CHAPTER TWENTY
Gavin
I held on to lucidity for as long as I could.
Now that I had her back, I didn’t want to let her go. Not to anything, and especially not in my nightmares. In my dreams I never had her, and this nightmare was no different. She lay so close to me this time, her mouth open as she screamed for help. My hockey stick lay close to her legs, still bent, still broken. Our aster flowers created a bed for us to lay on, drenched in our blood. I ripped at the petals in my fist, their sweet floral scent burning my nose. It was thicker than the blood.
My fingertips grazed hers and her screaming stopped. Her head turned. Our eyes met.
The propellers came flying for us both…
I bolted awake, breathing so deeply my throat ached. I was in the same position I had been in when I went to sleep. Naked, sitting up. Jasmeen lay curled up on my chest, my blanket wrapped around us both. The light outside was bright. I’d managed to get some sleep. I sagged back and bent my head, so I could see her sleeping face.
She looked the same, but she wasn’t the same. We couldn’t be. If we were, we’d do the same thing. We had to be different this time. We had to have the same dream.
I hugged her body to mine and skimmed my nose along her shoulder. Being with her this way reminded me of a version of myself I hadn’t been in so long. A man who felt mildly okay in his own skin, a man who loved her harder than he’d ever loved anything.
There was strength in loving someone that deep. To hand over your soul for their keeping, to trust they wouldn’t crush it.
To know they’d protect it.
“Gav,” she mumbled sleepily.
“Cold?” I bundled her tighter in the blanket.
“Did you have a nightmare?” she asked.
“Let’s lay down.” I didn’t want to let her go, didn’t want to see those light purple petals dripping her blood.
She got up, naked body stirring my lust up like she was responsible for my emotions. There was already a bruise forming on her throat from my thumb. My cock got so hard at the sight of it. I was already marking her. I lay back on the couch and she moved to lie on my right, snuggling up on my chest after throwing the blanket over us both.
“You need to talk to someone about them.”
“Talking doesn’t help,” I murmured, kissing the top of her head. “Doing you does.”
She paused her fingers that had been trailing over my stomach. “Please think about it.”
I could hear the plea in her voice, the sadness and frustration of hearing me scream myself awake every morning. “Fine.”
“Really?” She rose onto her elbow and peered at me. “Today? I’ve done my research, made sure the few I managed to dwindle down could be trusted and available. I’ll call him?”
My stomach filled with unease, but I couldn’t keep denying her. She wanted this for me, and what she wanted, I wanted. “You can call him. But I’m not getting dressed, and I’m not doing that inkblot test. They all look like vaginas to me.”
She giggled and shook her head. “Why am I not surprised?”
“Because I like vagina?” I raised my eyebrows innocently. “Doesn’t sound like me at all.”
Her eyes glittered with humor and she rolled them. “Right. I forgot that beneath your dirty mouth, you’re a saint.”
I kissed her smile, wanting to feel it on my lips. “Shower?” I asked hopefully.
She nodded, kissing at my bottom lip. “Let’s go.”
After showering, she helped me dress in gym shorts and a white t-shirt. She rubbed my pits down, sniffed through my cologne, and then sprayed her choice all over my chest and neck, and then ran a brush through my hair. I felt like a helpless idiot, not a man at all. I wanted to tear my casts off, unable to stand them a moment longer. The need began to burn in my blood.
“Let’s have breakfast. I’ll call the therapist after we’re done. I’m in the mood for French toast. What do you say?” Her gray eyes glimmered when she looked at me.
Did she see how trapped I was in this chair?
“Gavin,” she hissed, “if you mention calories, I swear, I’ll put you in a headlock. You need to eat. Sit tight while I cook.”
She helped me back onto the sofa and then began cleaning up our leftover dinner mess. I stared down at the cast on my arm in disdain. I could use scissors, maybe even one of those stupid indestructible knives I’d been duped into buying from the wife of one of my teammates.
My fingers started tearing at the bottom of my cast. I managed to tear a chunk off. In the kitchen, sounds of Jasmeen cooking drifted over to me. The scent of frying bread and cinnamon filled my penthouse, and the snow fell lazily from the sky outside my windows. In a better mood, the scene before me would be perfect.
I ripped off another piece, this time bigger, and dropping it to the floor.
“Blueberries or raspberries?” she called.
I smiled at my cast as I chipped away at it. She put so much into everything she did, even making breakfast. “Blueberries,” I called back.
“It’ll be ready in five.”
“Uh-huh,” I mumbled, using two fingers to get under my cast to tear out another chunk. Damn thing was on tight. I needed to get it wet.
Five minutes went too fast. I patted the white dust off my shorts just in time for her to come into the living room with two plates piled high with French toast and dripping syrup. Either she didn’t care if I got huge, or she’d already wrote off my campaigns. She added coffee and napkins to the table, and then settled between my legs as she ate. She put on a flagrant chick movie.
“50 First Dates?” I groaned.
“Shut up, Gavin. If I even hear the name Pulp Fiction, one more freaking time, I’m going to go buy a suit case, fill it with shit, and smash it over your head.”
“I can’t imagine you handling shit, but I get the sentiment.” I shoved a bite into my mouth. “I don’t want to see anything about the crash in real time.”
“I know. I don’t push you, do I? If you want to watch Pulp Fiction, again, we can.”
I chuckled. She sounded so put out. “You’d do that for me?”
She peeked over her shoulder, her silver eyes sheathed by her long, chocolate lashes. Without her walls, it was easy to see the girl I fell in love with, and the woman I wanted to be with. She was the only easy aspect of my life, the only part of me that made sense. The rest was jumbled, twisted in the metal of that crash.
“I’d do anything for you,” she vowed.
It took everything in me not to tear my casts off Forest Gump style and lay into her sweet tight body right there. I loved the devotion in her eyes, craved the deep connection.
It reminded me of the day we met. The shyness in her eyes, the attention she placed on me—I’d never had that growing up. I knew she was special, even then. I just had this horrible part of me who ruined the beautiful things in my life.
For every smile I gave, I had to figure out a way to erase it.
“Kiss me,” I ordered, swallowing the pained lump in my throat.
She reached up, her pale throat stretched taut as she craned her head toward me. I kissed every soft pink inch of her mouth until she was mewling against my lips.
Someone cleared their throats. I tore my lips away from hers to find Lance standing there. “Dr. Glick is here. Should I set him up into Mr. Cobalt’s office, Jasmeen?”
“The therapist,” Jasmeen crooned. She jumped to her feet. “Please, Lance.”
“Right away. Refreshments?”
“I’ll get them,” she assured him, waving him off. “Ready to start the healing process?” Her eyes matched the color of the winter sky outside.
Deep gray, a glare on the edge of her iris. Her cheeks were stained pink and her lips the same. Her throat was marked. Winter. Her eyes were thick of winter.
“You’re so fucking special, you know that?” I could hardly breathe staring at her.
Her mouth popped open in the cutest little O. “Gav.”
“You were worth crashing for.”
Her hand touched her heart and her eyes teared. “Don’t say things like that. You’re hurting. You’re suffering. No one’s worth that.”
“You are,” I insisted. “You’re worth everything.”
She swallowed hard and turned away, but not before I saw the sheer sheen of winter morning glittering in her eyes. “I’ll be back in a sec.”
“I love you,” I whispered to myself, aching for the day she could say that to me the way she once had.
Like those three words made the most sense.
***
Dr. Glick looked like my old math teacher in high school.
Same white hair, same scratchy-looking sweater. He had an intense layer of wrinkles on his forehead, as though he spent an obscene amount of time frowning at his patients. Jas parked me on the other side of my desk, where he sat at the head.
“How long will you be, do you think?” she asked.
There were two coffees, one in front of me, the other in front of him.
“First sessions always last at least an hour,” he replied, his papery, aged voice drifting over to her.
“Great. I’ll, uh, go run some errands.” She touched my shoulders and kissed my temple, using her closeness to whisper in my ear. “Please give this a try.”
After she’d left, he smiled genially at me. “Before we begin, I must give you a warning that I am a fan of yours, Gavin. It won’t affect my ability to be your therapist, I just thought I’d let you know how glad I am to see that you’re okay.”
“Thanks.” I cleared my throat.
Silence settled between us, our eyes locking. I got the impression that he wasn’t easy to bullshit, and I also got the impression that with him, bullshit would only hurt me.
“Jasmeen didn’t tell me much. I can gather some things. The news about the crash hasn’t lessened in the slightest. It’s a miracle you’re sitting across from me.”
A sick pit formed in my stomach. “Can we not talk about the crash?”
“It’s been two months. Perhaps talking about it will help?”
I ran my hand through my hair roughly. “I don’t like putting myself back there. I do it enough in my nightmares, I don’t need to do it when I’m awake too.”
“Nightmares?” he picked out. “Are they of the crash?”
“Every single time.”
He frowned. Uh-oh. “How often?”
“Every night since I woke up in the hospital.”
“Tell me about them. How do they start?”
Not for the first time I wanted to get up and run. Instead I sat there, pulling at my bad dreams. “I’m on the helicopter. Orson’s there, Mack too. They’re my teammates,” I explained needlessly. He nodded; he knew my team. “We had two body guards with us and one pilot. Did, um, did Mack make it?”
He frowned deeper. “You don’t know, Gavin?”
My heart dropped into my nightmare. “Know what?” I asked, on the edge of puking.
“You’re the only survivor of that crash.”
The sight of Dr. Glick before me wavered in and out of reality as dismay and sorrow ripped my heart out. No one survived but me? How could that be? What about me was so special that I walked away alive, and no one else did? If they’d had a Jasmeen to think about at the end, would they still be here?
“No one told me,” I revealed after I’d regained my composure. “I didn’t ask. I didn’t want to know.”
“They were probably protecting you.”
No wonder the Warriors were willing to wait for me. They were grieving. “Mack,” I whispered, picturing his spikey black hair and stupid tribal band tattoos he was so proud of.
“Keep going with your nightmare.”
“You mean it’s not happening right now?” I grunted.
He simply waited.
“I’m on the helicopter. We’re all talking, flying over Upstate New York, when red buttons and alarms start going off. The pilot ordered us to stay calm. No one stayed calm but me. And then the engine went out. But the propellers kept going.” I flinched, covering my face in my hand. “We fell from the sky.”
“Were you awake the whole time?”
“I think so. I didn’t see the crash. I heard the smashing of metal. I wasn’t wearing my belt and when the chopper turned over, I fell out. All I saw was Jasmeen and the night sky. When I woke up again, I was crammed under the propellers. Everything hurt. There was a fire, screaming, the helicopter was burning, and then… nothing.”
He was silent for a long time. “That’s horrific.”
I snorted. “You’re telling me.”
“Is that your nightmare?”
“No. Not all the time.”
“Not all the time?”
“Sometimes Jasmeen’s there, sometimes she’s hurt beside me, sometimes she doesn’t wake up, sometimes my team is there, and they’re blaming me for surviving. Sometimes no one is there. It always changes. But it’s never pretty.”
“Are you and Jasmeen in a relationship?”
I told him about our past, and his frown deepened.
“So up until this crash you hadn’t had any communication with her for four years?”
“Mhm.”
“That’s incredibly indicative of something, don’t you think?” He sat up and leaned closer. “That she’s all you see as you’re dying, and then she’s in the dream hurt, and now she’s here. What do you think that means?”
“I think it means that I still love her. That when I saw my end coming, I saw all the wrong choices I made. I saw the ending I really wanted, and that was old wrinkles and grand kids with her.”
He didn’t blink. “But she’s in your nightmare, Gavin. Why is she in your nightmare? You have a theory,” he guessed, when I flinched.
“I chose my dream over her. And she let me. I think my nightmare’s showing me what I almost lost.”
“Or, it’s showing you what you still stand to lose. You’ve barely rekindled your relationship with her. In your mind it seems like that’s enough, but what if it’s not? What if the truly terrifying part of your nightmare is getting up and walking away without her?”
I didn’t like his line of thought. Because it sounded totally feasible.
“You’re highly focused on her,” he noted. “All the horror around you, all the pain and injuries, and you’re focused on the one that got away? Maybe she’s a coping mechanism.”
“Or she’s the only saving grace in my nightmares?” I countered. “A broken leg and a broken arm suck. I’m hurting. My career’s in the toilet, but all of that I can manage. Because of her. What I can’t manage is wasting another four years.”
He sat back and studied me. “You still love her.”
“I love her.”
“What if she doesn’t love you?”
“She does,” I responded strongly. “Jasmeen and I were all we had growing up. I know her better than I know myself. I never doubted her love for me, and I’m not going to start now.”
“But you doubt something. What is it?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “Myself?”
“Maybe,” he allowed, but I didn’t think he believed that. “Or maybe you doubt that you ever survived that crash.”
My breath left me. “This all feels like a nightmare.” My chest opened. “I don’t want to wake up. If I do, Jas is gone. But if I don’t wake up, I’ll always be trapped in the wreckage.”
He scrutinized me attentively. “You’re trapped there, Gavin, because you haven’t woken up yet.”
I let my head bob, grabbing up my coffee mug with a shaking hand and bringing it to my lips. “Makes sense.”
“Can we talk about your career. What makes you think it’s over?”
“Isn’t it obvious? I’m hold up in my casts, and after that I’ll need to rehab.”
“Casts come off. Strength can be regained. Giving up before you try is ten times worse than failing.”
Was it? I looked at the door fleetingly, wondering where Jas was. “The Warriors are a mess, aren’t they?” I asked, afraid of the answer.
He looked at his coffee cup for a millisecond before shooting his gaze back to mine, and in that brief loss of eye contact I had my answer. My team had fallen apart. They’d loss two teammates, and they thought they lost me.
“Should I face them?” I asked.
“I think you should do what makes you feel good.”
“Nothing makes me feel good.” Nothing but Jasmeen. “I’m operating on a selfless plane of knowledge right now.”
He smiled without humor. “I think staying out of the public light is a good idea right now. You’re talking about nightmares and pain like they’re normal. When you’re able to think past the crash and focus your goals on your career, or whatever your goals may be, you can let the world in. Until then, let’s try to set goals for ourselves that we can achieve. Do it once, twice, and setting them long term won’t be so intimidating. What’s your first personal goal that you’d like to achieve all on your own?”
I looked him in the eye. “I’m going to rip this cast off.”
***
Dr. Glick was gone by the time Jasmeen made it back. She shook the snow out of her hair, expression worried. “How was it?” she asked, tone soft, concerned.
I’d struggled to wheel myself into the living room. I was still in my chair. She was standing. I played along that night. I ate the pizza she bought, I watched the movie she picked, I encouraged an extra glass of wine. The moment she passed out on the couch, I gritted my teeth to keep quiet and hoisted myself into my chair.
I didn’t let my pained breath out until after I’d managed to get the kitchen shears off the counter block. I put them on my lap and used my brick wall to pull me into my room. Once inside, I wheeled myself into my bathroom, and then into my standing shower.
I turned on the tap and let it soak onto my cast. It felt empowering, like I gained a scrap of strength the wetter it got. I began cutting into it. Pieces of my cast fell away. I cut, and cut, the steam from the shower wrapping around me. I grabbed the last piece just as I saw a flash of movement.
I looked up to find her standing there, staring at me in horror. “What are you doing!”
I let the final piece of cast fall to the shower tiles. My bicep had shrunk, and there was a deep gnarly scar where the bone had torn through my flesh when my humerus broke, but I didn’t feel so trapped anymore.
I didn’t feel so hopeless. “Help me take the cast off my leg?” I held the shears out to her.
“Are you out of your mind?” She marched into the shower and snatched the shears from me. “Gavin Cobalt, what have you done?”
I lifted my arm for the first time in two months. Pain seared through me, but it was pain I saw, pain I did to myself. “Ahh,” I moaned, my eyes rolling into the back of my head. “You have no idea how good this hurts.”
“I’m calling the hospital right now. You’re getting a new one.”
My good hand shot out and grabbed her wrist. When she looked at me, fury and fear flared in her eyes. “Don’t. Please, baby. You have no idea what being trapped is doing to me. I can’t sit in this chair and lose myself a little more every single day. I’ll use my crutches. I’ll stay off my leg. But I need this cast off. I need it.”
She hung her head and shook it. “Don’t look at me like that. You’re acting insane right now. Cutting off your cast? It’s on there to help you heal.”
I wheeled myself back, so the shower sprayed onto my leg. The moment it got wet, I shivered at the rush of intense need to get this damn thing off. “I’ll break my ribs to bend and rip it off with my teeth. Or you can just help me. Save us both the trouble.”
“Gavin,” she argued, glaring at me. “It’s only been two months.”
“Please help me.” So I can help myself.
She blew out a breath, glared even harder, and then gave in with a snarl. She stooped to her haunches and began cutting near my ankle. “I can’t believe I’m doing this.”
“Think about how much better it will be. I can hug you. I can wash myself. I can hug you. I can get my own food. I can hug you. I can wipe my own ass. I can hug you.” I reached down and held her chin between my thumb and index finger, guiding her beautiful eyes on mine. “I want to hug you.”
Her shoulders sagged. She kissed my fingers and continued, cutting into my cast, never stopping, not even when I screamed out in pain when she tugged at my cast too hard. She sawed at the white material with a focused eagerness, almost like she wanted it gone too.
When she was done, she stood up and stumbled back. The hot water from the shower created a trail of sweat on both our faces. My leg looked horrible. Scarred beyond belief, skinny, oddly angled, but it was free.
Jas met my eyes, and her small, concerned smile was all the encouragement I needed.