Thoughtful

  “Don’t,” I muttered, “you could make it worse.”

  He looked up at me, his eyes wide. “Is she okay? Please tell me she’s okay. Jesus, she’s bleeding…there’s so much blood. Kellan, is she okay? Did I…? What did I do to her?”

  By the paleness of his cheeks and the frantic look in his eye, I knew he was losing it. Ignoring him, I focused on Kiera. “Baby?” I whispered, moving her hair away from her eyes so I could see her. “Tell me you’re okay…please.” She still didn’t respond, and I could see that Denny was right about the blood. The ground beneath her head was so sickly red it looked black. Fuck. Cringing in pain, I held my cheek next to her mouth. Let me feel a breath…don’t let her be dead. I can’t handle a world where she’s dead. It was supposed to be me. Why did she do that?

  I felt like I waited an eternity to feel…something…and when I finally did, I exhaled in relief. “She’s breathing,” I told Denny. “It’s faint, but it’s there.”

  “We have to call for help. She needs a doctor, a hospital…we need to call an ambulance.” He ran his hands back through his hair. His knuckles were torn and bloody from repeatedly hitting my face.

  I knew time was of the essence, but I also knew that Denny would be in serious shit for this…especially if she died. Fuck, please don’t let her die. “You need to leave. Now,” I told him. Caring more about stopping the bleeding than any potential damage I could do to her head, I pulled Kiera into my lap the best I could with one good arm, and then held the bottom part of my shirt against the sticky section of her skull. My shirt instantly darkened.

  Denny’s eyes went wide as he watched me. “No…I’m staying with her.” There was a trace amount of jealousy in his voice, but we didn’t have time for that right now. This wasn’t about us at the moment.

  Irritated and scared, I snapped out, “Aren’t you supposed to be a genius or something? Your stupid ass will go to jail if you stay here. Do you fucking understand me? You beat the living shit out of me, and…your girlfriend is…”

  I couldn’t finish, and Denny didn’t let me. “I’m not leaving her side.”

  Seeing the blood stain growing on my shirt, I yelled, “Yes, you fucking are! You will get hauled off and locked away, and your career will be over! Is that what you fucking want? Is that what you think Kiera would fucking want?” I spat a wad of blood from my mouth to emphasize my point. “Now quit arguing with me and get the fuck out of here!”

  Denny seemed to notice for the first time that he’d beaten me to a bloody pulp. He stared at me, then looked at his hands. “Jesus…what did I do…?”

  I let out a calming breath. I needed to keep my cool if I was going to get him to leave. “You didn’t do anything. You weren’t even here. You understand me?” I raised my eyebrows. It hurt. Everything hurt. Carefully reaching into my back pocket with my good hand, I grabbed my wallet and tossed it at Denny. He seemed confused by that, so I quickly explained as I returned my hand to Kiera’s makeshift compress. “Run. I’ll tell them we got mugged and things turned nasty. I’ll tell them Kiera tried to protect me…and…and she…” I sighed, then implored, “Get out of here, Denny, before it’s too late!”

  His gaze never leaving Kiera, Denny slowly stood up. “You’ll get her help…you’ll stay with her?”

  I nodded, then indicated the road. “Yes. Now, please…leave…before someone comes out here.”

  Denny looked back at me. He seemed torn, like he wanted to go, but he also wanted to stay and confess. Fuck that. I wasn’t letting him throw his life away because I had pushed him to the breaking point. This was my fault, not his. “Kiera would want you to go,” I said, my voice firm. “She wouldn’t want you punished for this. Not like that.” My voice softened. “We punished you enough.”

  Denny glanced back down at Kiera on my lap, then nodded. Tears running down his cheeks, he looked up at me and whispered, “I’m sorry. Tell her I’m sorry.” With one final pained expression, he ran off.

  Relieved that he wouldn’t be tied up in some legal mess because of this, I closed my eyes. Then I gathered my strength and yelled, “Somebody help me!” I kept screaming it, until finally a group of people opened the gate to the beer garden and peeked their heads out to see what all the fuss was about. When they spotted my bloody, beat-up ass and Kiera’s stone-still body, they sprang into action. A half dozen men and women ran toward me, three of them pulling out cell phones as they did. I nearly sobbed with relief. They would help her. They would fix her. They had to.

  “What happened?” was the first thing they asked when they reached me.

  The lie rolled effortlessly off my tongue. Someone brought a wet towel for her head, and I removed my ruined shirt from her scalp. Someone else asked me if I was all right. I heard myself murmuring that I thought my arm was broken, but I felt numb inside. Hollow. What if she didn’t make it? What if she didn’t survive this? I couldn’t…No…it couldn’t end this way. It just couldn’t.

  When the ambulances arrived, a group of paramedics descended on us. They tried to remove Kiera from my arms and I stubbornly held on to her. She is alive right now. If I let her go…who knows what could happen?

  An older man with a kind face knelt beside me. “Sir, you need to let go of her so we can help her. We’re here to help her.”

  Woodenly, I nodded. Yes, help her. “Will she be okay?” I asked, knowing they couldn’t possibly know the answer.

  A younger man started looking over my wounds while Kiera was pulled away. “She’s in good hands. Let’s just see how you’re doing.”

  Kiera was put on a stretcher, and a mask was put over her mouth. I watched the mask fog with her breath. Thank God…she’s still alive. She was shoved into an ambulance, and the doors were slammed shut behind her. I tried to stand. “Wait, I want to go with her. Let me go with her.”

  A firm hand held me down. “Stay still, sir. You’re injured too. We’re going to get you on a stretcher and put you in the other ambulance. But you’ll be right behind her, I promise.”

  I suddenly felt extremely tired. I nodded, but there was no strength behind it, just a dead sort of flopping up and down. Dropping my heavy head, I stared at the smeared pool of blood Kiera had left behind. Lying near the edge of it was the necklace I had given her as a goodbye. It was touching the blood, and the pool was starting to creep around the sides of the pendant, surrounding it. With my good hand, I weakly scraped my fingers against the rough concrete.

  The silver strand holding the guitar caught on my chilled fingers, and I grabbed the cool metal. When it was in my palm, I stared at the guitar tinged with Kiera’s blood. The diamond in the center had once reminded me of my undying love for her, but now all I saw was a crystallized tear.

  Please don’t let her die.

  I was moved to a stretcher, shoved into an ambulance, hooked up to complicated equipment, and driven away. My mind faded into oblivion at some point, and only bits and pieces of my “rescue” broke through my awareness. I recalled arriving at the hospital, remembered the jarring sensation of being removed from the van, heard some person tell a nurse all the things they’d found wrong with me so far, and heard myself asking about Kiera. My questions weren’t answered, and my consciousness slipped away.

  When I woke up, I was in a hospital bed, wearing a hospital gown. My arm was in a cast, my ribs were wrapped, and I had bandages on my face. A dull ache permeated my senses, and my head felt slow, like I was waking from delirium. Looking over to my good arm, I saw where an IV was attached to me, dripping clear liquid into my body. I wasn’t sure what it was, but I knew it was probably the reason I wasn’t in overwhelming pain right now.

  I heard whispering across the room, and I looked over to see three nurses in the doorway, talking to one another. Two of them were giggling. “Excuse me.” They all looked my way. One of them turned beet red in a way that reminded me of Kiera. How long had I been out? Was she okay? “I was brought in with a girl. Is she all right?”

  A bubbly blonde walke
d my way. “The head injury? She’s still in recovery. Her fiancé is with her now.”

  My words caught in my throat. Fiancé? I knew she meant Denny. He must have cleaned up and driven out here. Of course he would. I would have too. Nodding, I removed the sheet covering me. Just doing that was a challenge; I was so weak. All three nurses immediately headed my way, palms raised like they were going to restrain me. “No, no, no. You need to rest.”

  “I need to see her.”

  The blonde put a hand on my shoulder, while the other two tucked me back into bed. “She’s not going anywhere. And she’s not awake yet. You can see her in the morning, and she won’t know the difference.”

  I’ll know the difference.

  They all had jobs to do, and wouldn’t be able to watch me twenty-four/seven, so I lay back and prepared myself to wait. I was getting out of this bed. I was going to see Kiera. I wouldn’t be able to rest until I saw with my own eyes that she was okay. If the nurses knew anything about me, then they would have realized that my recovery depended on hers.

  Once they did finally leave, I struggled to my feet. My arm burned, my chest ached, and every movement made something hurt, but I kept going. It took me an achingly long time, but I managed to dress myself. Once I looked semi-normal again, I made my way to the door and peered into the hallway. Feeling like I was sneaking out of prison, I waited until the coast was clear, then walked as quickly as my shuffling feet would take me.

  When I was away from my area, I found a nurses’ station and asked for Kiera. The guy on duty looked at me funny, but told me what room to find her in. The lights were off and her door was ajar when I found the room where she was recovering. I felt like I had run a marathon just getting this far, but anxious to see her, I hurried inside. When I saw her lying on the bed, her body softly lit by a nightlight across the room, I almost wished I hadn’t come. She looked like a little girl in the massive bed, but with her head wrapped in thick bandages, and a sickly black-and-blue bruise along the right side of her face from her eyebrow to her cheekbone, she seemed like a very, very sick little girl.

  While tears clouded my vision, a soft voice said, “What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be lying down somewhere?”

  Steadying myself on a rolling tray near the foot of Kiera’s bed, I looked over at Denny, sitting in a chair near the window. “I had to know she was okay. Is she?” My throat closed up. If she wasn’t…I didn’t know what I would do.

  Denny frowned. “I don’t…I don’t know. They’ve got her on drugs to reduce the swelling, but if that doesn’t work, they’ll have to…operate.”

  I felt my legs start to give out, and Denny shot to his feet. With quick steps, he hurried over to me and helped me stay on my feet. His dark eyes took in all of my injuries. Well, the ones he could see, anyway. “Are you…okay?” he asked.

  Staring at Kiera, her fate still unknown, and feeling the pins and needles of pain racing around my body, I shrugged him off me. He did this to us. “No…I’m not. My arm’s broken, my ribs are broken, my insides are black and blue, and I feel like living shit.”

  Denny frowned as he backed away. “I’m sorry. I never meant…” His fists clenched and he closed his eyes. “You slept with my girlfriend, Kellan.” His eyes reopened and heat crept into his voice. “You slept with her.”

  Scared that Kiera wouldn’t make it, I unintentionally bit out, “No, actually, we didn’t do much sleeping.”

  Denny pulled his arm back, like he was going to slug me again, then he glanced over at Kiera and let it drop. “You should go. I’m with her now. I’ll let you know if anything changes.”

  Walking over to Kiera’s bed, I gingerly sat down near her feet. “I’m not going anywhere until she wakes up.”

  “Kellan…”

  I snapped my gaze to him; it made my head hurt, but I ignored it. “If you hate me, fine, I understand, but I’m not leaving…so deal with it.”

  “Fine, but sit in the chair, not by her.” He pointed over to the seat he’d been sitting in. I wanted to tell him to go to hell, that I’d sit wherever I damn well pleased, but I really did feel like shit, and relaxing back in the chair sounded a hell of a lot better than sitting at the end of a stiff bed. Although there was a certain appeal to the thought of being as close to Kiera as possible…

  Pushing that thought from my mind, I stood up and moved to the chair. Kiera and I were many things, but still together wasn’t one of them. If she woke up…when she woke up…I’d have to tell her we were over. Regardless of what Denny’s plans with her were now, I was done. I couldn’t do this anymore.

  I sat in the plush chair while Denny sat on the bed. I think I fell asleep, because the next thing I knew, bands of sunlight were blinding my eyes. Blinking, I looked over at Kiera. She was stone-still on the bed, asleep or unconscious. The bruise on her face looked atrocious in the sunlight. Nurses were in the room checking on her, but Denny was nowhere to be found. “How is she?” I croaked.

  A nurse looked over at me and was about to answer when a trio of nurses burst through the door. I frowned as I recognized them as my nurses. The blond one wasn’t so bubbly anymore. “There you are. You can’t just leave like that. You need to come back to your room so the doctor can check on you, and so we can check your bandages…”

  Very carefully, I crossed my arms over my chest. “You can do whatever you want to me, but unless you plan on knocking me out and dragging me back to my room, I’m staying here.”

  The girl behind the blonde frowned; she looked extremely disappointed that I wouldn’t be returning with them. “Well, you at least need to fill out the paperwork…”

  I lifted my good hand. “Gladly. You know where to find me.”

  The nurse taking Kiera’s vitals gave me an amused smile while the other nurses left in a huff. “And I thought I was stubborn,” Kiera’s nurse said. Standing straight, she gave me appraising eyes. “How is your pain? Do you need anything?”

  I shook my head. The only pain I had was from the uncertainty revolving around Kiera. “How is she?” I asked again.

  The nurse frowned. “Better than before, but not out of the woods. I’m sorry. I wish I had better news.”

  Swallowing, I nodded. It wasn’t her fault. Denny reentered the room with a steaming cup of something that I had to assume was tea. My gaze swung his way. It was his fault…and my fault. We’d both done this.

  Denny asked the nurse the same thing I had, and she gave him the same answer. After she left, Denny sat back down on Kiera’s bed with a sigh. He glanced over at me with irritation in his eyes. “You should go home and change…”

  I looked down at the shirt streaked in red. I probably should, but I couldn’t leave Kiera. “I’ll change later.”

  Denny’s eyes narrowed. “Do you think she’s going to want to see you like that? Covered in her blood? Do you think that will help her recover?”

  I leaned forward in my chair. “Do you think it matters what the fuck my shirt looks like when my face looks like this?” I pointed at the eye that was so swollen I could barely see out of it.

  Denny sighed and dropped his eyes back to Kiera. A tense silence built up in the room and I gritted my jaw and closed my eyes. Denny and I snapping at each other wasn’t going to solve anything. “I’m sorry. You’re right. Evan knows where my house keys are hidden. I’ll call him and have him bring some clothes over.” I opened my eyes to see Denny staring at me. “But I’m not leaving, so stop trying to get rid of me.”

  “I know,” he quipped. “You just can’t leave her alone, can you?”

  Holding his gaze, I calmly said, “No. I can’t. And I’m sorry.”

  “You’re sorry? Well, that makes everything okay, doesn’t it?” He lifted his free hand in the air and spoke to the room like it was full of people. “No need to worry, everyone, Kellan’s sorry, so everything is fucking perfect again.”

  I lifted my arm to show him the cast covering me from wrist to elbow. “Sometimes you screw up so badly that apo
logizing is the only thing left that you can do, Denny. I figured you, of all people, would understand that.” Denny sighed and looked away from me. I sighed too. I was so tired of this. “Look, I know you’re mad. I know I fucked up, okay? But all I’m worried about right now is Kiera…and whether or not she’s going to be okay. So maybe we could…hold off on trying to kill each other until she’s better?”

  Denny’s eyes returned to mine. The anger had faded, and all I saw was sadness. “I don’t want to kill you. I just…don’t want to ever see you again.”

  His words stung, but I deserved them. Nodding, I whispered, “I know. And as soon as she’s okay, you won’t have to. But until then, maybe we could…sort of get along?”

  Denny gave me a curt nod. “Yeah. All right. For her sake, we’ll play nice.”

  Closing my eyes again, I laid my head back on the chair. Good. Now let’s just hope she wakes up soon.

  My nurses came back a little while later with paperwork and steri-strips. I let them do whatever they wanted while I signed myself out of the hospital’s care. Denny excused himself to make some phone calls once my nurses were gone, so I picked up the phone and called Evan. He was naturally quite concerned when I told him where I was and what I needed.

  “The hospital? Why are you at the hospital? Are you okay?” With a sigh, I told him the highlights of my night from hell. When I was finished, he was silent for a really long time. “You were leaving? Without saying goodbye? What about the band? Were you going to tell us, or would we just be wondering where the hell you were next rehearsal?”

  I could hear the anger and hurt in his voice. “I was…I would have called when I got wherever…I’m sorry, Evan.” My band hadn’t entered my mind, just escaping Kiera. God, I was a selfish bastard.

  “I’ll be there as soon as I can.” Evan hung up before I could apologize again, and I stared at the receiver. So I’d messed up in more than one way. My assholishness knew no bounds.

  About an hour or so later, Evan walked into Kiera’s room. He looked at her still body on the bed, then over at me. His eyes widened as his mouth opened in shock. “Jesus,” he whispered.