Heartless (34 page)

I drove as fast as my survival conscience would let me. It was a long way, and I kept chanting, “Live, Josh. Live. I love you. Don’t die, please.”

I wasn’t next of kin so Geena had to come out and authorize my visit to the ICU.

“She’s like family,” Geena explained to the nurse, and my heart just about burst. I had cried all the way to the hospital so my face was all raw and splotchy. Coming up the elevator I got a few looks that made me wonder if shouldn’t be admitting myself to the ER.

Geena led me to Josh's room. “He doesn’t look too good.”

“Today, the standard for good-looking is
alive
,” I said. I walked to Josh’s bedside. He had a tube down his throat and an IV in one arm. His other arm was in a cast and so was his ankle. He had bandages around his ribs and his face was bruised with traces of blood that had defied the nurses’ sponges. He looked awful but he was in one piece. I stood beside him and touched the fingers of his IV arm. He didn’t respond.

“The Doctor said he might wake up tomorrow,” said Geena. “They put him on heavy sedatives to reset the arm bone.”

Geena dropped down into the chair she had likely been occupying all evening.

What had gone wrong? Josh was a good motorcyclist. No other cars had been involved in the accident. Geena said a passing car nearly hit him lying on the side of the road. The driver had called for the ambulance. How had Josh lost control?

“It was today, wasn’t it? He didn’t like what he heard. He couldn’t accept it.”

Geena shook her head; it was a shake of agreement.

“All his life I’ve been trying to reassure him that he’s his own man, that who his father is—was—has nothing to do with the man Josh is or will be, but he’s always been afraid of that, of turning out like his father.”

“He’d never be like that! I know what his father was like, and Josh is nothing like him. I mean, there’s some good stuff that’s the same. They’re both handsome and charming. Both smart…”

I couldn’t believe I was actually coming up with good qualities for Pastor Guthrie.

“But Josh would never use his smarts to manipulate people,” I said. “He's not delusional. He would never take what people believe and use it to serve his own selfish purposes.”

“I know. He’s determined to go into law so he can stop bad stuff from happening, or at least try to make what was wrong a little bit right through justice. But I think he’s trying to make up for the bad stuff his father did. I keep telling him he has no obligation to fix another person’s mistakes, no matter how terrible.”

“He can’t fix everything. Not even me.” I added the last bit quietly, but Geena still heard me.

“In your session, I think he snapped a bit. His eyes kind of glazed over and he shut down. He did that kind of thing for about half a year after I got custody back when he was four. And again after the news came out about the NCAC suicide. I knew he’d gone to a dark place when he heard the stuff you were remembering.”

I felt my eyes tearing up. “You know, I didn’t remember any of that until today. I’d repressed it completely. I mean, I remembered some molestation, but not actual sex.”

“Rape, Heather. That was rape.”

Shame filled me again but I forced myself to look into Geena’s loving eyes.

“But I didn’t fight enough. I thought he loved me. I thought
God
wanted him to do that. How fucked up is that?”

“Not at all fucked up when you’re innocent. He was the one who was wrong, Heather. Not you.”

“But now Josh hates me for that!” Full on tears started falling.

“Heather, no! He doesn’t hate you at all. He
loves
you. More than anything in the world. He can’t bear that you suffered like that. That’s what he’s struggling with. That someone he’s a part of, someone that he’s made from, physically, could have done that to you. He doesn’t forgive
himself,
Heather. He hates himself. And I think he’s afraid you’ll end up hating him, too.”

Now I wasn’t just crying for myself but for Josh, too.

“I could never hate him. I love him. I can’t imagine living without him. When you called tonight I thought you were going to say he died, and that would have killed me.”

Geena got up and walked around the bed to where I was standing. She wrapped her arms around me from behind so we could both look down at Josh.

“I told you before I don’t believe in Fate” she said. “I don’t know what I believe in really. But I think what I believe in most in the human ability to heal.”

“Why?”

“Because
I
did. I mean, I guess I’m still doing it. Healing never really ends.” She paused before continuing. “For a long time I loved Josh’s father. Then I realized what he wanted from life, the kind of power he craved, and I hated myself for loving someone like that. I barely had the strength to leave and start a new life, but I did it.”

“What gave you the strength in the end?”

“Love. My love for Josh. My faith in a better life for the two of us. My hope that I might love someone good and kind one day, and that he’d love me back. I think you guys found each other for a reason. Who cares if you call it Fate, or the power of the stars, or God on high? The point is that you’ve been given an opportunity to
love
, and it’s your choice to seize it. Or not.”

I heard footsteps behind us. “Sweetie?” A man’s voice.

Geena and I both turned to see Garth standing in the doorway. He held up a bag and tray of takeout cups. Three of them. “Who’s up for tea and cookies?”

We sat together, waiting, wondering, dipping our cookies in our tea. None of our different personal beliefs mattered as we sat here hoping that Josh would live, but I think all of us prayed, each on our own way. Eventually I told Geena and Garth to go home and get some sleep and I’d stay with Josh at the hospital. Garth had brought a blanket and a pillow so I would probably be pretty cozy overnight.

And I wanted to be alone with Josh. There were things I needed to say, even if he couldn’t hear me, even if he never woke up again. I sat on the edge of his bed and held his hand. I prayed for the first time in years, to God, to other gods, to the stars, and Fate, even Buddha.

I told him Josh didn’t matter what words we used to speak from our private hearts to the heart of the world, whoever or whatever that might be. We all had to speak. All the hearts of the world had something to say, it just made sense that something, someone, some constellation of energy or power was listening, didn’t it? And even if it didn’t make sense, letting my heart speak was the only thing I could do right now. I was listening. And maybe Josh was, too.

“Don’t leave me, Josh. I can’t lose you now that I’ve found you. I can’t bear to lose one more person that I love. Please. I felt as if I didn’t have a heart until I met you. If you leave me now, my heart will shatter completely and I will sweep up the shards and toss them into the sea because having a heart won’t mean anything to me if I can’t share it with you. Maybe having one less heart, or two, in the world isn’t such a big deal. ‘Cause if yours goes, mine goes, too. I might walk around with blood in my veins and breath in my lungs, but if I lose you I will never love again. I know it.” I cried then.

I cried my heart out.

When Josh finally woke up, it was dawn and I was sitting in the chair that I’d slept in and reading my daily horoscope.

A bright future isn’t what gets you up in the morning, Moonchild. Nor is it a feeling of being in love. Your courage wakes you up each and every day. This strength of the heart is the center of your life force and the greatest power you have to offer yourself and others. You need courage to face the future and courage to love another, but more importantly, you need courage to sit through the darkness until the light returns.

My light returned when Josh opened his eyes.

He was still intubated, and looked a little frightened when he realized he couldn’t talk, but I explained things to him and then buzzed the nurse for help.

As the rising sun fingered its rays through the blinds, an old tune floated through my mind, and the lyrics that went with it.
It’s a new day, it’s a new dawn. For me.

After the nurse removed the tube, he gave me a cup of ice chips to feed Josh.

“His throat will be sore for a while,” the nurse said. “Don’t let him talk too much.”

I nodded. The nurse took his supplies and left.

I looked into Josh’s still-swollen blue eyes.

“I love you,” I said softly. These were the first words I wanted him to hear from me.

“You were right, Josh. You were right from the start. Our love
can
be strong enough to face anything, if
we
can be strong enough to face the truth. I couldn’t be strong enough on my own, but I can be with you. You showed me that. I am stronger than I thought, only I didn’t know it until I met you. I didn’t discover that strength until I… until I
loved
you. Until you loved me. And then I got scared. I’m so sorry. I got scared all over again, and ashamed…”

He blinked his eyes and held them closed for a few seconds. His hands, still weak, tried to clench into fists. I held his hands, pulled apart the curled fingers, and softened them until they relaxed into mine.

“I know you feel that, too. And I’m sorry I got confused, forgot who you were for a while, because I forgot who I was, too. But I
know
now. I know who I am.” I took a deep breath and let the tears I was holding back slide from my eyes even though I was smiling when I spoke again. “I know who I am because I’m
yours
, Josh. Yours, if you’ll have me.”

He blinked again, and seemed to swallow painfully.

“Don’t talk. Here, let me give you an ice chip,” I said, reaching for the plastic cup.

He parted his dry lips and I slipped an ice chip between them. I touched his bottom lip carefully. It was cut on one side. It might leave a scar. A visible one. I caressed it gently, thinking about how we both carried invisible scars. But then I thought about how scar tissue is a sign of healing. It’s how the body repairs itself from injury. Healing leaves a mark because damage is real, but it isn’t the end; it means we get a second chance.

“We’re going to start over, Josh. But here’s the deal. We stop running away from the past, and we both focus on our hopes for the future.”

With some effort, he smiled and nodded.

I reached out for his hand. “And right here, right now, in this crazy present moment, we just let love guide what we do and say. Not fear, not shame, not regret. We don’t need the stars or Fate or God to tell us the truth that’s in our hearts.
We
know it. We have listen to it. Can we start like that?”

He squeezed my hand. And then he mouthed the words his voice couldn’t yet speak.
I love you.

Josh

I swear I’m in heaven because an angel is sitting beside me. And I’ve got to be the luckiest soul to die lately because my angel looks exactly like Heather. Then the pain hits—in my throat, my leg, my arm, my ribs, my face—and it hurts like hell.

My eyes blink, and I want to move, to get this thing out of my throat. Some guy in a pale green jumpsuit tells me to relax, and then he’s removing what’s stuck in my throat and it hurts like fuck and keeps hurting after it’s gone. I want to say something, but I can’t. I want to yell at this green guy and complain that I want better angels in my heaven, but then Heather’s there, my Heather-angel, and she’s holding my hand and I realize I’m alive still, and I’m hurting all over, except for my eyes, because they’re full of the real, living Heather that I love. My earth-angel. My life.

And she’s talking, and it’s all coming back to me, and my heart aches even worse than my body from what I remember. I can’t bear the pain, but I have to, because I’m alive, and because, more than anything, I still want to love. Love her. If she’ll have me.

And she’s still talking, and
she’s
apologizing, and she’s telling me all these things about being ashamed and being strong and loving me. Loving
me
! Now I can hardly bear the relief, the joy. I close my eyes and soak it in. I’ll absorb any pain in this world if what she says is true.

My throat hurts so fucking much. It’s all tight because I think I might cry, but I can’t. Nothing comes out—no tears, no words—but every inch of me is crying and yelling,
Yes! Yes, I’ll have you.
And I swear I’ve returned to heaven again and angels have answered my prayers because I’m alive and Heather loves me and together we can face anything.