12
BODHI
“Are the girls okay?” Mom asks in a hushed tone.
“They’re fine. Jamie took them over to their place after breakfast. They’ll keep them there as long as we need to stay here,” my dad replies.
“I need him to wake up,” my brother says in a tormented voice that hurts me. “The last words I said to him were horrible. I need him to know I take them back.”
Pain rattles around my skull as I try to move my head, but it won’t cooperate.
“He’s going to be okay,” Dad says. “You’ll get a chance to tell him.”
“So why isn’t he waking up?” Easton says. “He’s been out of surgery for hours.”
Warmth spreads from my hand up my arm as I wage an inner war with my eyes, willing them to open. I try my body next, but my limbs refuse to move. Awareness creeps into my consciousness as pain radiates from my side, up over my chest, and higher. A painful tightness stretches across my ribs and around to my back, and I feel the darkness calling me back to slumber, but I don’t want to sleep.
It all rushes back to me like a movie on fast-forward, and I want to wake. I need to tell my family I’m sorry and I love them.
“His body needs time to rest and heal.” Mom’s voice cracks, and a different kind of pain rips through me.
I caused that anguish in her voice. The anguish in all their voices. And I couldn’t hate myself any more than I do in this moment.
My body jerks as I fight to regain consciousness.
“Bodhi.” Mom’s soft tone is like a comfort blanket swaddling me. “Honey, are you there? Can you hear me?”
I feel her hand squeezing mine as my eyes slowly blink open with an exhaustion that threatens to reclaim me if I don’t fight it. My eyes shutter again as my fingers close around hers.
“Bro.” Easton’s voice sounds closer. “You’re in the hospital, but you’re going to be okay. The doc says you’ll make a full recovery. It’s okay to wake up. We’re not mad at you.”
“He is squeezing my hand,” Mom says as I battle the tiredness and force my eyes to open again.
Slowly, my vision comes into focus, and I see Mom, Dad, and East all standing over me with concerned expressions on their faces.
It is so unbelievably good to see them. There was a point where I thought I never would again, and every horrible mistake I made flashed behind my eyes as I lay bleeding out on the dirty ground of the alley thinking I was dying.
“Mom,” I croak as wetness seeps over my cheeks. “I’m sorry.”
“Shush, honey.” She brushes hair back off my face. “There is plenty of time for that. Don’t worry about it now. Do you want some ice chips?”
I peer deep into her troubled face, and I hate I have caused her so much pain. It shouldn’t have taken me almost dying to realize the truth. For weeks, I have struggled to clear the fog from my head and see what has always been right in front of me. I couldn’t see it, hear it, or think it because I was consumed with pain, writhing in agony with every conscious moment I lived, and I just wanted it all to stop.
“I love you,” I rasp, the words scraping over the raw ache in my throat and the dryness in my mouth. I move my head, looking at my dad and my brother. “I love you all, and I’m so sorry.”
Mom’s sobs filter into the solemn silence as her arms go gently around me and she cries against the side of my face.
Dad moves around my bed to comfort her. “We love you too, son,” he says, his voice thick with emotion. “Thank fuck, you’re going to be okay. You gave us quite a scare.” He holds my hand as he rubs a soothing hand up and down Mom’s back.
“I didn’t mean what I said,” Easton says, hovering by my other side.
I lift my gaze to his.
“I don’t hate you. I never could. You’re my brother. You mean more to me than some stupid girl who tried to come between us.”
Shame washes over me as I think about all the nasty things I have said and done to East. He deserved none of them. He has always had my back, and it was a shitty way to repay him. But I’ll make it up to him. I swear. “Bros before hoes,” I croak, attempting to smile. “I’m sorry, East. That was a shitty thing to do. I wish I could take it back. I was just hurting so much, and I wanted you to feel some of that pain.”
“I get it.”