“So, what happened to me?” I ask with a small smile. “I feel like death, so I presume it wasn’t good.”
“You were shot. I think Will thought that you’d been killed, but I suppose it was either a warning shot or a terrible shooter. Anyway, it pierced you in the side but not too badly. You bed a lot, but nothing major was punctured. The doctor has said that you might be in a lot of pain for a while, but you’ll be fine.”
I was shot. Me. The teacher from a small town, the person who doesn’t ever affect anyone. I never ever thought that I would be in the middle of something so messed up, it’s insane. The day that Annabelle married Landon, the day that I met Will, everything changed. I was thrown head first into the middle of something insane and I haven’t been able to extract myself since. But it seems like it’s over now. It’s done. All that’s left to do is pick up the pieces. I just don’t know what will happen when it comes to that.
I will return to being a mother, I will go back to my life, I will even return to teaching one day. That’s all pretty much standard, but what about Will? Things have been rocky, they haven’t been great, and I don’t know where we stand now. That’s pretty nuts. It probably shouldn’t be the thing that I’m concentrating on, but I can’t stop it.
“Okay, I suppose you better get the doctor in now,” I tell Mom firmly. “I want to know from a medical professional what’s happening with me. I want to know when I can get out of here. Oh, and grab Jordan too. I miss my baby boy like crazy.”
Will can come later. For now, I need to meet my boy.
Chapter Thirty Two – Will
The last few weeks have been hard. Almost more difficult than the weeks leading up to the shooting. Dealing with Kingpin sucked, but knowing his identity is the roughest thing ever. I still can’t get over it. Everything that I’ve ever known has turned on its head. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to trust my own judgement again. I keep looking at everyone with utter distrust and I’m not sure when I’ll recover from that.
But at least Cici is okay. She’s still alive. That’s the main thing. Me, Jordan, and Cici are all okay. Cici was injured and she’s been in the hospital for a while as she recovers, which isn’t ideal, but she’s okay now. She’s living, so I’ve got everything that I wished for. I don’t know where my life is at the moment, but I have that.
“Are you okay?” I ask her quietly as I guide Cici to the car. “I bet you’re ready to go home.”
She turns and gives me a thin smile. “I suppose so. But home, where is that?”
Of course, I want her to come and live with me again, I want to pick up where we’ve left off, but since we haven’t exactly had that conversation then I don’t know where we stand. We haven’t had a chance, I’ve been crazy with work trying to straighten everything out to do with this case, and Cici has been focused on her recovery. Our conversations have mostly been status updates about those things and chats about Jordan. All very practical stuff. Things weren’t amazing just before all of this kicked off, we had our issues, so maybe this will be the moment where she chooses to walk away from it all. She could, and I don’t think I could blame her for that.
“Well, we could go to the apartment,” I offer. “All of Jordan’s stuff is there. It makes sense.”
She smiles genuinely down at the baby seat in the back of the car where Will sit. Seeing that we’re here causes Cici’s mom to slide out of the car. “I’ll leave you to it,” she says quietly. “But Cici, call me if you want me.”
I’ve been honest with everyone. After being so hidden away for far too long I feel like I need to be truthful about everything. Cici’s family knows that things haven’t been great so they’re aware that it might all implode now. I’ve been brutally honest about my side of the things, I’ve laid myself out on the table. I want them to know that they might need to be there for her. I hope it doesn’t come to that, but you never know.
Me and Cici slide into the car and she immediately turns around to see her son. “How have things been with you and Jordan? Have you both been okay? Sorry I haven’t been here for you. It must have been hard.”
“Hey, you did it for a while, so it was my turn,” I tell her warmly. “And it’s been good for us. We’ve been able to bond and recover from the time I missed out on. It’s been good. Although we have missed you a lot.”
Cici turns to face the road as we move, and she’s silent for a while. I keep wanting to talk, there’s so much that I want to say, but I don’t want to push it. I don’t want to force her. She’s been through so much already.
“It feels like forever,” she murmurs quietly. “Since I’ve seen the apartment. It feels weird, like a life time ago.”
I know that she’s struggling, it’s obvious it isn’t easy for her to have her whole world torn apart. I might have lost my best friend in a terrible brutal way, be she’s had to find out that her cousin wanted her dead. It’s messed up. I wish I could do something to make it okay again, but there’s only so much I can say.
“It was a life time ago, wasn’t it? Things were so different back then.” Almost perfect, but not really.
When we pull up outside, I immediately go to get Jordan. I’m sure that Cici needs a moment to digest this before she goes inside. She’s been in the hospital forever, I’m sure this isn’t going to be easy. I focus on my son while she has some time. As I grab his car seat I suddenly realize that my heart is racing. I’m anxious, almost sickly so. I have a horrible feeling that this isn’t going to go well at all. I take a second to recall the first time that I brought Cici here, the night of the wedding. Back then she was supposed to be a one night stand
. I knew right away that she’d be different, I went for the sweet looking red head rather than a peroxide blonde, but I didn’t know how different. I wasn’t aware that she’d be the one for me. I didn’t know that we’d fall in love, have a baby, and face a life and death situation together. It’s insane. Absolutely crazy.
I don’t want this to be a small chapter in our stories. I don’t want to end up as footnotes. I want us to be each other’s happy ever after. I want to cling onto this, to make it work. I want to do things right this time. I was a bad boyfriend before, I didn’t behave anything like I should have, and I want to make up for that.
“Shall we go inside?” I ask, my voice thick with emotion. “Get things sorted.”
Out here, we can’t do anything, we can’t talk about it at all, we need to get inside before we can have the honest chat we need. I could let it fester, there’s a part of me that doesn’t want to be tackled because ignorance is bliss, but we have to. We can’t just keep not talking about it. We need to move forwards.
“Yes, okay.” Cici nods slowly. “I think we should. It’s time to go inside.”
We walk slowly, almost as if we’re heading towards our doom, and we step into the elevator. Jordan seems fidgety, and I’m sure it’s because he can sense the emotions fizzing between us. I’m realizing that he’s very in tune with other people for a baby. It makes me worry about all the things that he’s been through before.
I grab my keys out and unlock the door to the apartment, glad that it’s tidy now. For Cici’s return, I wanted the place to be straighter than it’s ever been before, and that’s what I’ve achieved.
“Oh.” Cici scans her eyes about, noticing right away. “It looks good in here.”