The Bodyguard (93)

Pretty easy, right there at the end.

“I was never going to kill you, you know,” Wilbur said to me then, his cheek against the roof. “Or Jack, either. The only person I wanted to murder here was me.”

“That’s gotta change, Wilbur,” I said, my knee on his back. “You need to learn how to be kind to yourself. And then you need to share that kindness with the world.”

“With birdhouses,” Wilbur said, clearly liking my idea.

“That’s one way,” I said.

We could hear the sirens now. And voices down below. And boots on the gravel drive.

Shouldn’t be long. They’d follow my bloody footprints up to us pretty fast.

While we waited, Wilbur said, “I just have one question for Jack.”

Jack, stretched across his legs to keep them pinned, said, “What is it?”

That’s when Wilbur lifted his head, angled back to give Jack his best smile, and said, “Any chance of a selfie?”





Thirty-Two


THE DOC AT the ER called the scrape on my head a “million-dollar wound.”

Bad enough, in theory, to earn me some time off work, but not bad enough to need stitches.

Or, you know, to have killed me.

“One millimeter closer,” the doc said, after letting out a long whistle, “and it would be a whole different story.”

Once they cleaned me up and got a good look, it was like a two-inch-long, pencil-lead-wide trench above my ear—with the sides built up a tiny bit, like a berm.

Jack took a bunch of photos with my phone so I could see.

They didn’t have to shave too much of my hair, which was nice. Just pulled the bulk off into a surprisingly perky side ponytail. Then they irrigated and disinfected it, packed it with an antibacterial ointment, and covered it with a dressing—encircling my head with gauze like the sweatband of a 1970s tennis player.

“This is actually a good look for you,” Jack said.

I just kept thinking it could’ve been so much worse.

They didn’t even keep me overnight. Once the MRI came back fine, they discharged me with some antibiotics, industrial-strength Tylenol, and strict instructions to “treat it like a concussion.” No driving, no sports, no roller coasters.

Check.

Jack and I had arrived at the ER in an ambulance, and so Glenn sent a car later to pick us up. And in a classic, Glenn Schultz–style sadistic flourish, he made Robby drive it.

Do we need to review all the times Robby said there was no way I could ever pass for Jack Stapleton’s girlfriend? Do we need to reflect on Robby’s astonishing callousness from the breakup and beyond? Do we need to have a moment of realization here that Robby’s strategy for keeping me in a bad relationship was to convince me that I didn’t deserve a better one?

All true.

But maybe we can just savor this particular, exquisite moment from that night, right as Jack and I reached the car, when Robby, trying to manifest some big secret-service energy, opened the back door of the Tahoe and started to help me in.

Robby might have passed for a cool guy in that moment.

If he weren’t standing two feet from Jack Stapleton.

And if I hadn’t just come to a whole new understanding of what, exactly, a cool guy was.

Anyway, Jack stopped him as he reached for me.

“I got it, man,” Jack said.

“It’s my job,” Robby said, trying to continue.

But Jack stopped him again, stepping between us to block Robby’s access, moving in with such purpose that Robby just lost his momentum.

Next, Jack put his arms around me, all tenderness, and lifted me up. He set me in the back seat, clicked the buckle like I was something precious, gave me a brief but suggestive kiss on the mouth, and then turned to Robby. “That may be your job,” Jack said, gesturing at the Tahoe, “but this”—he placed his hand on my thigh like it belonged to him—“is my girlfriend.”

So.

Not the worst night of my life.

In the end.



* * *



JACK WOUND UP sleeping over.

At my place. In my bed.

No wall of pillows necessary.

Nothing physical happened, of course. Roller coasters aren’t the only no-nos with concussions. Plus, I had surgical gauze wrapped around my head like Bj?rn Borg. Which pretty much put the kibosh on anything, ya know, nonspiritual.

But emotional things happened.

Like, we held hands. And we thanked each other for everything we could think of. And we felt grateful to be alive.

There may or may not have been snuggling involved.

And I guess there really is something profoundly healing about letting somebody love you.

Because the next morning, when I woke and found Jack sitting on the side of the bed with his head in his hands, I could tell something was different.

Before I could ask, Jack turned and took in the sight of me—head bandaged, hair making its own rules. He stood up, came around to my side, and said, “How’s your gunshot wound?”

I waved him off. “Totally fine.”

“There’s blood on the bandage.”

“It’s like a paper cut.”

But he fussed over me anyway. He made me change the bandage on my head—and also around my toes. Which hurt much worse. He also made me brush my teeth, and put on a soft chenille robe, and drink some warm tea, and take my antibiotics.