FOR OVER AN HOUR I waited for Hayley and Lexi to get done with their visit so I could go in and see Shelby. During that time both Garrett and Carter called, asking about the fight in Stockton and if I was going. They weren’t happy when I chose to forfeit, but I refused to leave Shelby for even a moment. If she needed me, I wanted to be there.
Lexi opened the waiting room door and poked her head in. “It’s your turn,” she noted dryly. “Hayley and I are going to leave for a while and get some rest, but we’ll be back later.”
“I’ll be here,” I told her as I waltzed past. I didn’t want to waste another moment I could be spending with Shelby.
Her room was right across the hall, so I marched over and opened the door as quietly as I could, letting it shut silently. She lay motionless in the bed except for her chest rising and falling with her breaths. She had a white bandage around her head that almost matched the color of her skin. Never had I seen her so pale and lifeless.
Taking a seat in the chair beside her bed, I gently picked up her hand and held it in mine. When she didn’t hold it back, I finally broke down and cried. “Angel, please wake up. I’m so fucking sorry for leaving you when you needed me. I promise I’ll do anything to make it up to you if you just come back to me. Please, Shelby. We owe this to ourselves … to our daughter.”
All I got was nothing as I waited for a sign to show that she heard me. The hours crept by and I stayed there; waiting and holding her hand in mine, refusing to let go. I wasn’t going to leave until she woke up, and if it took fifteen days so be it.
I had to prove to her that I would stay by her side no matter what.
“HEY, MATT, WAKE UP,” A voice whispered with a tap on my shoulder. It was Jace.
With my eyes still closed, I replied groggily, “I am awake. I just haven’t opened my eyes yet.” The second I tried to move my muscles, a fiery cramp ran up from my lower back all the way to my neck. I should’ve slept on the damn floor, at least that way my whole body wouldn’t be on fire and stiff.
Jace chuckled quietly. “Honestly, I don’t see how you slept in that chair. I wouldn’t be able to walk.”
I opened my eyes and stretched, hissing as my sore muscles stretched and bones cracked. “Trust me,” I noted, “I’m starting to think I’m not going to be able to.”
Smiling, Jace pulled up one of the wooden table chairs and passed me a cup of coffee and a paper bag. “Carol told me you hadn’t eaten since you got here yesterday, so I picked this up on my way here. I didn’t know if you liked bagels, but I got you one anyway.”
“Thanks, I appreciate that,” I exclaimed. When I first met the guy I thought he would be a problem, but he actually wasn’t all that bad.
Taking a sip of coffee, I opened the brown paper bag to find an Asiago cheese bagel with sundried tomato cream cheese. My sole focus while I was there had been on Shelby and nothing else, so I didn’t realize how hungry I was until I put the first bite in my mouth. We stayed silent, both keeping an eye on Shelby, waiting for her to open her eyes or move her fingers.
“I heard this happened before,” I murmured regretfully. “Growing up she never had issues with blacking out.”
Blowing out a heavy sigh, Jace nodded. “Yeah, well, when you’re stressed out, depressed, and grieving, your body can do all sorts of things in order to cope. I’m sure when she told you those feelings were magnified by a thousand. Not to mention she was scared to death of losing you, but I do understand why you got angry and left.”
Not expecting that, I turned to him with my mouth gaping wide open. “You understand?” I asked skeptically. “I figured you’d want to bitch me out like Lexi did.”
“No,” he said, “I do understand. When I met Shelby and found out she was pregnant my first thought was the guy was probably a worthless douche bag that broke up with her. She didn’t tell me until much later what she did. I got so mad at her, too. Being a guy, I knew I would want to know if someone was pregnant with my child, and there were many times when I threatened to find you and tell you myself. I know you feel deceived and hurt, and believe me, you have a right to feel like that. All I ask is that you please give her another chance to make things right.”
Reaching for Shelby’s hand, I smoothed my thumb along her soft skin and kissed her palm. “I’ve loved her all of my life, Jace. Now that she’s back in it I can’t imagine ever living without her again. I just can’t get over the fact that she lied to me and kept Madelyn a secret. What was she going to do, raise her by herself?”
Jace shrugged. “That was the plan, along with her mother’s help, but I don’t think she thought things through. Think about it, Matt. She’d just turned eighteen years old, she was pregnant, and she was scared. What eighteen-year-old girl thinks rationally?”
None.
“I know that’s not an excuse,” he said quickly, holding up his hands, “but I honestly think she thought she was being selfish if she told you. Even though you loved her, she knew you would stay out of obligation to the baby. So many people break apart for that reason alone and that can be more destructive than anything. Take her parents for example. The same thing happened to them and now Shelby barely speaks to her dad. She didn’t want that happening to you two.”
Getting up from his chair, he walked over to Shelby’s other side and held her hand.
“Jace, I understand the bit about her parents. I was around when they got divorced and I saw what it did to her. Shelby was different, though. She was smart and knew what she wanted in life, and she was honest. If things get tough in the future, is she going to lie to protect me? How will I know if I can trust her?”
“You won’t,” he answered, looking straight at me, “but when you love someone unconditionally you work through the bad and you concentrate on the good. When you started fighting and I saw how you were I couldn’t understand what Shelby saw in you. What I saw was an arrogant bastard that liked to get his kicks off by beating people up and having promiscuous sex. She swore up and down that you weren’t always like that, and no matter what you did she always defended you when I told her you weren’t worth the heartache. I just thought she was naïve, but she never gave up on you.”
He looked down at her and kissed her softly on the head. “She never gave up on me, either.”
At that time, Shelby’s hand twitched in mine. I immediately got to my feet and leaned over her, hoping she was finally coming around. “Did you feel that?” I asked, glancing over at him.
Nodding, he grinned and said, “Her hand moved. She’s coming around.”
“Shelby,” I whispered gently. “Wake up, angel.”
Eyelids fluttering, she took in a deep breath and finally opened those honey-colored eyes of hers, tilting her head slightly to look at me and Jace. Groggily, she asked, “What … happened?”
Jace and I looked at each other, but he was the one who answered, “You blacked out again, Shelby. You were found in Matt’s driveway and taken to the hospital.”
She winced while trying to sit up and let go of my hand so she could touch her head. “My head hurts,” she moaned.
“That’s because you busted it wide open when you fell, angel. I’m sorry I wasn’t there to catch you. I promise that won’t happen again.”
Her eyes filled with tears, and when she closed them they fell down her cheeks. I wiped them away with my thumbs and leaned over to kiss her lips. My heart sank when she didn’t kiss me back.
“Shelby?”
Opening her eyes, she blew out a shaky breath. “What happened to needing your space, Matt? You can’t honestly tell me that you forgive me already? I heard what you said to Jace. You don’t know if you can trust me now. We can’t build a relationship without trust.”
“You were listening?” Jace asked incredulously with a sly smirk on his face. “I should’ve known.”
She looked over at him and smiled. I would’ve given anything to have her smile at me like that. “I was going in and out, but I heard most of it,” she told him before slowly turning back to me.
“Shelby,” I began, “I love you and I want to spend the rest of my life with you; I always have. I know trust is important, but what you kept from me wasn’t just a simple lie. You got to experience the first part of our daughter’s life. You felt her inside of you, and you got to hold her when she took her last breath. I didn’t get any of that. She never got the chance to know how much I would’ve loved her. I’m hurt and I’m angry. Those feelings aren’t just going to go away.”
“I know,” she sobbed, nodding quickly, “which is why you need to leave. I’m going to give you the space you need to think and get your head clear. If this accident hadn’t happened, you wouldn’t be anywhere near me right now. You need to deal with your feelings and step away from me for a while.”
“What? No,” I snapped, taken aback. “We can work on this together.”
“I wish we could,” she whispered, squeezing my hand, “but we can’t. I do love you, Matt, and if we’re meant to work past this then we’ll know when the time is right. We’ll find each other again. Maybe then we can start over with a clean slate … with no secrets, and no lies.”
Slowly, she removed her hand from my grasp. “Good-bye, Matt.”
I never thought there would come a time when I would feel completely lost and unsure of what to do. I didn’t want to leave her, and I knew deep down she didn’t really want me to go, but I knew I needed to. Holding her face in between my hands, I felt the warm droplets of her tears fall down my fingers. I leaned over and kissed her … again, in hopes that she’d respond. If she didn’t then I knew all hope would be lost, but if she did, then I still had a chance.
She kissed me back.
“You’re mine, angel,” I whispered across her lips. “We’ll find our way back.”
I gazed down at her one last time, remembering the taste of her lips when I kissed her and the way her eyes, although full of sorrow, looked up at me with complete and utter determination … and love. Turning on my heel, I ambled out of her room, refusing to say good-bye because I knew it wouldn’t be the end.
I’ll see her again.
BEFORE I COULD GET ON my bike and ride away, Jace stopped me by hollering my name and flagging me down in the hospital parking deck.
“Matt, wait!” he shouted, running toward me. Hopefully, nothing bad had happened in the few minutes I was gone. That would be my luck.
Taking off my helmet, I waited for him to approach. “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, it’s all good. I have something I want to give you and it took me forever to get away from Shelby. I’m parked just over that way,” he said, pointing to the other side of the deck.
Holding onto my helmet, I put my bike in gear and rode over to Jace’s car to wait on him. When he got there, he opened up his backseat, pulling out three small, brown notebooks that looked like journals, and handed them to me.
“What are these?” I asked, furrowing my brows.
Jace sighed and pointed down at them. “Before coming to the hospital I stopped by the house and picked those up. Shelby would kill me if she knew I gave those to you. They’re her journals, Matt. She stopped writing in them about two years ago, but it was mainly something she did after everything happened. Her doctor said it might help with the healing process if she wrote things down. I know it’s not the same as hearing stories from other people, but I thought you might understand Shelby more if you could read it from her point of view.”
My hands shook just holding them in my grasp because inside all of those pages were Shelby’s most inner and secret thoughts. I didn’t know if I was ready to read them just yet.
“Thank you,” I told him, carefully placing them in my backpack and sliding it back on my body. “Will you please keep me updated on Shelby? I don’t think I can handle not knowing how she’s doing.”
Jace nodded. “I can do that. I know she has to finish her article this week so she’ll be busy doing that, and just so you know, I plan on taking her back to North Carolina with me as soon as she finishes it. She needs a vacation, and since I have to get back for filming I figured she’d have a good time out on the beach. It’ll give her time to relax.”
“Does she know you’re taking her away?” I asked.
The distance between us was already too much, and she was just in the building beside me. I couldn’t imagine how it was going to be when she’d be across the country, for however long Jace kept her out there.
Jace shut his car door and sighed. “No, she doesn’t know yet. I thought I would surprise her. She’s always wanted to visit the East coast, so I figured it would be the perfect time.”
“How long will you be gone?”
“A few weeks,” he said with a shrug of his shoulders. “I guess it all depends on her and how long she wants to stay gone.”
“Just make sure you don’t let her have too much fun,” I replied with a sad smile. “I don’t want her to not want to come back.”
Jace chuckled and shook his head. “She’ll be okay, Matt. As much fun as I know she’ll have, I’m pretty sure she’ll want to come home.”
He patted me on the back and strolled back toward the hospital entrance. All I had to do now was wait for the right time to get Shelby back. My life was a constant battle, a fight to earn respect, a fight to make ends meet, but never have I had to fight for love. Fighting for someone’s heart was a lot harder than fighting for a title.