“I’m in the hospital hooked up to this stupid IV. I want it out ’cause it’s a pain in the ass to take to the bathroom with me.”
“Yes, I’m sure it—why are you in the hospital?” I was terrified of the answer.
“Officer Kramer told me I got hit in the back of the head with the butt of a gun.”
“Who’s Officer Kramer?”
“A policeman.”
“Yes, I assumed that, but how did you and Officer Kramer come into contact?”
“He arrested the guy who knocked me out.”
Ah. “And when was this?” I questioned, breathing through my nose, working to stay calm. It was hard to be far away. I needed to see him, feeling the same compulsion to go to him as I’d had to see my father when I got the news about his heart attack.
“Last night. Two—no, wait, three. No, four. Yeah. Four guys beat the shit outta me.”
In and out I breathed, slowly. “Could you perhaps start at the beginning?”
Heavy sigh. “Man, it’s nice to hear your voice. It’s so pretty, just like you. Say something sexy, like schedule or spreadsheet.”
He was so out of it. “It’s nice to hear your voice too. Now tell––”
“I wanted to talk to you so bad, but nobody would call you, even though I asked ’em to.”
It was terrible that I was going to have to murder everyone who hadn’t listened to him. “Honey, when was this?” I asked, the endearment slipping out.
He whimpered a bit, and I heard him sniffle. “I think when I was on my way here. I remember being in the ambulance, but maybe it was a different one. I’ve been in a lot of ’em, and sometimes it’s hard to keep track. You know, this one time my mother had a boyfriend who hit me with a––”
“No, no, no,” I choked out, not ready to hear about how some man had beaten up a sweet little boy with soft, trusting golden-brown eyes, who had to be taken to the hospital because the injuries inflicted on him had been dire. “When did you tell people to call me?”
“Last night. I asked everybody who came in, even Mer, but he didn’t. You know, I’ve been through a ton of bad stuff in my life.”
He was definitely drugged, and sticking to one topic seemed problematic. “Yes, I know.”
“And people think it only got bad after my mom left, but that’s not true. It was bad when she was with me too.”
Someday, down the road, when he’d been mine for a long time, then I would ask to hear all his secrets, and he could divulge them in chronological order. But not today. Today I would break down, and that would do him no good.
“She didn’t…protect me like mothers are supposed to. She let things happen to me.”
I took my phone and sat down on my bed, bringing his face to mind, his square jaw under the soft beard, his kind eyes with smile lines at the corners, his straight nose, thick brows, dark fringe of lashes, and the hair kicking out at his nape. He was beautiful, but more than that, I’d seen what was under the surface, the heart he hid, and knew the reason he protected it was because of his mother. She’d allowed him to be abused, and it was gutting me.
My mother would kill to make certain I was safe. She’d take a bullet, fall on a grenade, anything to keep me or my brother or my sister safe, and even now, if she saw my ex, Troy Fortney, walking alone on a dark road, I didn’t like his chances if she were driving. Imagining Jeremiah abandoned and betrayed hurt down deep.
“When she left, I was kinda relieved, but then I had to take care of myself, and there’s only so many ways you can do that when you’re fourteen.”
I kept quiet.
“But I did a lot of stuff, bad stuff, and I did it alone. I’ve been by myself for so long, except for a few people.”
Those who had punched through his defenses, I was sure. Strong souls who saw what I did, a man worth having in their lives.
He was quiet then, and I meant to say something encouraging, to keep him talking, sharing, but I couldn’t find the words.
“But just because I’ve been alone doesn’t mean I like it.”
Oh. Not what I was expecting. “No?”
“No, I—see, people reach out and invite me to their homes for stuff,” he clarified, his voice, like his mind, sort of tripping along. “Like, I get invited over for the holidays. I don’t want you to think I’ve never been asked to spend Thanksgiving anywhere.”
Of course others had invited him. Why would they not?
“People from work have invited me, people from class, and I bet Merrell, who was here, he probably would ask me too, and we were supposed to talk last night, but I got hit, so he came to the hospital instead.”