Chapter 21
Fractures
Reed
The morphine made everything soft around the edges, but not soft enough. My shoulder felt like someone had driven a railroad spike through it and left it there to rust. Even breathing hurt.
"Reed?"
Maliyah's hand wrapped around mine. Her thumb traced circles on my palm—the same movement she made when she was anxious, when she was trying to soothe herself as much as me.
"Hey." My tongue was thick, words slurring. "You didn't have to come."
She leaned forward, her brow creasing. "Where else would I be?
" Her fingertips brushed my forehead, cool against the heat of my skin.
Shadowy black mascara trails mapped the path of earlier tears down her cheeks, and when she blinked, her eyelids fluttered like she was fighting to keep them open.
In the half-light, her pupils had swallowed almost all the brown of her irises.
I tried to squeeze her hand back but my grip was weak. Everything was weak. "The kids—"
"Felicity has them. They're fine. They're safe." Her voice cracked on the last word.
Safe. Right. Safe because I'd almost given them the need for a lifetime of therapy. They'd counted on me. I should have known better than to let myself get attached—to let them get attached.
I pulled my hand away. Trying to push myself more upright against the pillows with only one arm was almost impossible—even using just the one arm lightning shot through my injured shoulder. The IV line tugged, the hair at the edges of the plastic bandage pulling.
"What are you doing? Lie down—"
"I'm fine."
Her voice was firm as she gestured at my bandaged shoulder. "You were shot. There's a hole in you where a bullet tore through muscle and bone, Reed."
"And they sewed me back up. I'm fine." I looked at the ceiling tiles instead of her face. Twelve tiles across. Water stain in the corner shaped like a snowman. "You should go home. Get some sleep."
"I'm not leaving you."
"Maliyah." I forced myself to meet her eyes. "You sitting here watching me sleep isn't helping anyone. You look exhausted."
She flinched like I'd slapped her. "I'm fine."
"You're not. And the kids will be up early, and you need to—" I waved my good hand vaguely. "I'm just going to sleep anyway. The nurses are here. There's nothing for you to do."
"I want to be here." And I want to be alone—looks like we can’t all have what we want.
"You should go."
The words came out sharper than I'd intended. She sat back in the chair, her hand withdrawing from the bed rail where it had been resting.
"Okay." Her voice was small. "If that's how you feel."
"It is."
She stood slowly, gathering her purse, her jacket. Movements careful and precise like she was walking on ice. At the door, she turned back.
"I'll come first thing in the morning."
I nodded but didn't say anything. Couldn't promise I'd want her here in the morning either. Couldn't promise anything. Shouldn’t have promised anything in the fucking first place—I just ruined everything.
The door closed with a soft click. I stared at it for a long time, at the scratched metal, the safety instructions, the biohazard warnings.
My father's funeral had been closed casket. The gunshot had been to the head. As a kid, I’d wanted to see anyway, to prove it was real, to prove he was really gone.
My mother had said no. She'd held my hand so tight, I swear at times I could still feel her squeezing my fingers.
I closed my eyes and tried not to think about the kids.
About Saturday mornings filled with laughter.
About what I was walking away from. The morphine pulled me under before I could stop it.
The hours ticked by with me in and out of consciousness—nurses coming in, interrupting my sleep every few hours to take vitals and give me more meds.
So many interruptions that I couldn’t even sleep the pain away.
John appeared in the doorway first thing the next morning—two coffees in hand and a smile that just pissed me the fuck off. He entered just as the nurse was leaving after taking my vitals—again.
"Brought you the good stuff." He held up a cup from the café down the street. "None of that hospital shit."
"Thanks." I took it with my good hand. The warmth felt real—solid. Something to focus on besides the pulling ache in my shoulder and the muddiness in my brain from all the morphine. Gotta get off this shit as soon as I can. It makes me feel like my thoughts aren’t right.
John dropped into the visitor's chair and stretched his legs out. "So. You wanna tell me why Sarah got a call last night from Maliyah crying in her car outside this place?"
I took a sip of coffee. Too hot. Burned my tongue. "I sent her home."
"Yeah, I got that part. The question is why."
"She needed sleep."
"Reed." John leaned forward, elbows on knees. "You jackass. I've known you since we were kids. I was there when your dad died." His voice caught, jaw working as he swallowed hard. "I watched what it did to you. To your mom."
"So what?"
"So, I know what you’re going to do. I know you’re going to run.
You sent Maliyah away because you're spiraling about your dad.
" John's voice tightened, and something in my chest constricted with it.
"And now, like a dipshit, you're about to blow up everything good in your life—" He leaned forward, his eyes boring into mine until I had to look away, my throat burning with unspoken words.
"All to prove that you were right to be scared all along. "
My jaw clenched. The empty coffee cup crumpled slightly under my grip. "That's not—"
"Bullshit.
I opened my mouth to speak, closed it, then forced the words out. "I almost died last night." My voice caught on "died," betraying me. Part of me wanted her hand back in mine, while another part couldn't bear to see her face if it happened again.
"But you didn't."
"An inch closer—"
"But it wasn't. You're alive. You're going to recover.
" He exhaled sharply, running a hand over his face, his shoulders sagging momentarily before he straightened again.
"And yeah, it was scary as hell, but that's the job, man. You knew that when you signed up—you can’t give up on having a life though. "
I tossed the crumpled coffee cup across the room, hitting the top of the garbage can. My hand shook as I closed my fist and pressed it against my thigh. "John, that’s the damned point. I signed up. Me! They didn’t choose this career. I can't do this to them."
"Do what? Your job?"
"Put them through—" My throat closed up. I had to stop, breathe, try again. "Do you know what it's like? Lying on the pavement, bleeding, knowing you might die, and all you can think about is the people you're going to leave behind?"
"No. But I know what it's like to see my partner on the ground after he got shot.
To ride in the ambulance wondering if you were going to make it.
" John's voice was steady but his knuckles were so firm around his coffee cup, I was sure it would buckle under the weight.
"And I know Sarah spent half the night yelling at me after she got off the phone with your girlfriend because you sent her away terrified that she almost lost you. "
"She shouldn't have had to go through that."
"She chose to. She knew what she was signing up for."
"Lucas didn't. Zoe didn't." I looked at my hands. The IV port in my wrist. The scrapes on my knuckles from hitting the pavement. "They're just kids. They don't understand that people die. That I could die."
"So you're going to leave them first. Before they can lose you." John shook his head. "That's not protection, Reed. That's just making sure you hurt them on your timeline instead of fate's."
"It's different."
"How?"
"Because they'll get over me leaving. They won't get over—" I couldn't say it. Couldn't put into words the image of Lucas and Zoe standing together at my funeral—Maliyah hollow and broken like my mother.
John was quiet for a long moment. Outside the room, a cart rattled past. Someone's phone was ringing down the hall. Normal hospital sounds. Normal life continuing.
"My dad had a heart attack when I was sixteen," John said finally. "Remember?"
"Yeah."
"He lived. But for two weeks while he was in ICU, my mom had to decide whether to keep hoping or start preparing for the worst." He rotated his coffee cup between his palms. "You know what she told me later?
She said those two weeks were the worst of her life, but she'd do it again.
She basically said she'd take every moment of fear, every night crying in the hospital cafeteria, every morning wondering if this was the day—she'd take all of it for the twenty-eight more years she got with him. "
"That's different."
"Why? Because they were married? Because she didn't have a choice?" John met my eyes. "Maliyah has a choice. She's choosing you. And you're about to tell her she chose wrong."
"I'm telling her the truth. That I can't—" The words stuck. "I thought I could do this. I really did. I thought I'd gotten past it. But I haven't."
"Work through it, Reed. Don't make a permanent decision based on temporary fear."
"It's not temporary,” I yelled. Then quieter, I said, “It’s not temporary. It's always been there. I just—" I gestured vaguely with my good hand. "I got good at ignoring it. Pretending. But last night stripped all that away and I can't—I can't pretend anymore."
John stood up, moving to the window. "You're going to do what you're going to do.
I can't stop you. But I want you to really think about this.
You're not protecting those kids by leaving.
You're teaching them that people leave when things get scary.
That love isn't worth the risk. Is that the lesson you want them to learn? "
He didn't wait for an answer. Just grabbed his coffee and headed for the door. Pausing, he asked, “Do you love her?”
I stared at him, feeling something inside me move, but unable to put it in words. Instead, I said, “It doesn’t matter what I feel. It only matters that I’m not right for them.”
John shook his head and turned away from me.
"John—"
He paused, looked back.
I opened my mouth, then closed it. My throat tightened. John stood there, waiting. I glanced down at the cup, steam no longer rising from its surface, and managed only, "Thanks. For the coffee."
"Yeah. Sure." His expression was disappointed, a mirror to the ache I felt inside. He walked out the door, closing it silently behind him.
I sat in the empty room and thought about my own weakness.
About the way I'd avoid difficult subjects with the kids, never committing too much of myself.
About Maliyah's face last night when I'd told her to leave. About laying on the floor in that apartment building, watching everything I’d wanted just disappear.
This was right thing—it’s better if I let them live their lives without me.