“Whoa, what the fuck are you doing?”
“I’m going to watch TV, unless you’d rather stare at the wall the entire night?” She snarks, her sass such a welcome from her new nonchalant demeanor. It’s like she’s grown up ten years within this past month, and I feel stuck in a horrifying loop.
I say nothing, instead sighing into myself as I get turned around and parked next to the edge of the couch. She sits down at the head, right next to me. So close, I can smell her familiar scent, which is mixed with something new.
Baby.
I instantly feel guilty. She’s been trying hard to keep things cordial and probably killing herself trying to keep everyone sane, herself included.
I’m an ass.
“About the hospital—”
She puts her hand up. “You know what, Jackson? I don’t really want to talk about it. Things have been… insane, to say the least. Let’s just put it to bed, and start fresh, okay?” She sees the look in my eye and shakes her head. “I’m not asking for anything. I just… let’s just be friends, okay?” Her voice chokes at the end, and my nose burns with emotion.
I nod, even though there’s a million things I want to say.
I wasn’t looking at her odd because I don’t want to be with her.
I was looking at her odd because I do want to be with her.
* * *
I wakeup later with a painful kink in my neck and my ears ringing. The tiny wails that seemed so far out in the distance seems clearer as the fog clears from my brain.
I tilt my head up just as Cara does the same. We must have dozed at some point. I guess that’s what happens when you only have like ten channels. She ended up watching some weird documentary from thirty years ago that bored me to sleep before the first commercial came.
Cara wipes the side of her mouth as the dream clears from her eyes. “Wesley must be awake.” She stands up and stretches, her shirt inching over her stomach and revealing a brutal scar.
“What the fuck is that?” I sneer, fury building through me at her being injured, pained, or marred in any way. I think of my dad, and how he plunged a knife into her abdomen. “Did my fucking dad do that?”
She looks down, instantly making the scar disappear from my sight. She curls over a little bit, as if embarrassed about her scars.
“No, well, yes, actually. A combination of your dad and the c-section.”
“C-section?” What the hell is that?
“I couldn’t… have Wesley in a normal birth.” She rushes off to go and get Wesley and a moment later, she comes back with a wide-eyed Wesley.
I stare at him, absorbing all the information she’s just told me as I stare at my son. I had no idea she couldn’t have a normal birth. I didn’t realize the trauma to her stomach would be so… substantial.
“Why couldn’t you have Wesley normally?” I stare at him and my soul sinks. I so badly want to reach out and touch him. I want to feel him in my arms like Cara gets to, and it puts a sour taste in my mouth that I feel angry with her that she gets to do those things and I don’t.
That I’ll never have the ability to feel my own child in my arms.
She sinks down, grabbing a rattle that starts singing an obnoxious tune when she presses a button. “Your dad… what he did, I went into shock, Jackson. I almost didn’t make it.”
I feel my face prickle with malice.
It’s a good thing that I can’t move right now, because if she would have told me that and I would be able to move, I don’t know even want to think about the damage that could be done to this home she just worked so hard to reconstruct.
“And Wesley?” The thought of him being stabbed too makes the words come out strangled.
Cara runs a finger over his forehead. “He was fine. He was protected and wasn’t injured. The only bad thing was the stress and loss of blood on my body started to stress him out, too. They had to get him out right away, and the only way was to…” Cut her open.
I feel trapped in my own skin and the need to tear through shit like the Hulk and bust out of here is almost unbearable. I tilt my head back and look at the ceiling. “What time is it? I kind of need some fresh air.”
Cara glances down at her phone still laying on the couch. “It’s going on nine at night. See? His schedule is all messed up. He’ll be up until at least eleven now.” Cara frowns down at him, bouncing from side to side and I almost want to ask what the hell she’s doing, but the baby seems to like it, so I keep my mouth shut.