Chapter 19 #2
It’s only when I feel the weight of eyes on me that I realize everyone knows where my face went.
I look around, and not everyone is shocked.
That’s what guts me next. London isn’t shocked.
Promise isn’t shocked. Luna’s eyes are full of worry but not surprise.
Tequila looks away, jaw tight. The women knew. Of course, they knew.
Friends keep secrets. Women carry each other’s burdens in ways men don’t always see until the ground cracks open under their boots.
Still, it lands like a knife. Not because they owed me Ruby’s secret.
They didn’t. Not because I have some right.
I don’t know what rights I have. Maybe none.
It lands because I’ve been standing beside a future and didn’t even know it was there.
Because I touched her hand, watched her sleep, breathed the same air as her, and she carried something that could be mine.
No. Not could. I know. I don’t need a doctor, date, or confession.
I know in a place deeper than blood that she is carrying my baby.
My knees threaten to give. I step back once.
Riggs sees it. “Catcher.”
“I can’t.” The walls press in, the antiseptic smell turns sour, the lights get too bright, and the beeping gets too loud. The past and present merge until I can’t tell which grave I’m standing in front of, which woman is bleeding, which child I failed to save.
I turn and walk out with no words or explanation. If I stay another second, I’m either going to break apart right there in front of everyone or start tearing the place to pieces to feel like I’m standing on something solid.
Nobody stops me.
The hospital doors slide open, and humid air hits me in the face, thick, hot, and nothing like relief.
The air is strong with exhaust fumes, wet concrete, and old summer rot.
I keep walking. Past the ambulance bay. Past parked cars.
Past people smoking near the curb who take one look at me and decide whatever they were complaining about can wait.
I don’t know where I’m going until I’m already climbing the parking garage stairs. Each step hurts—ribs, head, kidney, mouth. Everything? Good. Pain gives me something to follow.
I climb until there are no more stairs.
The top level is mostly empty, washed in late sun and city heat.
The concrete is still holding the day, radiating up through the soles of my boots.
The skyline sits out in front of me, New Orleans sprawling wide and restless, the river somewhere beyond buildings and lights, moving like it always does.
I walk to the ledge and sit. Not smart. Not safe. I don’t care. My boots brace against the concrete, and my hands hang between my knees. Blood dries sticky along my temple and jaw. My head is pounding so hard that each beat feels like a hammer.
I stare out at the city and try to breathe.
For the longest time, that’s all I do.
Somewhere below, a horn blares and tires hiss over hot pavement, the city going on as though it doesn’t care who breaks inside it. Maybe that’s why I’ve always fit in here. New Orleans knows how to carry rot and beauty in the same breath and never apologizes for either.
The thoughts don’t soften. They don’t come wrapped in the kind of hope people write songs about. They come at me like fists straight through the ribs. Because once, I had this—a woman I loved, a baby coming, a life built with my hands.
I close my eyes, and I’m there with a rifle in hand, blood on the floor, Hannah on her side, my world ending before I understood I’d stepped into hell.
For years, that’s been the end of me. Everything after was nothing but prison, fights, concrete, release, running, the Kings, New Orleans, work, violence, and silence.
I told myself I died in that house because it was easier than admitting some part of me lived and didn’t know what the hell to do with the guilt.
Then I went home. Sat at that grave. Held a daisy from a little girl named Ruby. And for the first time in years, the weight shifted. Not gone, but not crushing me flat either.
Maybe I thought that was the breakthrough. Maybe I thought breathing once without pain was enough. I guess it wasn’t because this is different. This is the universe putting something right in front of me and asking if I’m going to run or stand like a man.
Ruby is pregnant. Those words scare the hell out of me. But under the fear, guilt, and the old grief trying to drag chains around my throat, something else starts burning, but I’m not sure what it is.
I can’t save what was taken from me, go back and unpull the trigger or unbury the dead, but I sure as shit can’t be the man I was before that night.
However, I can walk back into that hospital, sit beside Ruby, whether she wants to scream at me, shove me out, or never forgive me for the things I’ve said.
I can stop using my past like a shield and call it what it is—fucking fear.
I’ve been so damn afraid of losing again that I made sure I never had anything close enough to matter. But the truth is, Ruby matters. She has for some time now. And the baby matters.
I press the palms of my hands into my eyes until stars burst behind them. “Fuck,” I whisper.
Sitting here a little longer, I let the city move below me, let the pain settle into something I can carry instead of something that carries me. It’s not peace. I don’t think I know what that feels like anymore, but it’s enough to stand on.
Then I get to my feet and the world tilts. I wait it out, breathe through it, then head back down.
By the time I walk into the hospital again, the waiting area has shifted but not cleared. Everyone is still here.
Riggs spots me first. He steps away from Luna and meets me near the entrance before I can get too far. His eyes run over me, checking balance, face, breathing, all of it. “You good?”
I look past him, toward the hallway. “No, but I’m steady.”
He studies me for another beat. There’s no judgment in it.
That’s how he’s always been with me—no bullshit, no rescue, just the hard space to tell the truth in.
I turn toward Ruby’s parents. Her mother sees me coming and pulls away from her husband’s arms. Her eyes are red, face pale, but there’s softness there that hits harder than blame would have.
I stop in front of them. “I’m sorry,” I say.
Her father watches me, expression unreadable.
“I told you I’d keep her safe,” I continue, voice rough.
“I didn’t.” The admission scrapes on the way out.
It tastes like blood and failure, and neither one is new to me.
Saying it to her parents still feels like letting them watch me come apart.
Maybe that’s fair.
Maybe it’s the least they’re owed.