For the Love of Gracie (14 page)

The sirens sounded from nearby.  When the police came in, Hudson put his arms in the air in surrender.  They cuffed him and called an ambulance for Cameron and me.

I fell to my knees beside Cameron. His face was swollen and bloody.  He was unresponsive. 

One of the officers came over and checked his pulse and vitals.  "He's weak, but he's still here.  Hang in there young lady.  Once we get you both to the hospital, we need to know what happened here." 

The ambulance arrived and I rode in the back with Cameron. I held his hand in mine. One of the EMT’s had given me a sling to keep my injured arm stable, until it could be examined.

"Cameron, sweetie. I'm so sorry.  Please wake up. Please talk to me." 

We arrived at the hospital and they took us to separate exam rooms. While waiting for the doctor, I texted Ash and asked him to meet us at the hospital. He texted back, wanting to know what had happened. I told him it was an accident and that I'd explain it all later. 

My arm was sprained pretty badly and had a few small fractures, it wasn't broken though. They placed it in a removable splint that covered my forearm. The nurse took me to Cameron's room.

His head was wrapped in bandages, and his left eye was swollen and turning purple. His right cheek had been stitched closed. The nurse said that he had a small skull fracture, several cuts and bruises, but he would recover fully from everything. They wanted to keep him overnight for observation. 

I slid a chair next to him and waited for him to wake up. It broke my heart to hear the words 'skull fracture'.  I gently touched his head and whispered, "I'm so sorry." His eyes struggled to open. I smiled and wiped the tears that had fallen. "Hey gorgeous." 

He squeezed my hand. "You're safe." 

I nodded. "Yep, thanks to you.  Just a sprained arm with a small fracture
, and a couple of cuts and bruises, all because of my own stupidity." 

He snarled at me. "You're damn right, Gracie. I told you to wait on me. You could've been killed. Why do you never listen to me?" He was right, I never do and he is
always
right. 

"I'm sorry. I wanted it over with it. I had no clue he would do this to either of us." 

Cameron snapped, “You need to wake the hell up, Gracie!”

He’d never raised his voice with me, I recoiled.

He spat, "
Everyone
could see what Hudson was except for you! I constantly checked you for bruises when you came home from seeing him. I waited for the day that you would tell me he'd been abusive and I could kick his ass. I was grateful that I never saw signs of abuse, but I never trusted him. Why do you think I was always trying to convince you to break it off with him?" 

It
shocked me. I'd never really expected Hudson to hit me. 

"You make the worst damn choices in life and you're always bringing me down with you.  I can't handle much more.  Tell me something, why did you stay with him?" 

I shrugged. "I don’t know." 

He scoffed. "Don't give me that shit, Gracie!  After all of this, I deserve a real answer." 

I sighed, "I needed to forget about someone else. I tried to make myself love Hudson to get over someone I couldn’t have. It's stupid, I know!" 

"Gracie, you told me your feelings for me ended in high school," he said softly. 

I nodded. "They did.  I met someone recently that I've been spending a lot of time with. I fell in love with him, without meaning to. The problem is, he's gay and I knew that from day one. I allowed myself to fall for him anyway because he's everything I ever want in a guy. It was asinine for me to use Hudson to forget about him and I realized that, which is why I wanted to end it." 

He touched my face. "Sweetie, I can’t believe….Wait, is it Ash?" 

I stepped backward and the tears began to fall.

He sighed and reached for me. “Gracie, you need to know.
..” 

I spun on my heels and ran out the door, not allowing him to finish.

Ashton walked in the room as I was leaving, my shoulders slammed against his chest as I tore past him.  Ashton called out my name, but he didn’t follow me. 

My heart hurt worse from Cameron’s anger than my sprained arm or bruised face. I kept running until I reached the parking lot. My car was still at Hudson's so I didn’t have anywhere to go. I sat on a bench with my head in my hands. 

Ashton’s soothing voice penetrated my fog, “Come on, bug.  Let's get out of here for a bit.”

I kept my face turned so he didn’t see me. He took my hand and led me to his truck. The silence of the drive tore at me. I wasn’t sure what Cam had told him.

I feared his anger when he found out what Hudson had done. He pulled over at the park where we spent our first evening talking. Ashton put the truck in park. My skin tingled when his hand touched my hair.  “Talk to me, Gracie-bug.” 

With all the courage I could muster, I turned my head. Devastation rolled over his features. Gently, he reached out to touch my chin; I flinched at the pain when his finger grazed my swollen jaw.  His eyes welled up with tea
rs. 

With the back of his hand, he softly caressed the side of my face that wasn’t bruised. His voice choked. “Did Hudson do this?”

I nodded.  

The anger flamed in his eyes. “And Cameron?”

I nodded again. “He was protecting me. Cam's always protecting me.”

His hands gripped the steering wheel, his knuckles turning white. “Where is he now?”

I choked again, “Jail.”

He wouldn’t look at me,
and I felt like an idiot sitting there staring at him. I waited for him to berate me, the way Cameron had. “Cameron hates me now,” I said, wiping the tears that fell. 

Ashton shook his head in disagreement. “He sent me after you. He asked me to take care of you. Thought you might need to talk, especially to me?”

That gave me some relief. Ashton’s hand appeared in front of my face with a tissue. I reached up with my arm in the splint; he hadn’t noticed it before.

“What happened to your arm?”

My eyes answered his question and he slammed his fists against the steering wheel. I jumped at the anger, scooting closer to the door.

He saw my fright,
and his face fell again. “I’m sorry. Don’t be scared of me, Gracie-bug. I’m angry with Hudson, not you. Damn coward that’s what he is. I'd never hurt you.”

I reached for his hand and held it. "I'm not afraid of you, you startled me is all." 

His face hardened. "How many times has this happened?  You said Cameron always saves you? He knew this was going on?"

"No, this was the first time Hudson hit me. Cam came to be there for me in case the breakup went badly, because of Hudson's temper. He got there shortly after Hudson started hitting me. I wouldn't have stayed in an abusive relationship all this time. Before this it was a hard grip or a shove, nothing that I thought was too serious. The other times Cam saved me were different." 

I paused, not sure how much I wanted to share.  Ashton sat there patiently while I shifted through my thoughts. I knew I could trust him with anything.

"Gracie you don’t have to tell anything you don’t feel comfortable talking about with me." 

I squeezed his hand. "There's no one I feel more comfortable with than you…and Cameron.  You two have been the best friends I could ever want."

I closed my eyes and began, "My first date, I was fifteen and he was seventeen. Cameron and I had a double-date at a movie theater. The guy I'd crushed on for months, Chris, finally asked me out. Cam had a bad feeling about the way the guy was acting, I was clueless. We left the movie half way in to go to the car to talk. Cam wasn’t happy that we did that, he made me promise beforehand to stay in sight of him. 

Chris took me to his truck that he had parked around the back of theater. He said he wanted us to have privacy. Things were going great. He told me I was beautiful as he touched my cheek and leaned over to kiss me. I was on cloud nine. His hands started roaming, just over my breasts at first.  I'd never been touched that way and I liked it for a moment. His hands started squeezing too rough and I asked him to stop. He did. His mouth moved to my neck and I felt his hand move up my skirt. I tried to push him off, he pressed harder. He ripped my panties and shoved his hand inside me.  It hurt so much it felt like his whole arm."

Ashton hissed beside me, his face angrier than before. 

"He used his other hand to unzip his pants and I closed my eyes, knowing he was going to rape me.  The car door opened and Cameron pulled me outside. He pointed at Chris angrily and said 'You
ever
come near her again, and I'll make sure you don’t have the equipment to rape anyone'." I choked back tears. "He felt terrible that he hadn't gotten there before he violated me completely. I wasn’t going to tell him just how far things went. When I got out of his car that night, there was blood on the seat. It was the first time I saw him cry. He had nothing to feel bad about as far as I was concerned. I was the idiot who put myself in that situation."

Ashton's jaw clenched tightly as he said, "I'd have killed him." The look on his face told me he wasn’t kidding. His index finger and thumb smoothed over his beard. 

"Like I said, Cam's been my ongoing hero. He's never been hurt before though.  Seeing him in that hospital bed…"

Ashton's features softened. He opened the door and stepped out, without another word. I watched as he walked around the front of the truck,
and then opened my door. His hand reached forward, palm upward. I placed my hand in his and stepped out. Ashton gently cupped my head in his hand and pulled me into his embrace. He cradled my head against his chest allowing me to release my sobs. My body shook violently as the anger over the events in my life spilled out of me. 

Ashton’s chest jumped as though he had hiccups.

My head tilted back, as my eyes rolled up to meet his. He didn’t have hiccups. He was sobbing with me, silently. Everything inside me wanted to kiss him right now. Dammit, why did I have these feelings for him that would never be returned? I didn’t speak, I just lay my head against his chest.

Ashton let go of me to wipe his face with his sleeve. He reached inside the truck again. He turned the ignition, played with the radio for a moment, until he said, “Perfect.” The song,
To Make You Feel My Love, performed by Garth Brooks,
played. He extended his hand, and said “May I have this dance?”

I took his hand, resting my splinted arm around his back. He placed my free hand over his shoulder, pulling me close. This song had always been one of my favorites. The words encompassed everything I felt for Ashton. 

My eyes lifted upward to meet his. “What are we doing?”

He pressed his mouth against my ear, his low husky voice said, “Taking our mind off things.”

His warm breath against my ear made my body shiver. His hand rested at the small of my back.  His body warmed me, stirring feelings emotionally and physically, feelings I wasn’t sure I could handle right now. 

He peered down at me, “Are you cold, sweetheart?”

I shook my head, somewhat embarrassed that he had noticed me quiver.

“You're so beautiful, my Gracie-bug,” he whispered softly as he caressed my cheek. He'd never called me 'his' before. The song, the dance, the way he was looking at me, it was too much, it sent me over the edge. I broke our embrace. I put my hand to my mouth, shaking my head.

“I can’t do this anymore.”

Ashton’s brow creased. “I wasn’t trying to push. I only wanted to take your mind off of everything.” He didn’t understand, but how do I explain without utter humiliation?

“No, you’re sweet. You’re
so
sweet. And you’re funny, gorgeous, a true gentleman, an amazing friend.  We can't be friends like this though. You’re everything I want. It isn’t fair and it's breaking my heart.”

Still confused he asked, “What isn’t fair? You aren't making sense right now.”

Ashton followed me as I moved around the truck. “I’m falling for you, Ash. I have been for a while now. I've tried to fight these feelings, but I can't anymore. Every moment that I'm with you my heart breaks a little more because being friends is not enough for me.”

His hand touched my shoulder, turning me to face him.  He was smiling. “Why is that bad?”

I sighed with exasperation. “Because you’re gay!”

He spouted, “What? I’ve never told you that!”

Frustrated I yelled, “Come on, your best friend is gay.”

He nodded. “So is yours.”

I continued, “You like hanging out at gay bars.”

He nodded again. “As do you.”

I threw my hands up. “You’re a guy!”

His face twitched. “Ok, now you lost me. What does that mean?”

I sighed. “Guys don’t hang out at gay bars unless they're gay.”

He laughed. “Wow, nice assumption you made there! Has Cam never had a straight guy friend?” I shook my head and he responded, “Oh, well, I guess I can see where you came to that conclusion.”