Thirty-One
BLEARY-EYED, I SIT CROSS-LEGGED IN THE MIDDLE of my bed, bracketed by long, tattooed legs, gentle fingers detangling my sleep-mussed hair and weaving it into a loose braid.
Tying the end off with an elastic band, Heath gives it a tug. ‘All done.’
My gratitude is quiet. Strained. So very tired, like the rest of me.
Heath has already done my whole typical hair routine for me. He guides me into the bathroom, and he does my skincare too. He changes me into a fresh pair of pajamas, and while I do the rest of my business that only over my dead body would I let him assist with, he makes me breakfast.
It’s my exact routine, and it isn’t. I shouldn’t need help getting ready. I should be out the door by now.
I feel useless. Beyond it. I feel like nothing, which is ironic, because I feel so far from nothing. I feel so much, I can’t make out one emotion from the other, can’t untangle the messy, nauseating knot.
Except for grief. That, I can distinguish just fine. That, I feel with knee-wobbling intensity, especially when I peel off the surgical bandage covering a sore, ugly incision.
When I emerge from the bathroom, Heath doesn’t ask about the tears. He kisses my forehead like he can see the ugly thoughts lurking behind it, settles me on the sofa, tucks me under a blanket and tells me to sleep some more.
I can’t. Could barely sleep last night. Alternated between staring at the ceiling and staring at Heath and pretending to be asleep when an alarm jolted him awake at regular intervals, pretended to be all groggy and confused when he tipped pain medication and water down my throat.
I try, though. Because he asks me to, I try. Because I was upset and horrible and, still, he’s here. Still, he’s nice. Still, he’s taking care of me as if it isn’t an enormous inconvenience, and he doesn’t even have to, he has no obligation, so I can shut my damn eyes and at least pretend to nap.
A knock on the front door has him swearing. I keep my eyes closed, breathing slow, as light footsteps creep toward me. His presence hovers for a moment before moving to the front door.
The lock clicks. Hinges creak. A hushed curse precedes a half-whispered, half-hissed ‘Go away.’
A chorus of disgruntled whines harmonize briefly before being promptly, emphatically shushed.
‘We just wanna see if she’s okay,’ a familiar voice quietly insists, and I conjure up a perfect mental image of Imani – arms crossed, face set with determination.
Heath grunts. ‘Of course she’s not okay.’
Someone whimpers. Matilda. That high-pitch is pretty unmistakable.
‘She’s fine,’ Heath amends. ‘But I don’t think she wants company right now, okay?’
‘You’re here.’
‘I’m her boyfriend.’
‘You broke up,’ someone points out – Brendan, I think. The voice is too quiet to properly distinguish, so it must be.
‘No, they fake broke up,’ I recognize Kai’s spirited tone easily. ‘Are you fake back together?’
‘I’m gonna real punch you in the dick if you wake her up.’
A weak laugh blows my cover. When I awkwardly prop myself upright and peer over the arm of the sofa, I find five gazes already on me. ‘I’m awake. Cover your dick.’
Kai grins, bright and wide, and oh-so-oddly relieving. ‘Now there’s something no woman has ever said to me before.’
I roll my eyes as I swing my leg over the side of the sofa, although any attempt to get up is immediately proved obsolete because they come to me, crowd me, Heath barking a command to be gentle that’s entirely unnecessary because nobody touches me.
The girls settle on either side of me, Brendan eases himself into the armchair, Heath stands vigil at my back, a healthy distance between me and all them, hands just kind of hovering a few inches from my body, caressing the air around me.
Except Kai. Kai, perched on the coffee table, nudges his knee against mine and pats my hand where it nervously taps against my thigh. ‘You’re alive. Thank God. No one’s been mean to me in, like, forty-eight hours and my ego’s getting really heavy.’
My hand curls into a fist beneath his. ‘Thought your head looked a little bigger.’
He pats me again, his smile thinner than usual. ‘There she is.’
When his touch retreats, Imani’s replaces it. ‘How are you feeling?’
My smile is watery. It morphs into a wince when I try to shrug, and Imani winces too when Heath pinches the back of her neck, as if it’s her fault.
I squeeze her hand to let her know it isn’t. ‘I don’t really know, to be honest.’
‘Does it hurt?’
Kai aims a kick at Matilda’s shin. ‘She just had surgery, dipshit.’
‘Hence my very valid question, Kiki.’
‘Enough, guys.’
‘S’okay.’ I wave Heath off. ‘Sebastian said you guys were at the hospital. I’m sorry I didn’t—’
With a round of tuts, my apology is dismissed. ‘We weren’t expecting you to. We just wanted to be there. We’re here for you.’
‘Thank you.’
‘We brought you some stuff.’
Eyeing the enormous bags clustered by my front door, I manage another laugh.
Some. Understatement. They brought me everything.
Anything I could conceivably need. Things that make my heart hurt because no one has ever baked me a loaf of sourdough like Brendan has.
I don’t remember telling Matilda that irises are my favorite flowers, but there’s some sitting on my kitchen counter right now.
Kai can knit, apparently; the chunky navy proof is carefully draped around my shoulders.
Imani borrowed, like, a hundred books from the local library that I immediately start to insist I don’t have time to read, only to catch myself because I do, don’t I? I have a lot of time now.
I push that thought away. Not the time for it. Let my throat clog with raw gratitude instead of dread.
Heath doesn’t let them stay for very long. Playing the mother freaking hen, he clucks them out the front door the very second I let loose a single yawn. Locking up behind them, he aims a kick at the wood when they whine and scratch like forlorn puppies.
Sighing, he fixes me with an apologetic wince. ‘I told them not to come over.’
‘I’m glad they did.’
Heath looks at me like he doesn’t quite think I mean it. And then he really looks, he must realize I actually do, and there are no adequate words for how freaking soft his expression gets.
Closing the distance between us again, he drags a hand down the back of my hair before joining me on the sofa.
Carefully, he rearranges my feet on his lap and tucks my new blanket around them.
He leans forward, flicking open my laptop where it sits on the coffee table, nestled amongst the most gifts I’ve ever been given in my life; smiling as he pulls up a movie that I know is supposed to make me smile too, but, instead, it just has the lump in my throat growing.
Has me watching him instead of fucking Step Up.
‘You’re missing it.’
‘Sorry.’
‘You should be,’ he reprimands softly, mindlessly twirling my hair. ‘This is a good part.’
‘No, Heath. About what I said at the hospital. I’m sorry’
His look is long and serious and as indecipherable as his sigh. ‘I know you are, baby.’
That hand falls away. I genuinely panic when he shifts, as if he’s going to get up, but he’s just reaching for the laptop, pausing the movie quickly before returning to me, closer to me, tucking my hair behind my ear and holding it there.
‘I’m not your consolation prize. You haven’t lost anything to get me, because you already had me.
Been wrapped around your finger for a long fucking time, Dani. Plan on staying there for even longer.’
My gaze snaps between those pretty, wide eyes, searching for sincerity, finding it so easily, yet I still need to make sure. To know that he knows what he’s getting into, to hear it. ‘You know I’m difficult.’
‘I don’t know that because you’re not. Not to me. Not to anyone who cares enough to actually know you.’
‘I’m too structured.’
‘Dependable,’ he corrects easily.
‘I’m anti-social.’
‘You’re awkward, Dani. Might even dare to call you shy. And I fucking love it.’
‘What if . . .’ The lump in my throat throbs. Swallowing hard, I catch Heath by the wrist, settle my thumb above his pulse, wait for his steady heartbeat to settle my own. ‘What if I can’t swim?’
‘Daniela,’ he almost laughs my name. ‘Honey. I don’t know how many times I have to say it, but I’ll keep saying it until you believe me.
My love for you is not dependent on your fucking aquatic skills.
It isn’t dependent on anything. I love you.
Mean and grumpy, sweet and shy, literally everything in between, I love you. ’
‘Okay.’ I swallow again, and that lump, it feels different now. Its shape has changed. Feels an awful lot like three words, clumped together, stuck and unspeakable, too scary, too much. ‘What now?’
‘Now we watch a movie.’
‘You know who your boyfriend looks like?’
Pausing halfway through a set of pendulum swings, I follow the gaze of my new physical therapist to the other side of the rehab clinic’s gym – to the small waiting area for family members, where Heath has set himself the challenge of reading every single one of the pamphlets from a very extensive wall display.
‘Not my boyfriend,’ I waste no time correcting. Quietly. Guilty. As if I’m doing something wrong. ‘And if you’re gonna say someone hot, can you say it really, really quietly? He has freaky good hearing and his ego does not need the boost.’
Imogen – Immy, she tells me to call her, she says that’s what her friends call her, and apparently spending three days a week together for the foreseeable future makes us that – laughs.
Clicking her pen against the little clipboard scribbled with notes about my recovery, she hits me with a sunny smile.
She drops her chin, all conspiratorial as she mumbles a barely audible comparison to a young Channing Tatum that makes me groan.
‘Fuck, don’t tell him that. Seriously. I’ll never hear the end of it.’