8. Chapter Eight
Chapter Eight
Kat
After another night of screaming nightmares and no Tam to wake me up before it got that far, I was dead on my feet.
Even with working until two in the morning so I was REALLY exhausted.
Oh, well. We could only do the best we could.
There were a couple of people here and there in the garage today, but no one I recognized.
This organization was massive, after all.
I was settling into a rhythm. I liked that. I could handle routine. I liked routine. I even had fully accepted this jacket as my own, and I was taking care of it this time. It never left my eyesight in the garage. It was working and I was warm ALL the time. It was excellent.
But I didn’t get any tea today. Tam wasn’t here, and I had to go make my own. Too bad, I couldn’t make it nearly as well. She really was good at everything. But it was good enough. And made me a little less shaky than metric fucktons of coffee.
I was wandering out of the break room with my lunch—the aforementioned not so well-made tea—when something nailed me in the shins. What the fuck? I looked down, and dear God if I didn’t almost burst into tears right there. What? I… what?
“Mika! Mika!” Henry’s three-year-old nephew shouted happily up at me in greeting. I blinked down at him. It did nothing to dim his enthusiasm.
“Up! Up!” he shouted, reaching up for me to hold him. I couldn’t. Even without the tea, I couldn’t. I knelt down to his level instead.
“We’ve got to stop meeting like this, bud. Where’s your mom?” I asked softly. And as usual, he clammed up and stuck a thumb in his mouth. The other hand went immediately into my hair though, and I had to laugh. Even though he’d clearly been switching hands on his other activity.
“Every time. Every SINGLE bloody time,” Becca complained, hurrying around the corner. Her five-year-old son dutifully pointed out that she’d said a bad word, and she looked to the heavens for help. I giggled softly when Emma made herself known in Becca’s arms as well.
“As much as I’m happy to see y’all, I thought we were meeting tomorrow, over zoom…?” I asked hesitantly. She looked worried.
“I made the appointment with Tam, I’d told her my husband needed to be here for work, so it worked out. I’m sorry, if you need-“ she started worriedly. I cut her off.
“No, not at all, today works just fine. I was just surprised. But now that I think about it, I think my calendar is not doing great with time differences and maybe we haven’t fully gotten used to making appointments when we’re all in different time zones.
Regardless, hi! Come in!” I said brightly, despite crumbling to bits on the inside.
I… fuck. One of these days I’d be able to just be happy to see her.
But today was not that day. Especially not with her looking at me like… that. She had her mom/older sister serious look on her face and I didn’t like it. We got the kids settled, worked through pleasantries, and I begged Emma off of her once I was sitting. That baby girl was precious.
I was cooing to Emma, who was looking mighty sleepy, when Becca ruined everything.
“So, what the fuck happened to you?” she asked bluntly, whispering the word ‘fuck’. Love it. That’s the level of parenting I aspired to one day.
Well, maybe not. Maybe those aspirations… I shook my head.
“What do you mean?” I asked carefully. Didn’t Henry tell his family…? She snorted.
“You’re kidding, right? You look terrible, no offense. And I can already tell you need new clothes. You’ve lost a bunch of weight,” she said, holding nothing back. Thanks, Becca.
“I… um. I’m not sure where to start,” I said slowly. Emma started fussing, so I handed her back to Becca for maintenance. She started the impressive mom bounce, quieting Emma instantly.
“How about you start with you being kidnapped. I’d say begin with my brother leaving England a month earlier than expected to go see you, but I don’t think we have that much calm in the kids,” she stated, glancing at the boys sharing a tablet… reasonably well.
“Uh. I… I’m sorry about that. I know you don’t get a lot of time-“ I started, suddenly feeling terrible. Obviously, that had been Henry’s biggest chunk of time with his family.
And instead, he’d come see me in L.A. Shit.
She cut me off, though, before I could fully get my apology out. She was smiling.
“No, don’t be sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. It was a good thing. So, back to the kidnapping,” she demanded. I cringed. I looked around for help, despite knowing I wouldn’t find any.
“I can’t really…” I trailed off, fidgeting with my plexi-cast. It was becoming a nervous habit I didn’t particularly like. She waited, though. For me to finish my sentence.
“I haven’t really been able to talk about it,” I mumbled. Chancing a glance up, I saw a look of understanding there. Thank God. She nodded.
“But this,” I gestured to the hot mess that was me, “happened then.” She nodded again. Thankfully, she moved on to all of the clothes I would be needing, which was more than we’d originally thought since most of mine didn’t fit currently. She seemed excited to get to do more shopping, though.
“How are your undergarments fitting? Not that I particularly want to be buying those for you, considering everything, you still need things that fit, I suppose,” she sighed, half joking, half serious. I gave her a questioning look.
“You… I… never mind?” she answered, unwilling to say whatever it was, but also very confused that I didn’t get it. Whatever. I reached for my tea, needing something to do, when a loud bang came from the garage. Then several things happened at once.
Emma started screaming. William started crying, his older brother not helping at all, and I jumped. A goddamn mile. At that noise. And spilled my tea all over my plexi-casted hand.
“Fuck, fuck fuck fuck,” I whispered, completely forgetting about the little ears behind me.
I pulled the cast off, then the ace bandage, then the gauze.
It was all soaked and milk and tea and sugar in my flippy flappy was not ideal.
It was so far from ideal, actually, that I was tearing up.
I had paper towels in my hand, trying to dab at it, knowing it had seeped in through all the stitches, and trying to fix it anyway.
I knew I’d need to go to the medical center, immediately.
There was a good chance they’d need to reopen the sutures to clean it better than I could.
That thought made the room start to spin.
I hadn’t realized I was still whispering ‘fuck’ over and over again until Becca—a calmer Emma in her arms—was in my face.
I was also shaking, which came to me even later.
“Kat? What’s wrong?” she asked softly. Ah, fuck. I immediately dropped the paper towels down over my wrist, hoping she hadn’t seen it. Hadn’t seen how bad it was, because no one actually knew that, and I wanted to keep it that way.
“Too late, sunshine. And why the hell do you have a nasty degloving injury paired with a compound fracture? What the eff happened to you?” she demanded. I felt my eyes bugging out of my head. Absolutely not. What the hell? How could she… it was just a mess. It wasn’t… how could she tell?
“My best friend is one of the leading reconstructive surgeons for injuries just like that. I’ve learned a lot over the years.
Now pairing that with knowing you were kidnapped, I figure we could rule out getting your hand stuck in farm equipment.
And lean more towards-“ she started. But she was cut off.
“Hey, Bec, I thought you got in later. We still on for dinner?” Henry cut her off, unknowingly.
He’d popped his head in the door. No. Nonononono.
I saw his eyes cut to me quickly, and could see he was about to say something, ask something.
And I couldn’t handle any of that. He couldn’t know. He couldn’t. I stood quickly.
“I need to go,” I blurted. Becca turned to me.
“Wait, but what about-“
“Please. Please don’t. Not for me, ok? Just PLEASE don’t,” I begged her.
I didn’t want her to ask any more questions.
And I didn’t want her telling her brother what had happened to my wrist. He would know.
He would figure it out and it would ruin everything I’d been trying to do, pushing him away so he’d be happy.
Because he’d know I’d fought for him.
Destroyed my wrist for him, very likely permanently.
Because I loved him.
And he could never know.