fifty thousand dollars."
Julian's attorney, a tall, confident-looking man dressed in an impeccable charcoal suit that probably cost more than my month's wage, with a beautiful head of salt-and-pepper hair swept back from his high forehead, is already moving with practiced efficiency.
He's got paperwork clutched firmly in one manicured hand, his leather briefcase tucked under his other arm as he strides toward the clerk's desk with the kind of purpose that says he's done this a thousand times before.
Within the hour, Julian walks out.
He looks utterly exhausted, his eyes shadowed with deep circles and hollow in a way that makes my heart clench painfully in my chest. There's a weariness etched into every line of his beautiful face, like he hasn't slept in days—and he probably hasn't.
His shoulders sag with the weight of everything that's happened, and I can see the toll this nightmare has taken on him just in the way he carries himself across the courthouse lobby.
But then his gaze finds mine through the crowd of people milling about, and something shifts in his entire demeanor.
The exhaustion doesn't disappear, but it's suddenly overtaken by something else—something raw and powerful.
Relief floods his face, softening those tense lines around his mouth and eyes.
His pace quickens despite his obvious fatigue, and I can feel his overwhelming relief at seeing me standing there waiting for him.
I don't think. I just run.
He catches me, arms wrapping tight around my waist, and I bury my face in his neck, breathing him in. He smells like sweat and something unmistakably Julian.
"I'm so sorry," I whisper against his skin, tears spilling hot and fast.
"Don't." His voice is rough, hoarse. "Don't apologize."
"This is all my fault—"
"Liza." He pulls back just enough to look at me, cupping my face in his hands. "None of this is your fault."
I want to believe him. God, I want to.