Illusions Complete Series (73 page)

We sat next to one another, silently, with Cecelia the lady cop still hanging around and talking into her receiver. I wondered why she was still there. Probably she wants to talk to Ryan when he gets out of surgery, but I wouldn’t imagine that he would be in any shape to talk to anyone at that point.

Finally, Nick looked at me. “How are you holding up?”

I shrugged my shoulders and said nothing. I didn’t want to talk. Dalilah was safe, and Ryan was still in surgery. There wasn’t much more I could say at that point.

Then I was crying uncontrollably again. “Oh, Nick, what would happen if we lose him? I think that I would want to join him. I don’t see myself living without him.”

“Quit talking like that. We aren’t going to lose him, so you don’t have to worry about that. Now, stop. Just stop.” But I saw his face, and it was clear that he, too, was afraid of what would happen to both of us if Ryan, god forbid, didn’t make it out of surgery. He and Ryan had been friends since elementary school. His loss would be even more acutely felt than would mine.

To take my mind off of my horror, I decided to find out a little bit more about Ryan and Nick’s friendship. “How did you and Ryan meet?” I asked him.

“It was kinda funny,” he said. “It was in kindergarten. We didn’t have home room together, or nothing, so we didn’t see each other that much. But Ryan was on a tricycle, hogging it if I can recall, and I knocked him off it. He hit his head. I laughed at him, and he came after me. We got into a fight on the playground, and both of us ended up in the principal’s office. We became friends waiting there for the principal to come out and scold us.” He chuckled. “Both of us got in trouble at home, of course, him more than me. Goddamn, his dad sure was a bastard back then.”

“What happened to Ryan?”

“He got beat, of course. But that was nothing new. He was always being beat by Benjamin. Maggie was just too much of an ethereal hippy to stand up to Benjamin and his tyrannical ways.” He shook his head. “Poor Ryan. It seems that fate just never lets him catch a break. He meets you, the love of his life, but he can’t be happy because something is always waiting in the wings to snatch it away.”

“What about you? What’s going on in your life?”

“Eh, same old same old. I’m just about ready to give Rielle every piece of property I own, in exchange for her leaving me the hell alone. It’s not worth it. Love isn’t worth it. No offense.”

“Sometimes it is. Love. Sometimes it’s worth it.”

“Well, you guys got lucky in finding each other.”

“Yeah. I just hope that…” I trailed off, not wanting to finish that sentence. To think that Ryan wouldn’t make it through surgery was just too horrible.

“Listen, Ryan is a tough guy. He’s in amazing shape. He’s gonna pull through.”

I just nodded my head mutely, then stared at my hands. I felt awful. This was yet more agony. Everything that had happened up until this point felt like the end of the world – Rochelle’s attack, Andrew’s rape, Natalie’s pregnancy. It all chipped away at my soul, little by little. I bounced back after all of it, but there was a part of me that felt like I was permanently damaged.

Now this. This was far worse than anything else that had happened. Would I recover if he doesn’t make it? Would I want to? Would I be able to get out of bed in the morning without seeing his beautiful face? What would happen to Dalilah if I just fall apart? What would happen to Dalilah if I didn’t make it either?

She would be an orphan.

“Uh, Nick, I hate to bring this up. But, with Ryan in there, it is a reminder that life might be fleeting. If he doesn’t make it, god forbid, and something happens to me – would you take Dalilah?”

Nick just stared at me. “Don’t bring this up now. Nothing is going to happen to either one of you. Now stop it. Stop with the fatalistic bullshit.”

I sighed. Who would take Dalilah? My parents were way too old, my sister way too unstable. Nick was so good with her - he would be the obvious choice. But he was right, I shouldn’t be talking like this. It would just jinx everything.

We sat in silence some more, and were sitting there quietly like that when the doctor came out into the waiting room. His face was non-committal. My heart was in my throat, trying to read his expression.

“We’re through with surgery,” he said. “Your husband has been taken to the ICU.”

I started hyperventilating and shaking all over. I took Nick’s hand and gripped it tightly.

“However, there is still a great deal of swelling around the spinal cord. Hopefully when the swelling goes down, your husband will regain use of his lower extremities. But, for now, Mr. Gallagher is paralyzed from the waist down.”

“But he’s alive? He, he, he’s going to make it?” I gripped Nick’s hand even tighter.

“Barring any kind of further issue, such as infection or an embolism, there is a good chance that your husband will be able to go home in a matter of weeks.”

At that, Nick and I hugged each other tightly. We both were shaking, and I was crying uncontrollably again.

“When, when, when can I see him?” I asked.

“He’s in the ICU. You can see him now, but he’s not conscious.”

“Can Nick come too?”

“I’m terribly sorry. Only members of the immediate family can see him right now.”

I felt awful about that. If ever there was somebody who should be considered family to Ryan, it was Nick.

I looked at Nick, who looked pissed. But he nodded at me as I got up out of my chair to follow the doctor into the ICU.

Ryan was lying in the hospital bed, hooked up to a variety of scary-looking machines. His vitals seemed to be doing well, though, as I noticed that his heart rate was a steady 54 bpm, and his blood pressure was 105/64. He wasn’t on a ventilator. He appeared to be resting comfortably.

I went over to the bed, and took his hand. I smiled. “My turn now, huh? You were by my side 24/7 when I was recovering from Rochelle’s attack, now it’s my turn to be there for you. I hope that you can hear me. I love you more than I ever thought possible. I love you, Ryan Gallagher. You’re a part of me. And I’m going to help you get through this, just like you helped me get through Rochelle’s attack. We’re a team now.”

I smoothed back his dark hair, and touched his face. His skin felt cool and clammy, which somewhat startled me. He also looked deathly pale. I so wanted him to open those beautiful eyes and let me drown in their depths, as was usual. But he just laid there, breathing in and out laboriously. A nurse stood by with a chart, ready to come and take his vitals.

I sat there for as long as I could, just talking away to him. I couldn’t stop touching him. I thought that I would never again be able to touch him, never again be able to stroke him. Never again be able to run my fingers through his amazing mane. I was eternally grateful that I was given a second chance with him.

Finally, visiting hours were over. A nurse gently came up to me, putting her hands on my shoulders. “Mrs. Gallagher, visiting hours are over,” she said. “Let me help you back to the waiting room.”

I touched my fingers to my lips one last time, and placed them on his cheek. “I love you,” I told him. “I love you.”

I got back, and Nick was still there, reading something on his iPhone. He looked up at me. “How is he?”

“Resting comfortably,” I said. “Thank god. What time is it? I’m starving.”

“It’s just about 10 o’clock. Ryan was in surgery for some 14 hours.”

“Let’s get breakfast, huh?”

Chapter Three

Nick and I left the hospital and headed out to a local Denny’s. I dug into my scrambled eggs and bacon hungrily. I had no idea why I was so famished. I guess because I hadn’t eaten since…I couldn’t remember. I skipped lunch because of the stress of the deposition, then, of course, didn’t have dinner because, well, Andrew was there waiting for me when I got home from the courthouse.

Nick, for his part, got a Grand Slam with everything – bacon, eggs, hashed browns, pancakes and juice. Looking at his lean frame, I wondered where he put everything.

I didn’t feel like talking still. I was completely wrapped up in my own head.

“How are you holding up?” Nick asked.

“I don’t really know. I need to process everything, and it’s just impossible right now. Just impossible. It doesn’t even seem real. But Ryan made it through surgery, that’s what’s most important.” I didn’t want to think about Derrick Thomas, the defensive star for the Kansas City Chiefs, who made it through his surgery, was paralyzed, and died not a month later from an embolism, which was somewhat common in paralyzed patients. I also didn’t want to entertain the possibility that Ryan might acquire a drug resistant infection and not make it out of the hospital. Right now, I had to concentrate on the fact that he was alive. He wasn’t out of the woods, but he wasn’t dead, either.

“Do you want to tell me what happened?”

At first I shook my head, staring at my shaking hands that were gripping my glass of water. I wanted to throw up.

But Nick just stared at me, not talking. He didn’t try to fill the silence, so I hesitantly began my story.

“Andrew, he was uh, he was in my house. He was in my house, holding, holding, uh, Dalilah. He had, uh, a, a, g-g-g-un.” Now I was trembling wildly. “He had a gun, and he thought that I was his ex-wife, Cherry. Cherry. She-she-she’s dead, Cherry, she’s dead. Dead. He thought I was her, and he-he-he-he threatened me. As her. He threatened me, thinking I was her. And Ryan came in and s-s-sacrificed himself for me. He made it so that Andrew wanted to kill him, not me.”

“I’m not sure I’m following you.”

“Ryan came in, and he basically told A-A-A-ndrew th-th-at Andrew wanted him, not me. Cherry was cheating on A-A-An, the bad man, and the bad man wanted to kill me, because he thought I was Cherry. Ryan came in and told the bad man that he-he-he was the one who was cheating with Cherry, so the bad man wanted him, not me.”

Somehow, someway, Nick managed to follow the story, even with my stuttering and stumbling around. “So, cray-cray Andrew came in, thought you were his ex-wife, threatened you because he thought that you were cheating on him with somebody, and Ryan came in and posed as that somebody so that Andrew would kill him and not you?”

I nodded. “You managed to understand perfectly.” Nick was apparently no dummy.

Nick just shook his head. “He said that he would give his life for you. I guess that he meant it.”

I just nodded my head, then reacted to his statement several minutes later. “Uh, he said he would give his life for me?”

“Several times. It’s probably 10% his guilt over putting you in those situations and 90% that boy’s overwhelming love for you.” He shook his head. “I’ve never met a woman that I felt that strongly for. Ever. I couldn’t imagine taking a bullet for Rielle or Alexis. For my kids, sure, definitely. Would take 100 bullets for them. But the women in my life? Not a chance.”

I felt badly for him, never experiencing that kind of unconditional love. Then I looked at my glass again. “I’d give my life for him as well. I love him so much, Nick. I’m still so scared about what might happen with him. He’s not out of the woods yet. And he might be paralyzed. How will he deal with that?”

Nick just shook his head. “Listen, Iris, I don’t think that you know Ryan as well as you might think. How much he has been through. You know the surface stuff about what happened, but you don’t know the deeper stuff about him. How he thinks. What he has seen and done. Trust, he has been through far worse than not being able to have the use of his legs for a few months. Hell, he’s been through far worse than not being able to have the use of his legs permanently. He’s a tough guy. He’ll get through this, like he has gotten through everything before.”

I wondered what he meant by his words. That I didn’t know the whole story of his life before me. I guess that I only knew the “highlights” – or low-lights, really. Nick had known Ryan virtually Ryan’s entire life, so he knew Ryan better than anyone.

“I guess I don’t understand,” I said. “What do you mean that I don’t know everything about Ryan’s past?”

“You do,” he said. “In a sense. It’s like this – you like a certain band because of what you hear on the radio. Like Muse – you like them, right? Or the Silver Sun Pickups?”

“Yes, yes, of course,” I said. Those were two of my favorite bands.

“What if all you knew about the Silver Sun Pickups was
Lazy Eye
? Or all you knew about Muse was
Uprising
or
Resistance
? Or, for that matter, all you knew about any band was their hits? You may think that you love Bruno Mars, but if you don’t listen to him cover to cover, then you don’t really know him.”

“So, basically, I’ve gotten to know Ryan through his greatest hits, so to speak?”

“Yeah, something like that. All those other songs, the B sides and the unreleased, they all go into an artist’s repertoire, but most people only know the bands by what they hear on the radio. Sometimes the deeper cuts are the most important ones of all.”

“Well, we’re here, talking. Maybe you can clue me in on some of the deeper cuts, so to speak.”

Nick shook his head. “I’m not sure how much Ryan wants you to know. He’s a complex guy. He has a dark side that he has managed to control for many years, and it doesn’t entirely have to do with his drug use.”

I nodded, encouraging him to go on.

“You might think that, because he’s rich, he would just have access to whatever he wants, whenever he wants. Which is generally true, but there were times when he went off the grid, just like you did. I mean, not for weeks at a time, but he would hang out with some rough characters for days. Drug dealers, underworld guys, wrong-track junkies. He stayed in school through a combination of Alexis’ charms and his father’s money - otherwise he would’ve been thrown out for missing too many classes. Still, he always managed to get straight As. A lot of guys hated him for that reason alone.”

“Alexis’ charms?”

“Yeah. She’s pretty talented in certain ways. She managed to wrap most of the Deans around her little finger. Professors, too. Ryan’s absences were largely overlooked. Didn’t hurt that Benjamin was one of the college’s greatest benefactors.”