“He mentioned an emergency contact once,” Ford said. “But I can’t find any information on her, and his phone was lost in the explosion so I can’t even look there.”
That was when I tilted my head and opened my eyes as best as I could.
“My aunt. Her name is Diana,” I croaked. “And don’t call her. I don’t want you to worry her. Just take my legs.”
Ford stood up from his sprawl in the chair beside me.
“You’re awake,” he said, his different colored eyes looking down at me in worry. “Are you in pain?”
I thought about that for a long moment. “I can’t feel my toes.”
There was a long, measured silence before the doctor came into view.
“Pascha…”
“Pace,” Ford and I corrected at the same time.
“Pace,” the doctor said. “You were in an explosion…”
***
Two weeks later
“You’ll never walk again.”
I looked up to find my sister and mother in the doorway.
“What are you doing here?” I snapped.
My mother and sister, two peas in a pod, came farther into the room, obviously not understanding that I didn’t want them here.
“You’re home. Why wouldn’t we come see our boy?” my mother asked, walking closer to me.
I wished she’d turn around and walk back out, but that would obviously be asking too much.
“What do you want?” I asked through clenched teeth.
“Now why would you think that we’d want something?” Bella, my sister, asked.
I gritted my teeth.
“Because the only time you talk to me is when you need money,” I repeated. “You both couldn’t even be bothered when the doctor called to ask permission to cut my legs off. Now why would I bother talking to you now, when you both need something?”
“We just need a couple hundred dollars,” my mother, the one woman that I should be able to trust above all others but couldn’t, said.
“You can just take your happy asses out of here right this instant,” Diana, my aunt, declared. “And if you don’t, I’ll call security.”
My mom whirled and sneered at Diana.
“You can’t tell me what to do,” my mother declared loudly.
I pressed the button for the nurse to come in and was happy to see that I didn’t have to wait long.
Before this degraded, like I knew it would do since Diana and my mother were in the same room, my mother and Bella needed to go.
Fast.
“Ma’am,” the male nurse said to the two interlopers. “We’re going to have to ask you to leave.”
My mother turned and hissed at me. “You didn’t.”
I took my finger away from the call button and said, “Next time someone calls you regarding me, tell them that you’re not really a mother to me. That Diana is. Then, if you have any shred of decency, rattle off her number.”
My mother’s eyes narrowed.
“You’re going to regret this,” she said as the nurse took hold of her arm.
That was when Bella started in.
“Jesus Christ,” Bella sneered. “It was only two hundred dollars. It’s not like that’s going to break you.”
That was true. It wouldn’t. Not anymore.
But back when we were growing up together? When she’d steal that two hundred dollars? That was the difference between making rent and eating for the next two weeks. Yet she’d done it, time and time again.
“No,” Diana said. “It wouldn’t.”
Bella turned her sneer on Diana. “Why are you here?”
That was a dumb question, and even Bella knew it.
Diana was here for me, and we both knew it.
Just like she always had been.
Where my mother had gone wrong, Diana had gone right.
Mom was a criminal mastermind. Diana was a lawyer and on her way to becoming a judge.
Diana was everything Mom was not. Even a mother to me.
“Time to go,” I said, instilling some steel into my tone that would allow no argument. “And don’t come back. I’m dead to you.”
Bella laughed cruelly. “What’s wrong, gimpy? You don’t want two non-violent women in your hospital room?”
Diana growled low in her throat.
I would’ve smiled had the other two women not been in the room.
“Go home,” I ordered.
“I can’t go home,” my mother said. “We got kicked out this morning.”
“Sucks for you.” I shrugged. “There’s nothing that I can do about that.”
“You could let us live at your place,” she suggested. “It’s not like you’re going to be using it for a while.”
What she said was true. I’d be in the hospital for a while yet, and even more, I’d be in a rehab facility for even longer.
“Why’d you even drive all the way out here, anyway?” Diana asked. “What did you do? Steal gas money?”
I would’ve laughed had it not hurt to do so.
Everything still hurt. Badly.
My body was broken.
I had a broken ulna in my left arm. A broken collarbone. Broken ribs. Shattered cheekbone.
Hell, I had even broken everything from the knee down in both legs.
Though, those bones were no longer bothering me seeing as I was now a double amputee from the knee down.