Chapter 30
Chapter thirty
It’s been three days since the accident. Isabelle stopped messaging me, and I feel like the biggest piece of shit for ignoring her. Caleb gives me the stink eye anytime he sees me at Grams’s house.
I’m frustrated that I can’t just let myself talk to her. I’m too scared I won’t be able to look at her without feeling like a fuck-up. I disappointed her and let her down. I’m also frustrated that I can’t even get my underwear on without the help of a pair of tongs to get them up my damn legs.
“ARGHHHHHH!” A piercing shriek fills the air and startles me, sending the tongs flying and my briefs falling back down to my feet. “You beast! Don’t you manscape?”
I roll my eyes at Mason, covering my junk, even though he’s the one who barged into the room without knocking.
“Dude,” he says, more serious now. I take a breath and look at my brother, preparing for what’s coming next. “Is your dick pierced?”
“Why are you looking at my dick?” I say, exasperated as I try to wiggle my toes over the tongs to pick them up since I can’t bend down that far with the cast.
“It’s only natural to compare.” Mason shrugs.
“But I’m your brother.”
“It’s even more natural to want to one-up your brother, even in the dick department. Come on, how big does C-three-P-hoe get?”
I scoff and shake my head. “I’ve never measured.”
“I can feel the heat from your lying pants from here.”
“You’re an idiot,” I say as I finally latch on to the tongs and flick them up, catching them between my hands.
I sit back on the bed, still covering my junk, as I start to get my underwear on, while Mason just watches.
“You know, you could help.”
“Oh no.” He laughs. “I’d never get that close to your junk.”
I raise my eyebrows at him. “Just stare at it to figure out who’s bigger?”
“Well, the piercing certainly levels you up even if you’re the smallest.”
I finally manage to get the briefs all the way up. “Look at it this way, I’m the tallest brother. You can do what you want with that information. Hand me those shorts while you’re at it.” I point to the wingback chair in the corner of the room, where black track shorts lay with my hoodie.
Mason tosses them both to me with a grimace. “But I’m the shortest out of you, me, and Caleb.”
I hook the shorts over one foot, using it to maneuver the fabric up my cast. “My condolences then, brother.”
I finish dressing myself with no help whatsoever from Mason.
I hobble over to the dresser, collecting my phone and wallet, ignoring the chain with a rose quartz hanging from it that sits beside my stuff.
When Caleb brought my phone back the night of the accident, there was a bag of belongings that the tow truck company gave him before they took my car away.
Isabelle’s necklace was sitting at the bottom of it.
I slide my good foot into my flip-flop, pick up my crutches, then swing past Mason as I leave the room.
Grams is working today, helping Mum plan their next community project, and Grandpa took Tiny with him to his bridge club.
Mason drew the short straw to take me to my doctor’s appointment.
Lex kept offering to take me since she doesn’t work during the day, but she’s already been filling in at The Wayside since she has bar manager experience.
I slowly make my way through the house and out the front, where Mason’s ute is parked. I open the door, then wait for Mason to join me so he can take the crutches while I slide in.
He takes them, his eyebrows pointed down and his lips rolled together, then he looks up at me.
“Did your piercings hurt?”
“Oh my god, Mason.” I sigh, then grab the top handle to pull myself up into the cab.
“Well, if I’m the shortest in height, maybe I’m the shortest in other areas. I need to maximise my game.”
“Mason. Women don’t care how big you are, just that you know what you’re doing. That you’re not a selfish lover in bed.” I sigh.
He tosses the crutches in the back, then joins me from the driver’s side, but doesn’t start the car.
I lean back against the headrest, then roll my head, looking at my brother.
“Tell me more about this selfish lover thing.”
I grimace and shake my head. “What do you want, a fucking sex lesson?”
“No! I know what I’m doing.” Mason crosses his arms over his chest.
Silence fills the cab. “Do you really?”
“I don’t know!” My brother looks at me in a panic before he starts the car.
It takes no more than thirty seconds before Mason starts rambling on about his sexual prowess. He goes back and forth between confidence and self-doubt until I can’t take it anymore.
“Why don’t you just ask the next woman you’re with what she wants. What she likes. I can assure you, she’s gonna have much better knowledge to help you with that than I am. And far more interest.”
“I guess I can do that.” He nods as we pull into the rehab clinic. “I’ll keep you posted.”
“Please don’t trouble yourself.”
“No trouble at all, brother.”
“Okay, then please, just don’t.”
***
Once I’m done getting checked with the doctor, Mason drops me at Tuck’s tattoo shop, which isn’t far from Caleb’s office. Cale will drive me back to Grams’s house once he’s finished at work.
Since I lost August, I’ve filled my days with routine to distract my mind. The little tasks I’m still able to do with this fucking cast on my leg are nowhere near enough to distract my mind from Isabelle.
My every waking thought is devoted to her. Wanting to make sure she’s okay. Needing to hold her in my arms to reassure myself that she’s still here, and not some beautiful fragment of my imagination.
Every time I’m on the brink of caving and texting her, I have to remind myself that she’s better off without me.
That my heart couldn’t handle the thought of losing her.
Hurting her. I just don’t think I’m strong enough to love her the way she deserves.
There’s someone out there who will make her life so full of happiness every day.
I hate that thought just as much, but I know with time, pulling back won’t feel like the biggest mistake of my life.
I drop into the seat in Tuck’s office, throwing my phone on the desk with a sigh, only for it to immediately light up with a call.
“What?” I sigh.
“Just checking in,” says Caleb. “How are you today?” Fucking shit. Is that a good enough answer?
“Mase just took me for a check-up with the doc. He showed me some exercises to do to keep mobility.”
“But he’s happy with how it looks so far?”
“Yeah,” I grumble.
“How’s Keeley handling the bar?”
I run a hand through my hair, pushing the messy strands back. “Fine.”
“Have you spoken to Iz?” Jesus. Rip my heart out, why don’t you? I’m about to answer when I hear a distinct, faint jingle through the line.
“Gage?” Caleb prompts, but I’m still stuck on hearing Isabelle’s earrings as they swish.
Fuck, she’s gone to my brother because I won’t answer her.
I’m so disappointed in myself, but it’s like I can’t bring myself to look at her after I put her at risk.
My mind keeps going back to August, and my heart turns to stone, promptly shattering when it forces images of Isabelle meeting the same fate.
“Is she okay?” I whisper, because I still need to hear it, even if I’m too weak to ask her myself.
“She’s not physically hurt if that’s what you’re asking.” Caleb’s words are firm and brutal. “Why won’t you talk to her?”
“Did she tell you that?” Does she blame me? Forgive me? Her texts don’t give me that impression, but it feels too good to be true. She always feels too good to be true.
“I’m taking a wild guess,” Caleb mutters, and fuck, she must be bad. I’ve dimmed her light, just like I knew I would.
“She could have been hurt.” The words drag against my throat as I deliver them for judgement.
“She is hurt,” he says.
I’m clutching the desk, leaning into the phone as if I can reach through it just to get to her. “You just fucking said she wasn’t.”
“I said physically. You ignoring her is something different.”
I can hear the tinkering of her earrings again. The musical note that’s sweet and playful, just like her.
“I didn’t look after her,” I say, then hang up the phone, my head and my heart heavy.
There’s a knock against the open door of the office, followed by Tuck sticking his head in.
“Hey, mate.” He drops into the seat opposite the desk.
“Hey. I had the apprentice do a stock check. I just popped in an order for some shit. Bookings are staying nice and steady, though.”
Tuck nods, humming his agreement. “They are. What about you? How are you doing?”
I sigh. “Same as when you asked me yesterday.”
“And I normally wouldn’t push, but you’re a grumpier bastard than normal.”
I rest an elbow on the desk, running a hand through my hair before I prop my chin on my fist, staring at my friend.
Tuck sits there without judgement, ready and waiting to be an ear, a sounding board, whatever I need.
I take a deep breath, then faceplant the desk with a groan. “I fucked up.”
“You? Mr Perfect? I don’t believe it,” he teases.
When I pin him with a glare, I can see his mouth twitching behind his beard. “You’re a shit.”
“Whatever you did, I’m sure it’s not as bad as what you’re punishing yourself for.”
“It wasn’t just me in the car that night.”
As soon as I say the words, Tuck’s face shifts to serious, and he leans over to lay his hand over one of mine.
“Are they okay?”
I nod my head, but I can’t make myself speak.
“Any injuries at all? I know you said the other drivers were fine.”
“She was fine.” I nod without meeting his eyes.
“She? Who was it?”
My good leg bounces under the table. “A friend of Caleb and Beth’s.”
“What was she doing in the car with you?”
Tuck’s form turns blurred as my emotions threaten to take over. I blink my eyes, trying to regain control.
“Coming home with me.”
Tuck scratches his head, his face wearing a kaleidoscope of thoughts as he sifts through them. “So, was this like a one-time thing? You don’t really take people back to your place, though. I mean, not women. Was this woman… different?”
“Different is one way to describe her.”
“Is she blaming you for the accident?” Tuck asks, trying to understand the situation.
“Of course not!”
“Mate. You’re gonna have to fill some blanks in for me, cos I’m fucking confused with what the problem is here.”
“What if she was hurt?” I say with my jaw clenched.
“You just said she wasn’t.”
“I could have lost another person.” My frustration is rising, bubbling under the surface.
“But you didn’t.”
“I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I hurt her. I can’t lose her!” I yell as my fists slam against the table.
“Well then, you best pull your finger out of your arse, you dickhead, and tell her that.”
I collapse back in the chair. “She’s too good for me, Tuck. You should see her. Hear her. God, she lights up my goddamn world.”
“I don’t know where you get this notion that you aren’t someone worthy of love and good things.
But I’d bet money, this woman has seen all the good in you that you’re too blind to see in yourself.
Yes, you’ve made mistakes. We all have. We learn from them, but that doesn’t mean we have to keep paying for them for the rest of our lives.
You gotta forgive yourself. August would have.
And if this woman means so much to you, if she’s so amazing, are you really gonna let some other guy swoop in and take her?
That, to me, sounds like something you might end up hating yourself for more than the remote possibility that you could hurt her.
You gotta decide, are you gonna keep punishing yourself for a past you can’t change, or welcome a future full of endless possibilities?
Grief is not a bad thing. If you can feel grief, that means you’ve known love. When have you ever regretted love?”
I wipe the back of my hand under my nose, sniffing away the emotions Tuck’s words force me to accept.
I don’t want to feel like I owe my life to compensating for my mistakes.
Contradicting my flaws with good deeds so I don’t have to feel like I’ve earned the bare minimum.
The last few months since I’ve known Isabelle have been weightless.
Invigorating. My formerly untouched heart has been embraced with a tenderness that comforts my soul.
It gives me peace and safety. She gives me that. And I want to give her everything.
My phone lights up where it’s sitting on the desk, showing me a preview of yet another message from Isabelle.
BUTTERCUP:
Caleb said to give you time. Whenever you’re ready, I’m here. Always, Grim. Your Buttercup xo
“I’ve got some time before my next client. If you need a different chair to think in,” Tuck says gently.
I got all my ink after August’s death. When I met Tuck, he was already quite covered. Said the sound of the gun, and the buzz on his skin felt therapeutic. So I gave it a try. The only place I’m not covered is my heart. Never knew what I wanted to put there, if anything felt deserving of the place.
“Yeah. I’ve got something in mind.”