Chapter Two
Dax
Olivia and I were in a big, white house. Everything was white, the walls and the curtains, the furniture and the carpets…Olivia even had on a white dress. It wasn’t a wedding dress, but it was white and frilly and with her dark hair and eyes she looked gorgeous. We were sitting on the white couch in our white house. We even had a snow white husky running around. There wasn’t a spot on anything. I’m not sure how we did it. We weren’t saying anything and the silence was almost deafening before the ringing of a doorbell shrilly broke it.
Olivia smiled creepily and practically floated towards the door, like one of the Stepford Wives. When she pulled it open and I saw who it was, I tried to scream but no sound came out. Suddenly, he pulled out the gun and he took two shots at Liv first. Then he turned it on me. I lost count, but I thought I ended up with four. Blake kicked me and more bizarre than any of that, he put his foot on Olivia’s back and Terrance suddenly appeared with a big camera…the kind the Paparazzi use. He took a picture of his father with his gun, standing over his kill. They did the same for me, only this time Brock was the camera man. I looked around at the house, at the deep scarlet of the blood that was staining the carpets.
Fuck! I thought we’d never get those stains out.
That was when I woke up. I could hear beeping noises and the soft sound of female voices. It took me a second to be able to pull my eyelids open. When I finally did, I saw that I was in a hospital. What the hell was I doing there? I closed my eyes again and tried to remember the night before. I remembered arguing with Olivia…again. Then I took the heroin out of the crate and went to the garage to put it in Terrance and Blake’s bikes…Fuck. My dad had come in and caught me. Did my dad shoot me? Thinking about it made my head hurt. I opened my eyes again and that was when I saw my mom.
She’d gone on the side of the bed to get something and when she stood up she said, “Oh Dax! You’re awake!”
I tried to smile but even my face hurt. Maybe my dad didn’t shoot me. Maybe he beat the shit out of me instead.
“Hi Mom,” I said. “How are you?”
She laughed. “I’m just dandy, thanks…and you?”
“I’ve been better,” I said. I was startled when the curtain flew open. Olivia stood by me, smiling. She was beautiful.
“Hi, Liv.”
“Hey there,” she said. “This attention seeking behavior really needs to stop.”
I laughed, it hurt like hell. “If you two would pay more attention to me, I wouldn’t have to stoop to these measures.”
My mom waved a palm at me like she’d really like to hit me with it. I imagine that although she’d never admit to it, she’d probably love to smack me upside the head.
I looked at Liv and asked, “Are you going to wave a palm at me too?”
She smiled and said, “I should, but no. I’m going to do this…” She leaned over and gave me a soft, sweet kiss on the lips.
“I like that a lot better,” I told her, “Maybe you could teach my mother a few things about how to treat a guy in a hospital bed.” Olivia laughed and I got another raised palm from my mom, and then a kiss on the forehead. “That’s better,” I told her. “What’s for lunch? It smells good.”
She grabbed the bag of IV fluid and said, “It looks like you’re having 1000 liters of D5W with a morphine chaser.”
“Hmm, change that D5W to a sirloin steak and that’s my Friday night.” In the middle of trying to be funny I suddenly had a flash of a memory. Blake walking into the garage and pulling a gun. I’d had mine pointed at my dad. Shit! Was I really going to shoot my own father? My thoughts were all scrambled, but I was pretty sure that scene ended with Blake shooting me in the gut.
“Dax?” I looked up and Olivia and my mom were both looking at me with concerned looks. I realized they must have still been talking to me while I was lost in thought. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m good. Just a little out of it because of the morphine I think. I know I have a bit of a reputation, but none of it’s really true. This is my first opiate rodeo.”
“Good to know,” my mom said with a smile. She ran her hand across my forehead and made her worried face again. Then she asked the question that I’m sure was on everyone’s mind. “Dax, who did this to you?”
“Was it Terrance?” Olivia said with terror in her eyes.
“I really don’t remember. I was in the garage. I’d gone to get my sketch pad out of my saddle bags. The next thing I remember is this deafening blast…I guess it was a gunshot. Then, I woke up here.”
Olivia looked like she bought it, but my mom…not so much. I wondered how much my dad told her already. I doubted whatever story he told her had much of the truth in it. She didn’t push it though, for now.
“I’m going to take off for a bit and let you two catch up,” my mom said, putting her purse on her shoulder.
“You don’t have to go, Gail,” Olivia told her.
“It’s okay, honey,” my mom told her. “I have some errands to run and I’ll come back later.”
She bent down and kissed Dax on the forehead. “I love you. Be good and don’t terrorize your nurses. You better be firmly in this bed when I get back.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I told her.
After she left Olivia looked at me and asked, “So, was that story true? Do you really not remember what happened or was that for your mom’s benefit?”
I took a deep breath, another fucking mistake. “No,” I finally said. “That was the sugar-coated version. Sit.” She sat down and I said, “I went to the garage to put the heroin in Blake and Terrance’s saddle bags.”
She didn’t say anything. She just gave me the look.
I waited a beat and gave her a chance, but when she didn’t speak out I finally went on and said, “Anyways, while I was in the middle of it, my dad came in. I had a gun and I actually pointed it at him.”
“Dax!”
“I know, how fucked up is that, right? I didn’t plan on shooting him. I just wanted him to give me a chance to explain and to not try and stop me. I told him everything, but he didn’t believe me. I was still talking and I heard a door open. When I looked up I saw that it was Blake. I moved the gun and instead of my dad, I aimed it at him. The next thing I remember is the sound…it was loud.”
Olivia looked horrified and I was afraid she was going to cry for a minute. She didn’t, thank God. I hated to see her cry. She had cried way too much over me lately.
Finally she said, “Please tell me that you know how lucky you are to be alive.”
“I know,” I told her. The truth was, I hadn’t really thought of it. I hadn’t had time. “I’m sorry I lied to you Liv.”
“I know,” she said. My arm was on the side of the bed and she lay her cheek against it. Her warmth felt good since the damn hospital was so cold. We just sat there like that for a long time and she finally pulled her head back up and looked at me and said, “I love you so much.”
“I love you so much, too. Were you at work today?”
“Yeah, I had just gotten there when your mom called.”
“I’m sorry. Was your uncle mad?”
“No, not at all. I didn’t tell him what happened, just that you were in the hospital and I needed to go. He was totally okay with it.”
“Good. You don’t have to come back here tomorrow,” I told her. “Go to work and if you want to stop by afterwards, I’m sure I’ll still be here.”
“No, I can get someone to take my shift…”
“Olivia, you have already rearranged your life enough for me. Go to work, I’m going to feel terrible if you don’t.”
“Hmm, maybe you just don’t want to see me.”
I put my hand on the side of her face and said, “I’d have to be crazy not to want to see this beautiful face.”
She smiled and said, “Okay, your smooth talking worked. I’ll go to work tomorrow but I’m leaving my number with the nurses, just in case.”
“I can live with that,” I told her.
The rest of the evening she hung out with me. My mom came back and they both fussed over me when my clear liquid meal was brought in, insisting I eat…or I should say, drink everything on the tray. I drifted in and out a lot from exhaustion. It was probably just the morphine, or just the trauma and stress of it all.
The worse part of it was every time I had a second of alone time I would close my eyes and I would see Blake again, pointing a gun at me…