RR&R 01 Real (38 page)

I sit in a chair for the first week and stare at his beautiful face with the tube that helps him breathe, and I cry from anger and frustration and helplessness. Sometimes I put his headphones on his beautiful head and play him every single song of the ones we played to each other, waiting to see if his eyes twitch or there’s some indication of thought in there. Other times, I walk out in the hall just to wake up my legs and arms that have fallen asleep. I haven’t seen Pete, and nobody will tell me where he is. Today Riley peers into the waiting room, where I’m staring down lifelessly at my bag of peanuts. I just didn’t know what to get that would be moderately healthy, and I already finished all the granolas. I think I’ve lost some weight, for my jeans are hanging loose from my hips, but my stomach is about as closed as a fist and the few times it seems to relax enough to let me eat something, my throat is to blame for not letting it past.

I’ve been thinking a lot these few days. That’s all I’ve done, actually. But out of all my thoughts, my mind goes blank as I step inside. A deep, dark anguish overwhelms me as I head for the bed. I thought I was getting numb already, but I realize I’m not. I step slowly forward and fix my eyes on the very spot where my world seems to revolve around. And I see him. His eyes are open. I don’t care what color they are. He’s still Remington Tate, the man I love.

He’s going to be okay and I am not. I don’t think I ever will be.

The tears burst out, and all of a sudden, all my thoughts come rushing back. I have so many things to say I just stand in the middle of the room and tear my guts open. My words are angry, but they’re barely understandable through my sobs. “How d-dare you make m-me watch t-that … how could you stand there and make me watch h-him destroy you! Your bones! Your face! Y-you … were … mine! Mine … to … to … hold… How d-dare you break you! How dare you break me!”

His eyes go red too, and I know I should stop because he can’t even respond to me, but this dam has opened and I can’t stop it, I just can’t. He made me watch and now I have to make him listen to me, to what his stupid fucked up shit has done to me!

I can’t stand the way he’s looking at me. The way his eyes claw into me. Destroy me.

Hot tears continue trickling down my cheeks as I yield to the reckless impulse and go to him. I touch his free hand and bend my head to his chest as I lift his fingers and kiss his knuckles feverishly, aware that I’m getting them wet with my tears, but I can’t stop because it’s the last time I’m going to kiss this hand and it hurts.

He groans as he awkwardly places the hand of his casted arm on the back of my head and heavily strokes my hair. His throat is tubed, but when I wipe my tears and look up at him, his eyes are screaming things at me that I can’t bear to listen to. I stand, acting as cowardly as Mel says, and he grabs my hand and won’t let go. I don’t want him to, but I need him to. I pull my hand free with force and grab his forehead and set a kiss at the very center, a kiss that I hope he will feel all the way down to his soul, because that’s from where it’s coming from inside me. He makes a rough sound and starts pulling at the tube on his throat, and the machine makes a beeping noise when he starts succeeding in yanking off all the strings attached to him.

I hate that he will wake up again with his beautiful blue eyes and might not remember what I said, or where I am, or what happened to me. But I just can’t stay.

I find Riley at the cafeteria and show him an envelope I’d acquired from one of the nurses several days ago. “I’m leaving, Riley. My contract was over several days ago. Just … say goodbye to Pete and please…” I hand him the envelope with Remington’s name, watching it tremble violently in the air, “give this to him when his eyes are blue again.”

That night, I’m flying to Seattle, slumped in my seat, feeling as heavy and empty as an abandoned building, and I wonder as I stare unseeingly out the window if he’s already back to blue, and if he’s already reading my letter. I’ve read it a thousand times in my head, and read it a thousand times when I wrote it the third night at the hospital, when I knew I was not going to stay.

The very first moment I laid eyes on you, I think you had me. And I think you knew. How could you possibly not know? That my floor was shaking under my feet. It was. You made it move. You colored my life again. And when you came after me and kissed me, I just knew somewhere deep inside me, my life would forever be touched and changed by you. It has. I have had the most amazing, incredible, beautiful moments of my life with you. You and your team became my new family, and never for one second did I really plan to leave. Not them, but most of all, not you. Every day I spent with you only makes me crave more of you. All I wanted for days was to be closer. It hurts to be close and not to touch you, and I wanted to spend every waking moment with you and every sleeping moment in your arms. So many times now, I wanted to tell you all the ways you make me feel, but I wanted to hear you say it first. My pride is gone now. I have no room for it, and I don’t want to regret not telling you. I love you, Remy. With all my heart. You are the most beautifully complicated, gentle fighter I’ve ever known. You have made me deliriously happy. You challenge and delight me, and make me feel like a kid inside, with all the amazing things to look forward to, just because I was looking at the future and thinking of sharing it all with you. I’ve never felt so safe as when I am with you, and I want you to know I am completely in love with every part of you, even the one that just broke my heart. But I can’t stay anymore, Remy. I can’t watch you hurt yourself, because when you do, you’re hurting me in ways I never thought anybody could hurt me, and I’m afraid of breaking and never being right again. Please never, ever, let anyone hurt you like this. You are the fighter everyone wants to be, and this is why everyone in the world loves you. Even when you screw up, you get back up fighting again. Thank you, Remy, for opening your world to me. For sharing yourself with me. For my job, and for every time you smiled at me. I want to tell you to get well soon, but I know that you will. I know you will be blue-eyed and cocky and fighting again, and I’ll be in your past, like all the things you’ve overcome before me. Just please know that I will never hear “Iris” again, without thinking of you.

Yours always,

Brooke

I talked to my parents and told them things are great, especially when I don’t want to worry them about Nora until I figure out how I’m going to bring her home again. I’ve already researched and the next Underground season will begin in February of next year, and it will begin in Washington D.C.

“
Why not? Come on, little nugget. You’ve never had a love interest before and it’s fun talking of a love interest that is finally not mine.”

“
Just don’t talk to me about him, please! I love him, Melanie. I
love
him. He’s not just a star, he’s the whole fucking sky to me. He’s the sun and every planet in this galaxy. It hurts me to think of him, don’t you understand?”

Completely distressed over how volatile I’ve become, I shove my music back into my armband and focus on running, tap-tap-tap, on the ground. Now the sun is getting higher, and as we round the corner to my building, we see a black Escalade parked right before my building.

We keep trotting toward it, and as we approach, the doors open and a man in black that looks remarkably like Pete steps out. Followed by another that could be Riley.

And suddenly standing across me, every inch of him beautiful, healthy, and vital, is Remington Tate. I see his gleaming dark hair, his sexy boyish face, his slightly scruffy jaw, and all of his manly tan skin and perfect muscles, and my heart stops.

I stop running.

I look at him. And he looks at me.

And as we stare, my eyes on his, his eyes on mine, my heart resumes with one burst of emotion.

It leaps and runs to him, slams into him, explodes in him, and although it hurts like an open wound to look at this man, all my senses have sizzled to life and I can’t take my eyes off him, even if my life depends on it. A private Fourth of July is happening in my stomach as I feel Melanie’s nudge at my back, and we begin walking toward them at a slower pace.

A nerve-wracking pace.

It feels as though the entire world is in slow motion. Every step of mine takes ages.

Remington looks so … large as we approach. Larger than life itself, and I can’t even believe this striking creature was once a little bit mine.

“
Holy shit, that man is hot,” Melanie gasps at my side.

I blink, and my heart stops. “Nora?”

“
We just wanted to make sure she got home safe,” Pete says.

“
Nora?” I repeat. And now I really sound more stupid than Melanie.

“
It’s me!” She looks lively and like her old self as she comes to hug me, and she’s shaking in excitement as she does. “It’s me, big sis! I’m back! I’ve done work in rehab. Pete helped me,” she rushes to explain. “And I got the tattoo off.” She points to her rosy cheekbone. “I felt so little when you looked at me that day, Brooke. I felt so little and so … dirty.”

“
No! No, never!” Reeling in surprise, I drag her in for another hug, still stunned and disbelieving that my little sister is in my arms, and then Melanie grabs her and gives her some Mel-love.

“
Nora!! Nora Camora Lalora Crazyora!” She hugs and swings her around and squeezes her, and I turn to stare at the three men before me, and since I can’t make myself speak to the one I really want to speak to, I speak to Pete instead. “Pete, what’s going on?”

“
Surprise,” he says, wiggling his eyebrows and signaling to Nora. “She’s done great. She’s such a sweet girl.”