Bullet(87)

When we arrived at the hospital, Brad had driven into the ER entrance. It was all a blur to me, but later on I remembered hospital staff lifting him out of the van and taking him inside on a gurney. They rushed him back in a room and wouldn’t let any of us back there.

A nurse asked us questions. Brad answered as many of them as he could. I felt like an emotionless statue. More than that, I felt numb, unbelieving, and the time seemed to pass slowly, but it actually flew by.

At one point, they told us Ethan was in stable condition…whatever that meant.

We went to the cafeteria for coffee. The guys were talking, but I wasn’t listening. I was praying.

We waited and waited and waited.

At some point, they moved Ethan to his own room. They only allowed Brad and me. Why? Because Brad had told them I was Ethan’s fiancée and said he was his brother. And that’s when they told us Ethan was in a coma.

I asked Brad if anyone had told June. “She’d flip out, Val…and there’s really nothing she can do.”

“But what if he stays in the coma forever, Brad, and we don’t tell her? Then what?”

“And how the hell do you think she could even get here?”

“The same way we did.”

He sighed. “I’ll make you a deal. If he’s still like this in a week, I’ll call her.”

That was good enough.

I lost track of time. Nick and Zane had long ago checked us out of the big motel suite and had found a sleazy motel that was nothing more than two beds and a shower. More than once, they got Brad and took him back to sleep and shower. They brought snacks and once in a while brought some fast food. They all tried to get me to leave, to at least walk outside for a while, but I refused. They somehow even managed to get a nurse to encourage me to leave for a few minutes, but I heard her telling Brad outside in the hallway, “All I can do is ask her. She’s in love, so of course she won’t leave.” No, I wasn’t in love. That’s not why I was here. I was worried about Ethan, and I felt guilty. It was guilt that had prompted me to stay and kept me there beside his bed.

But as the days wore on, I suspected maybe it was more than guilt.

Whenever I was alone with him, I talked to him. Could he hear me? I didn’t know, but I talked just the same. I believed he was in there somewhere, and I thought he might respond, thought maybe hearing me, knowing someone hadn’t given up would help him come back.

I was the only one there that afternoon. A nurse had been in to check his vitals or whatever it was she had to do. But then I was alone with him. I hadn’t slept much the night before in that hard vinyl-covered chair. It was already routine for me—I’d slide that chair across the cold tile and take his hand in both of mine, his hand that didn’t have the IV in the wrist and all manner of other crap, and I’d talk to him. I did the same thing on that day.

“Ethan? I know you’re in there. I know you can hear me.” I took a breath and grabbed the plastic cup of water off the nightstand, the one I’d been drinking out of for days. “When are you coming back? Did you know we’re worried about you?” I felt the tears falling again. “I’m not mad at you. None of us are. We just want you back. We want you here with us.”

I started sobbing again, something I’d been doing more and more frequently as the days wore on, and I became more tired. I just laid my forehead on his hand and let the tears fall. I felt a sting in my nose that just mirrored the sharp pain in my heart.

I felt my breath catch, though, because I felt his hand move. I held my breath then, questioning it. But then he moved his fingers again, and I sat up. I wondered if I should get a nurse. When I looked at him, he was fluttering his eyes. “Ethan?”

He tried to talk, but it came out as a breathy scratch. I realized his throat had to be dry, and I grabbed my cup of water. I held it to his mouth as my tears started to fall again. He was back. This was real, right? And then Brad, Nick, and Zane came in, and one of them called the nurse while a blanket of relief settled upon all of us.

* * *

We were home a few days later. I’d lost my job. I hadn’t even thought to call in. Brad had had the presence of mind to call his boss and also to cancel the upcoming gigs we had, including the ones for the following week while Ethan recovered. But we all felt like we had to make up for lost time.

I knew I would have to start looking for a new job, but I had some recovery to do too. The first few days back, I just slept and showered and tried to feel human again. I’d also lost some weight because I hadn’t been eating well.

Brad and I hadn’t talked about what had happened between us. At the time, I wasn’t sure why on his part, but for me, I was focused on Ethan.

Brad had gone to work the first Monday morning we were back, and Nick and Zane were sleeping. Ethan and I sat at the kitchen table sipping coffee. He broke the silence. “You were there the whole time, weren’t you?”

“What?”

“You never left the hospital room. You stayed with me the whole time.”

I was strangely calm. “Who told you?”

His smile was subtle. “No one. I just knew.” He reached over to me and took my hand in his, much like I had his the week before when I was begging his comatose self to come back to me. He squeezed it. “I love you, Valerie Quinn. You are…” My breath was gone, and it was all I could do to just hang on. “You are the music in my heart, the breath in my soul. You are my reason to be here, my reason to stay. My reason to live.” I blinked. I could barely believe what I was hearing. He stroked my cheek with one of his hands. He acted like he wanted to say more, but he didn’t.

My voice was soft. “I love you too, Ethan.” But I didn’t trust him enough to try again. He’d hurt me so many times now, and I loved my own self enough to want to protect myself from the pain he’d learned to so easily inflict upon me. But I didn’t know he was getting ready to pump a bullet into my heart, one from which I wouldn’t be able to defend myself nor recover.

“Marry me.”

My breath was gone. Where the f*ck had that come from? “What?”

“Marry me. Val, I’m done with the shit. I’m done with the drugs.” I could maybe believe that. He’d been in a rehab program since we’d returned. He’d tossed out all his shit—not just liquor and any stray drugs hiding in his room but even paraphernalia. So maybe I could believe he was telling the truth. But what about…? “And I’m done f*cking around on you. None of any of the other women I’ve ever been with would have done what you did. Jesus, Val, when everyone else gave up, you were there.”

Oh, no. I wasn’t going to have him believing that. “No, Ethan, the guys never gave up on you. They just made sure they got a shower once in a while.”

“It doesn’t matter. You were there, babe. You were there, holding my hand, talking to me, pulling me through. You believed.” His eyes searched mine. “So marry me.”

I was finding it hard to breathe. “That’s no reason to get married.”

“You love me, right?”

I couldn’t find any words to answer him. First of all, whether I believed him or not, whether I loved him or not, I didn’t know that I wanted to marry Ethan or even if it was a good idea. Did I want to spend the rest of my life with this man? He must have been able to read my hesitation, because he took my face in his hands.

“We don’t have to get married right away, Val. There’s no law says we have to do it right now. Just…” This was a turning point. If I told him no right now when he was in this fragile state, it could very well send him running back to his self-medicating ways. I could see it in his eyes. Somehow I’d transformed from his so-called muse to being his entire f*cking lifeline. It was a huge responsibility, one I didn’t want but one that Ethan had thrust upon me without any regard for what I wanted.

Truth was I did love the man. I knew that and he did too. I had for a long time. And even if I said yes, it didn’t mean I’d have to actually marry him down the line. No…once he was strong and himself again, then, if I didn’t feel comfortable with the prospect, if I knew we weren’t ever going to make it, I could break it off. For now, though, I was obligated…or I might as well have just stuck the needle in Ethan’s arm myself.

When I gave him an affirmation (I don’t remember if I said yes or okay or something entirely different), he took me in his arms and kissed me. Yes. I knew right then that I still loved him…more than I ever should have allowed myself to.

* * *

It was several weeks later, long after the secret was out, that Brad approached me on a Saturday morning. “Let’s go to Starbucks.”

Part of me was thinking that—now that I was a woman engaged—it would be inappropriate, but there were two things that made me want to do it. The first was that Brad and I were friends, first and foremost, and there was nothing Ethan could do to stop it. Brad was his friend too, and I didn’t think Brad would intentionally hurt his friend, not when I clearly had chosen Ethan. The second was that we had a lot to talk about, and we’d never had the opportunity. If I told him no, not only would I be a Grade A Bitch, but I’d also destroy the trust and openness he and I had always shared.