Chapter 24
24
JOSS
Chicago was beautiful in the spring, and spring was trying to come in with a desperation I felt deep in my soul. The sun was shining, the snow was nearly melted, and little birds flitted through the air. It was my favorite season, full of rebirth and growth and beauty.
A direct contradiction to how I was feeling inside.
In the front seat of my car, tears fell from my eyes, and the wad of tissues in the seat beside me was growing. My shoulders had crept toward my ears while I was at work, and I was having a hard time getting them to lower themselves back where they belonged.
Gripping a little brown rock in my left palm, I closed my eyes, more tears streaming down my cheeks. I took three deep breaths and, with a lightness I was trying hard to feel, I spoke aloud again. “I am worthy of feeling safe and secure. My past does not define my future. I am calm and relaxed, and I can overcome any obstacle.”
I visualized myself getting out of my car and walking up to Rylan’s apartment. He would be there, smiling. His leg was still in the brace, but he was on his feet. He’d hobble forward on his crutches and pull me into his arms. He’d tell me he loved me, and I’d tell him I was madly in love with him. And this heaviness that had been hovering over me since Jen and Vinny told me he was shot would finally lift and float away.
With my eyes still closed, I envisioned the smoky quartz in my palm absorbing my intention. A little bit of that heaviness was gone by the time I opened my eyes.
I still didn’t want to go inside.
Regardless, I pushed myself out of my car and forced myself into the elevator and to the door of Rylan’s apartment. I took a deep breath, squeezing the stone in my palm before I tucked it into my pocket and went inside.
Rylan wasn’t standing there, waiting. I dropped my purse to the floor by the door and looked around. Everything was exactly as I’d left it this morning—the blinds open, food set out on the counter so he could easily wheel himself out of his bedroom and make himself lunch. Even the donuts I’d brought for breakfast sat in the box where I’d left them.
He hadn’t touched a thing, and my mind raced with worries as I rushed down the hallway to his bedroom.
He was on his back on the bed, his injured leg lifted with his knee bent. His eyes were squeezed shut, his fists clenched in the blankets at his side as he straightened, then bent his knee again. With a pained cry, he dropped his leg slowly to the mattress. One hand stretched out, grabbing a packet of papers at his side. He pulled it to his face, turning slightly before he caught a glimpse of me at the door.
“Joss.” He tossed the papers to the floor on the other side of the bed and struggled to sit up.
“Let me help.” I dashed to him, ready to help him, only for him to jerk away.
“I can get up myself!”
I stumbled backward, feeling like I was slapped, even though we hadn’t touched. Pressing my lips together to keep them from trembling, I stepped to the side, watching as he struggled and got angrier and angrier with each passing second. My gaze darted around the room, falling upon the papers he’d thrown. I bent to reach for them, knowing he hated when I watched him when he was like this.
The papers were from the hospital he’d been at down in Kansas City, full of information about his discharge, his follow ups, and the steps he was supposed to take for a full recovery.
“What’s this?” I asked, pulling my attention from the papers to where Rylan was sitting on the bed.
“Discharge papers,” he muttered, and it sounded like his teeth were clenched.
I held up the page I’d landed on, pointing at the highlighted words in the middle of the page. “This says you were supposed to call a physical therapist over a week ago.”
“Yeah, so?”
“Rylan, you didn’t tell me! You haven’t said anything about physical therapy. This says you’re supposed?—”
“I know what it says!” He grabbed the papers out of my hand, rolled them up and shoved them under his leg.
I shook my head as tears welled in my eyes. Dragging my gaze to the ceiling, I blinked rapidly, trying to stem the tears. I was so tired of crying. “I thought… Why didn’t…”
“I don’t want to talk about it, okay?” Rylan fell back onto the bed, then rolled onto his side and curled in on himself as much as he could with his brace.
Tentatively, I sat down beside him. I reached for him, brushed his hair from his face. His hand snapped to mine, snagging it away only to pull it to his chest.
“I’m sorry I’m such a fuck up.”
“You’re not,” I told him, just a whisper pushed through my too-tight throat. “There’s nothing to forgive, you just need some help.”
We’d had this discussion multiple times, and it was getting harder and harder to keep the bitterness out of my voice. Each time he apologized, he’d promise me he’d do better. And each time I’d forgive him, because that’s what I’d learned to do long ago.
“All you do is help,” he said, his face half-pressed into the mattress. “I bet you’re getting tired of me.”
“Of course, I’m not,” I told him, though I wasn’t sure I believed that myself. Because I was tired of his anger. Tired of his refusal to get out of bed and take care of himself.
If it wasn’t for me, he’d have died of starvation a week ago. They would have found him in the same clothes he came home from the hospital in, lying right here in the middle of his bed where his pity party began and ended.
I had to feed him. Bathe him. Help him go to the bathroom, then help him back to bed. The only reason he left his bedroom was because I insisted that he eat at the table. I kept the blinds wide open to let the sun in, hoping it would do him some good.
It didn’t do any good.
None of it did.
It never worked with Peter, either.
Rylan lifted his head, shifted forward, and laid it down in my lap while he curled his arm around my back. His breath shuddered out of him, and my heart ached.
Peter never did this. He never turned to me for comfort, he only caused me pain.
“Rylan, babe, let’s get you out of bed. Are you hungry?”
He nodded, though he didn’t let go of me.
“There’re donuts out there. Or I can make you something else.”
“Can you make grilled cheese and tomato soup?” he mumbled against me.
“Of course, I can. Anything else?”
He shook his head, hugged me tighter and squeezed my hand. I ran my free hand through his hair, pushing it off his forehead. He peered up at me, his eyes full of the pain that’d been present since he came home.
“Love you, Joss.”
My heart clenched. I bent and pressed a kiss to his lips. “I love you too, Rylan.”
When he unwrapped himself from around me, I went to the kitchen and pulled out a pot for the soup and a pan for the grilled cheese. It wasn’t much, and I hated that I didn’t have the ingredients to make the soup from scratch, that the only cheese he had was the cheap processed slices that was all we had when I was a kid.
If I had better ingredients, maybe he’d be more willing to get out of bed. Maybe, if I was better, he’d be more willing to try. Maybe he’d be better by now and we wouldn’t have to live like this.
After the sandwiches were finished and plated, the hot soup spooned into bowls, I rushed back down the hall to his bedroom and found Rylan exactly where I’d left him. I grabbed his crutches from the wall they’d been leaning against since I picked them up off the floor the one time he’d tried to use them, and I planted them at the foot of the bed.
“Supper’s ready.”
He turned his face to look at me, but his attention caught on the crutches, and he shook his head. “I don’t want those.”
“Rylan, the papers say?—”
“I know what the papers say!” he snapped. “And I said I don’t want them!”
My legs shook and nearly gave out when I stepped back and hit the dresser. My stomach felt like a thousand rocks were piled inside of it as I blinked away memories of Peter’s fists.
Turning away, I set the crutches back where they’d been. I swallowed hard, then took in a shaky breath before I grabbed the handles of his wheelchair and steeled myself to turn back around.
By the time I did, he was struggling to sit up. This time, he let me help him. I got him up, into his chair, and to the kitchen table where our supper sat waiting. There were moments, as I told him about my day, where I saw the old Rylan in his eyes. The one who wanted adventure rather than staying in bed. The one who was willing to do anything for a friend rather than sulking in his own misery.
I lived for those moments. I clung to them with everything in me, because I knew that’s who he really was. That’s who I’d fallen in love with. That’s who I wanted in my life.
After supper, I got him into the bathroom. Maneuvered him out of his clothes and onto the bench I’d installed in his tub. I wiped down his entire body with warm, soapy water, taking extra care of the scars left from the bullet and his surgeries.
Then it was back out of the tub, into his brace, and back into bed—where he’d been all day long. I gave him a pill to fend off the pain, then did the one thing I knew would help him sleep.
I went down on him. Kissed his skin and swirled my tongue over his tip. Rylan clenched his fists in the blankets like he had after I caught him stretching his leg, but the look on his face was less pain and more pleasure, which was exactly what I was hoping for.
After he came, I got him dressed in clean clothes, then tucked him back into bed. I laid there beside him until his eyelids fell shut and his breaths leveled out.
Then I climbed from the mattress and went out to the kitchen to clean up. I washed and dried our dishes, put away the pot and pan. I snuck back into the bedroom to check on Rylan and found him curled around my pillow the way he used to curl around me.
Snagging my tablet from my bedside table, I headed back for the living room, only to pause when my attention landed on his cell phone on the other side of the bed. Something drove me forward, something I couldn’t understand. I grabbed his phone and took it with me. Settled myself on the couch and punched in his code on his screen. I scrolled through his recent texts—all to me, Lee, and Vinny—then pulled up his contacts.
It didn’t take long to find what I wanted. I clicked on the phone number, and it rang twice before a man answered on the other end.
“Hi, this is Joss Monroe,” I said, voice shaky as I glanced down the hall toward the bedroom. I turned back, let out a breath, then said, “I need help.”