Never Been Loved (9 page)

This wouldn’t’ve happened if I was at a hundred percent. I move closer to the sink, put my finger under the running water, and squelch it with paper towel until the bleeding stops.

I should’ve eaten on the drive home. I had food left over from lunch, even a couple of juice boxes to tide me over. But I like to play chicken with my body, see how far it can go without the sugar it needs.

My cell’s still buzzing, obnoxious and fucking annoying, I just want to throw it across the room. I snatch it up, and snarl, “What?”

“Baby, open the door for me.” Takes me a second. A fucking second and a half to realize it’s Aly, and not Sera on the other end of the line.

“Where are you? The lobby?”

“Nope. Right outside your door.” I disconnect and toss my phone on the couch, watching as the colours seem to seep out the room, and everything goes greyscale. I blink slowly and watch myself like I’m watching a stranger open the door to my apartment and let her in.

I need sugar. This isn’t going to end well.

I blink slowly as she comes into my place, watch the twist in her features as she catches a glimpse of Matty watching our retrieved copy of Peter Pan on the couch. Why was she ever in my life, even for just a second?

“You didn’t call me. What are you doing here? You can’t just show up for the fuck of it.” I’m surprised words come out of my mouth.

My stomach’s starting to churn, and I know that if I don’t get something down quick enough, I’m going to feel too nauseous to eat, and I’m heading into dangerous territory. What’s worse than having a diabetic with a sugar low? A diabetic that can’t eat that sugar?

Matty’s so into the movie, he forgets to con me out of a quarter for swearing in front of him.

“I’ve been texting you all this time, and you’ve never answered,” she whines, her voice scraping against my skin, and ricocheting around my skull. I close my eyes, feel like my feet are moving in a ghost-imitation like stepping off a treadmill, when I’m pretty sure I haven’t gone anywhere.

“Maybe there’s a reason for that, yeah?” I open my eyes, feel the cold of my sweat drying on my body. I don’t have the energy for this, the energy to fight her off.

I’m suffocating in here, like I can’t get enough air, and my body’s shaking too much for me to do anything worthwhile. Aly could stroll up to Matty, grab him, and I wouldn’t be able to move fast enough or stop a kidnapping.

This is what my life is – a whole lot of not-being-able-to’s. And it fucking blows.

She narrows her eyes, like I’m an insect that crawled over her big toe. A sneer does ugly things to her mouth, the mouth I’ve let her use on me.

“Baby, your mom called me, told me to come over.” An evil grin spreads along the seam of her lips, and I really need to get my head checked if I never noticed this before.

“Great. You’re taking orders from my mom now. Nice.” I clear my throat, wonder if I can just shuffle towards the door and she’d take the hint. Yeah, right. “I don’t want you here, Aly. I need you to leave. Now.”

The words come out with a negative percentage of authority. My voice is low and weak, and she knows that that means. We all do. I’m a fucking pushover at this point. Weak and useless.

Without so much as a hello to Matty, Aly just walks in with her stupid, loud goddamn heels,
clack clack clacking
all over the damn place, sending spears of agony through my ears and brain. She drops her bag on the kitchen counter with a loud
thunk
, and starts opening cupboards and the fridge, looking for something to eat.

I can’t deal with this right now, I don’t want to.

Mumbling to Aly that I don’t feel good, I head for the door. I have some candy in my pockets, and I can just sit out in the hall until I feel better. This is a good plan.

Once out in the hall, I sit my ass down, back to the wall, staring at the opposite patch of wall like it has all the answers I’ll ever need. The drab grey colour seems to swirl before my eyes, as cold sweat drips down the sides of my temples. I’m shaking and helpless to stop it. With trembling fingers, I fumble open a few Jolly Ranchers and stick them all in my mouth, telling my gag reflex to shut the fuck up as I suck on the much needed sugar.

I go to a different place when I have a low.

I don’t know where it is, or how long I’m going be there, but whatever happens in the here and now, I’m oblivious to. Matty’s told me I can sometimes yell at him, which is common for some diabetics – becoming aggressive when a low hits. But I never remember what I say, or what I do.

It’s like my brain goes into survival mode, hunkering down and saving the energy I need to keep me alive, to suck up all the sugar it’s going to need for survival. Maybe that’s why I feel like I’m dreaming, just a bunch of chemical soup mixing in my skull.

I’m a little kid again, and I’m chasing Jules through the park near our house. We’ve given Eddie the slip and we can hear him yelling our names to come back. We don’t listen. Now I’m eighteen again, and I’ve just stepped out of the doctor’s office after being diagnosed. I’m alone. All alone.

And then
she’s
there, and I don’t want her to see me like this. I don’t want her to see me go to pieces.

“Hunter? It’s Sera, remember?”

Her beautiful features get blurred out by my weakening vision. That’s what happens from all the sugar spikes. It fucks up your eyes, enough that I could be blind by the time I’m forty or fifty. I think of Sera holding my hand as I stumble in the perpetual darkness that’ll become my life. I reach for her hand, and hold it in both of mine.

And I can’t keep it together. I let her see what it’s doing to me, this disease, if only for a split second. I’m hoping I don’t remember any of this.

“Hunter, look at me. Do you need an ambulance?” Her voice is melodic, like a song. Soothing, calming. I like it. I want to tell her to keep talking to me, to tell me anything she wants because it feels like it’s the only thing that’s real right now.

“I’m calling an ambulance, you need help.”

“No ambulances,” I mutter, unable to push more sound into my voice. “You can take me to the hospital.” I will her to understand, to get what I mean even if I can’t say it.

I watch her green eyes flash with something like worry and pain. “Where are your keys?”

S’ all I needed to hear. The world has faded out, and I’ve gone somewhere else.

Chapter 7

I have the dizzying moment where my eyes pop open and I recognize nothing. Am I dead? Is this heaven or hell? An obnoxious beeping sound comes from my left, but I’m too tired to move. Bed. I’m on a bed. Motherfucker, I’m attached to something. Looking down at my left arm, yeah, I got an IV stuck up my veins. Shit. I’m at the hospital.

Jesus Christ. How long have I been out?

My mind blanks as I try to dig up some sort of memory of the last few... hours? Minutes? Seconds? A face swims up out of the dregs, blurry around the edges but there’s no mistaking her.

Fucking shit, Sera saw me. She
saw
me?

Matty? Where’s the kid?!

“Nurse!” I yell, trying to sit up, but my body’s stonewalling me, refusing to move when I try to make it move. Fucking shit, really?

“NURSE!” I holler again, managing to get myself somewhat seated upright, yanking hard on my arms to try and support my weight.

Oh, Christ, she’s here, Sera’s here, coming towards my bed, ignoring all the other patients. And thank Christ, she has the kid, and I’m hollering like a goddamn animal. I stare at her, wishing she didn’t have to see me like this, so weak and helpless, completely battered after such a horrible low. And there goes the I.V., snaking its way front, back, spitting at everyone around me.

“Matty!” I yell. I feel like my bones have been pulverized, and I’m breathing fast like I’ve sprinted up ten flights of stairs. Thank God he’s here, thank Christ Sera looked after him.

I wind my hand around his little body, my palm settling over his ribcage until the steady
thump, thump, thump
of his heart loosens my muscles enough that I can relax a little into the joke of a bed.

I can’t help the sound of my voice, how utterly defeated and terrified I sound when I tell Matty that he scared me. Jules’ kid just giggles and smiles like I’ve gone and made a farting joke.

I don’t understand how he can smile and joke around.

I let the nurse try to put in my I.V. again, barely glancing at her, acutely aware that Sera is standing by my hospital bedside and that is not the place I want her to be.

A girl like that doesn’t deserve a man who’s lying down on a hospital bed, while she looks after his nephew. A woman like that needs to be wined and dined, to be given diamonds and jewels. A woman like Sera needs to be rewarded for even the sliver of kindness she’s shown my nephew. I’m sure he wasn’t the best of company, but I didn’t miss the little guy holding her hand as he walked closer to my bedside.

Shit, she’s stolen his heart

“I scared you?” Matty says, that fucking smile on his face. It feels like a slap since I’m not the one that put it there. “I think you scared Sera! She’s super strong, Daddy. I’ve never seen anyone able to hold you up before!”

Oh, man. I get a vision, please don’t let it be a memory, of Sera somehow managing to carry me in her arms like you would a baby. I’d snap her spine in two if she ever tried that. Maybe the kid doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

Nope, there it is, the wisps of a memory tickling my awareness. All right, that’s not too awful, being pressed up against her back, as she fronted my weight and dragged my sorry ass to my car.

Shame burns hot in my throat. Sera should never have seen me like that. She should have never seen me like that. She saved my life, I should be saying thank you, fucking kissing the ground she walks on, but I can’t. Whether it’s because my body’s exhausted or because I’m being a dick, I’m not too sure.

I look at her, really look at her.

The gorgeous green eyes, the brown hair tied back in a loose ponytail, wisps flying about her face.

And the glasses. Never thought I’d dig a woman with glasses – I can just imagine all sorts of fun things to do that would necessitate me having to take them off her.

Jesus Christ, I’m on a hospital bed.

I bite down hard on my back molars and stare at her, until she looks so uncomfortable she starts to speak. That’s what I do, I make her uncomfortable. Just another sign that I shouldn’t go after a woman like her.
She’s not for me
.

“How long are you in here for?” Her voice has gone raspy, and instead of attitude she sounds genuinely concerned. I don’t know what to do with that. I open my mouth to say something intelligent or something that doesn’t make me sound like a total dick when she continues, “because if you’re going to be in here for a couple of days, I can have Matty stay with me for the weekend. I could even call in sick Monday, if you need me to.”

No. No fucking way. Who is this chick? Nobody’s that compassionate or sweet.
No one.
And now I’m glaring like she’s gone and mutated right in front of me or something. Damn it.

“Or, you know, you can try finding a babysitter for him from your hospital bed, if you prefer,” she says, flashing her teeth at me. There it is, not enough blood to my brain, but enough to make me hard at the bit of steel she just showed me.

I want Sera, and I can’t have her. She turns to leave, giving me the perfect view of her perfect ass, and I know I have to use my brain now.

“Wait.” Sera gives me the full-front of her face, and my heartbeat goes out of whack from just that look. Shit. “I don’t know you, understand? I’m not going to leave him with just anybody. Especially a stranger. I’m a diabetic, not a crack-pot.”

Crack-pot? Really? In her eyes, man, you probably just lost ten IQ points.

My vision starts coming in more clearer now as I watch her cross her arms under her breasts, hiding her shirt. I wonder what it said. Guess I should’ve been paying attention. Well, I’m paying attention now. I look quickly down, she’s wearing Converse, non-designer jeans and a custom made shirt. I take in her glasses, hair pulled back, sexy green eyes, again.

Yeah, I want her.

Sera’s mouth twists and she puts her weight on one leg, cocking out a hip. It’s really hard trying not to stare at the curve perfectly outlined from her jeans, or how very much my hands would look fucking great right there, if she’d ever let me hold her close.

“Or you could let him stay with the Duchess of the Flies? Since that’s your only other option.”

Duchess of the Flies?
Did she just call Mom that? Is she here? Vaguely, I remember Mom trying to shake me awake – the smell of her perfume somehow has stayed behind in my unconsciousness. Or did I dream that, too?

Holy fuck, I’m seriously into this woman. I better be careful before I ask her to have my biological children.

Matty giggles after he’s settled himself on my bed. The thing’s hardly big enough for me, but the kid manages to squeeze his minuscule ass on a sliver of mattress, pressed up against my hip.