Chapter 19 #3
Ruby’s mother makes a small sound and steps forward before I’m ready.
She hugs me, and I go still, arms at my sides, body locked, because I don’t know what to do with the comfort I haven’t earned.
But she holds on anyway, careful of my ribs, her hand pressing between my shoulder blades as if I’m someone worth soothing.
“Oh, honey,” she whispers. “What matters is she’s okay. She and the baby are okay.”
Ruby’s father looks at me over his wife’s shoulder. There’s pain in his eyes. Anger too. But not at me. Not all of it. “You took a beating trying to get to her,” he says.
“Not enough.”
“Don’t do that,” he says, voice hard enough to make his wife ease back and look between us.
“Don’t stand here and make this about what you didn’t do.
My daughter is alive. So is that baby. That’s what we have right now.
” He doesn’t say the rest out loud, but I hear it anyway, that there’ll be time enough for blame if blame is what’s owed. Right now, breathing matters more.
I swallow.
He steps closer. “She’s sleeping,” he says. “They moved her to a room, keeping her for observation tonight.”
I nod.
“Go sit with her for a while.”
That surprises me more than the hug.
My eyes cut to his.
He doesn’t soften. Doesn’t need to. “Go.”
I nod once. Then get in the elevator, ride it to another floor, and step out.
I walk down the hallway. Every step toward her room feels heavier than the last and somehow easier than walking away had been.
A nurse tries to stop me, takes one look behind me at Riggs and Ruby’s father, then decides against it. Or maybe my face tells her enough.
Ruby’s room is dim, quiet except for monitors and the whisper of air through the vents. It smells faintly of antiseptic and laundry detergent, clean in a way that makes her bruises stand out even more.
She’s in bed, turned slightly to one side, one wrist wrapped and braced, bruises darkening along her cheek and arm. Her lip is split. A cut near her temple has been cleaned and taped. She looks small in that hospital bed, and that does something ugly to my chest.
I step inside and close the door halfway behind me. For a few seconds, I stand there, taking inventory and breathing. The monitor keeps a steady rhythm, numbers glowing green and white. I move to the chair beside her bed and lower myself into it. Pain snarls through my ribs, but I ignore it.
Ruby’s hand rests on top of the blanket, fingers relaxed in sleep. I stare at it for a long time before I touch her.
My hand looks too rough around hers, with my knuckles busted and dried blood near the nails. A fighter’s hand. A killer’s hand. A man’s hand that has broken more things than it has ever held gently.
I slide my fingers under hers anyway. Her skin is warm, softer than mine has any right to be touching, and the pulse at her wrist flutters against my thumb, small and steady, and it damn near undoes me.
My gaze drops to her stomach. It’s flat beneath the blanket. No sign yet. Nothing the world can see, but I know now. There’s life there. Ours. My throat tightens until breathing hurts more than the beating did.
“I’ve done everythin’ wrong,” I whisper.
Ruby doesn’t stir. Probably better that way. The words come easier in the dark.
“I pushed you away. Said shit I shouldn’t have said.
Made you feel like you were trouble when the truth is I was scared because you weren’t.
” My thumb drags once across her knuckles.
“Trouble, I know how to handle. You…” I let out a breath that shakes more than I want it to.
“You got under everything I nailed shut.”
My thumb barely moves over her knuckles. “I know what it is to lose everything,” I murmur, voice low enough it barely rises over the monitor. “But that ain’t your fault. And it damn sure ain’t the baby’s.”
Baby. Saying it almost breaks me… almost.
I lean forward, elbows resting carefully on the edge of the bed, head bowed over our joined hands.
“I don’t know how to fix all the wrongs,” I say.
“But I’ll make them right somehow.” I lift my head enough to look at her face, bruises and all, and keep talking because she deserves the whole truth, even if she sleeps through it.
“I’m done actin’ like wantin’ somethin’ means I get to punish it for scarin’ me.
I’m done pretendin’. Pushin’ you away was protection when really it was fear with my fists around its throat.
That ends here.” I don’t know if that sounds like a promise or a prayer.
Maybe right now they’re the same damn thing.
The monitor keeps beeping.
Ruby keeps breathing.
Outside the room, the world keeps moving.
But here, for the first time in a long damn time, I stop fighting the truth. I’m not dead. I’m not done. And the life I thought was over might be right in front of me—bruised, breathing, carrying my child, waiting to see if I’m man enough to stop running from it.
If I am finally strong enough to stay, to be more than the wreckage I came from.