Chapter 10

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enjoying the tension...

“I guess I'd rather hurt than feel nothing at all.

 It's a quarter after one, I'm all alone and I need you now.”

(lyrics from ‘I Need You Now’ by Lady Antebellum)

Haven't slept in a week

My bed has become my coffin

Cannot breath, cannot speak

My head's like a bomb, still waiting

Take my heart and take my soul

I don't need them anymore

This bed has become my chapel of stone

A garden of darkness to where I'm thrown

So take my life, I don't need it anymore

(from ‘The One I Love’ by the Rasmus)

“I don’t have good news I’m afraid.” 

I watch as Becky’s hands curl around the safety rail at the end of her mother’s hospital bed, gripping it like she has to or drown, her knuckles turning white. She doesn’t even look at the doctor with his crisp white lab coat, his shiny stethoscope and his Ken doll good looks. Her gaze is locked on the woman in the bed and all of the tubes and wires running from her too still form. The only other sound in the room is the whooshing sound coming from the apparatus that’s helping her mother to breathe. 

I don’t know where to be. I feel like I should be right there beside her but on the other hand this feels like a really personal moment and besides, she hasn’t so much as reached for my hand….

“It seems as though your mother had a fall in the shower and she sustained some rather serious injuries,” the doctor continues, pointing out the cast on her leg, which is obvious, but Becky’s gaze doesn’t waver from the bandages around her mother’s head. 

“Was she drunk?” Doctor Ken doll flushes and clears his throat loudly as he taps his pen against the clipboard he’s holding, as if she’s brought up an awkward subject. 

“Now, she’s given her head quite a crack,” the doctor continues, stating the obvious, glancing up at Becks warily, as if he expects her to interrupt him and she doesn’t disappoint. 

“Was. She. Drunk?” she asks again, making it clear she expects…no, is demanding an answer. The doctor looks at her and starts gnawing at the end of the pen he’s holding. “Well?” Becks turns and levels her gaze at him, “was she?” 

“Her blood alcohol level was…,” he glances down at his clipboard and then back up at her and squares his shoulders, like maybe this is the worst news he has to give, “high.” 

“So she was drunk,” she repeats, mostly under her breath, returning her attention to the inert form in front of her. The doctor watches her for a minute and then makes a movement towards her only to check himself and turn instead to look at the monitors that are clicking and beeping beside the bed. 

“The next forty-eight hours are critical,” he says, doing something so the pinging noise of the heart and oxygen monitor isn’t quite so deafening. “With brain swelling like this, it usually takes a few days before we know exactly what we’re dealing with.” 

“Is there anything else you can do?” Becky asks, eyeing the monitors with a certain sense of bewilderment that I can see she is trying hard to hide, her back rail straight, her shoulders squared, her chin high.

“Wellll,” the doctor taps the pen against the clip board again and I watch as she clenches her jaw and tightens her grip on the rail until I feel sorry for the metal bar. “There are some other tests but….” He eyeballs her like he’s trying to decide if he should continue or not. “Your mother’s VA benefits don’t cover the costs unless you have…?” His voice fades as she tersely shakes her head, dismissing the idea that she has any extra coverage before he can even give voice to the question. “We are monitoring her closely,” he adds quickly, as if to placate her, though Becky’s expression never changes from the closed, agitated expression she’s been wearing ever since her sister showed up in the driveway. “If anything changes drastically, of course we’ll do everything we can.” 

“So you’re saying she might die?” she asks, a slight quaver to her voice the only evidence that she’s feeling anything at all. 

“That is…well, yes, it’s a possibility, but I think we need to be positive and….”

“I hope she does die,” she says quietly but firmly, finally letting go of the safety rail and reaching forward to briefly and gently touch her fingertips to her mother’s toes, “for her sake.” That’s when I give up wondering what the right thing to do is, when the doctor can’t hide the shock on his face and she turns towards where I’m standing in the doorway and stumbles, right into my arms. “Don’t ask me if I mean it,” she says in a voice strangled by the tears she’s trying so hard not to shed. 

“I won’t,” I promise, sliding my arm around her and leading her out of the room.

“Why aren’t you looking at me like I’ve grown horns?” I stare across the table at Kris who is calmly twirling spaghetti around his fork and looking completely unaffected by having seen the drama at the hospital. 

“Because I can see you haven’t,” he smiles and then slips the heavily laden fork between his lips and grins around it. When I make a face like I don’t believe him he just shrugs and drops his fork. “You just want me to give you a lecture so you can give in to the guilt that’s stopping you from eating that,” he adds, pointing at the melting chocolate sundae I ordered instead of food. 

“Yeah well you shouldn’t have let me order that either,” I grumble, dropping the spoon I’ve been using to try and stop the melting liquid from dripping over the sides of the bowl into the mess of chocolate fudge, melted bananas foster ice cream, and warm caramel sauce. My stomach wants it but he’s right, the lead weight in my gut won’t let me eat it. 

“I’m not one of those guys who tells women what they should or shouldn’t eat,” Kris begins, with a sly grin as he looks at me through his bangs before he combs his fingers through his dark hair, taming it, for now.

“So you’re just going to sit there and not ask me anything?” Reaching across the table I grab his fork and stab a meatball from the top of the mountain of noodles and sauce and pop it in my mouth. “Mmm fuck that’s good.” 

“I won’t even tell you not to talk with your mouth full,” he adds with a shake of his head, which sends those unruly bangs of his back into his eyes as he tosses a napkin at me. 

“So you’re seriously trying to tell me you’re sitting there not judging me?” I ask, unable to stop myself from smiling back at that playful, sexy little grin of his. Fortunately he manages to wipe the grin off of his face, but not before he leans forward and reaches for my hands. I watch my clammy fingers disappear into his hands and wonder how he can stand touching them. I haven’t been able to stop wiping my hands on my jeans since we left the house. They also haven’t stopped shaking since we got to the hospital. 

“No one’s family is perfect Rebecca,” he tells me seriously, tilting his head to one side and giving me an encouraging half smile. “Everyone has something or someone they wish they could lock in the attic. Why should you be any different?” 

“I wonder if Max will feel the same way about it,” I mutter, pulling my hands back from his because it doesn’t seem fair for him to be comforting me and not just because I’m an evil ungrateful daughter but because if anyone should be doing it, it should be Max and yet, I’m sort of glad he isn’t seeing me like this. 

“You shouldn’t put him up on some kind of…,” Kris mumbles something under his breath as he tries to search for the right word in English, “some kind of pedestal. He’s just human. We’re all just regular guys,” he adds quietly, picking up his fork and pushing a meatball across his plate. 

“But he’s not,” I disagree with a smile as I think about Max’s easy grin and the way it feels when I wake up, warm and safe in his arms. “You don’t understand,” I begin, glancing over at Kris and then suddenly feeling shy and ducking my head away. “He’s like…he didn’t have to take me in. He’s…he’s a big deal and I’m so not,” I add, rescuing the cherry from the melting mess in front of me and popping it into my mouth, stem and all. I hear the sound of Kris’s fork clattering against his plate and look up to see him staring sternly down at his plate, as if it’s done something to offend him. “Sorry, I’m gushing aren’t I?” He looks up at me slowly and I brace myself for some sort of reality check but then he just shrugs and picks up his fork again and goes back to poking at his food.

“So your dad…he isn’t in the picture?” he asks, changing the subject, and I gratefully pounce on the opportunity to stop sounding like a love sick teenager. 

“I haven’t seen my dad since…,” I have to think about it for a moment before I can even answer the question. “I think he walked me to kindergarten and then I got home from school and my grandmother was there and he was gone. I think that was the last time,” I explain, reaching over to pick up his glass of red wine and downing the contents. 

“Was he in the Army?” he asks, reaching for the bottle and upending it into the glass but he doesn’t reach for it, just leaves it in front of me like he knows I need it. 

“No…oh, I don’t know really, I hardly remember him. Maybe he was,” I sigh, picking up the glass and sipping at the smooth, oaky contents. “My mom never really talked about him when she came back from Kuwait.” 

“Your mom was in Kuwait? You mean…in the war?” he asks, looking surprised or maybe alarmed. His reaction makes me smile but only because it’s the same reaction I’ve seen my entire life. You’d think people wouldn’t be as surprised any more that women join the army. 

“Yeah, which is why she’s got such shit insurance,” I sigh, and then, with an ironic smile, raise my glass in salute. “God Bless America.” 

“Hey, where have you been all day?” I turn down the volume on the TV as I watch Becks appear at the head of the stairs. She doesn’t answer, just drops her purse on the floor and then sheds her jacket as she walks, or rather struts towards me, silent, her expression unreadable. “Is there something wrong ma petit chaton?” She smiles but still doesn’t answer and tugs her t-shirt over her head, flinging it aside before she finally ends up sitting astride my lap. I open my mouth to ask what I’ve done to deserve the strip tease but she shakes her head and presses one finger against my lips while her other hand curls around the back of my neck. “Well if that’s the way you want it,” I murmur against her finger and her expression goes from almost entirely blank to sexually predatory in a split second. 

“It is. No talking, just fucking,” she whispers and then covers my mouth with hers’ in a long, tongue twining, hot kiss while show slowly yanks open my shirt by ripping out each and every button until she’s tugging the last one from beneath my belt. “Bedroom Now,” she commands, standing up and holding her hand out to me, which I take and stumble after her, because all the blood in my entire body has flowed into my groin, making it almost impossible to walk. 

“What happened with you today?” I ask as she shoves me down onto the bed and crawls onto it after me, over me, straddling my body and running her hands over my chest, looking down at me like I’m a big plate of warm, gooey chocolate chip cookies that she can’t wait to devour. 

“What did I say? Do you always talk when you should be listening Max?” she whispers, pressing the pad of her finger to my lips again and shaking her head. Smiling up at her, I draw her finger into my mouth and suck it slowly in, swirling my tongue around it until she bites down on her bottom lip and her pupils dilate. 

“I’ve been accused of that,” I admit as I let her finger go and reach for the top button on her jeans, taking in the sight of her above me in the black lacey bra with her pale breasts spilling out of it, her hair loose, draping around her shoulders in thick dark waves. “God you’re beautiful.” 

“Fuck Max,” she shakes her head and grabs my hands, pressing them back onto the bed, lacing her fingers in mine. “Shut the fuck up.”  

Obediently I lay there, my arms flat on the bed, watching as she unclips her bra and tosses it behind me and then she lays down on me, pressing her tits against my chest while her mouth works over mine. My hands don’t stay still for long though. Grabbing her ass, I press my pelvis up against her, grinding my throbbing erection against her until she moans into my mouth and then the remainder of our clothes just go flying, some intact, some in pieces, until we’re both naked and she’s riding me, my fingers digging into her thighs, her back bowed, her eyes unfocussed and sweat making her skin glow. 

“Yessss! Oh Max, yesss,” she cries, her head thrown back as I press my cock up into her, our bodies locked together, my cock buried as deep in her as it can go. 

I guess it’s too late to explain how I’m not supposed to have sex the night before a big game. 

Draining the dregs of the dark, red wine from my glass I put it down on my bedside table and lean back against the pillows and close my eyes. 

‘Niaiseux’, I scold myself. ‘Maudit tata’ I add as I listen to the sounds she makes as Max fucks her so that she can stop thinking about her mother lying, maybe dying, in that hospital bed. I get it. I understand the drive to procreate when faced with either the threat of or with death itself and I can’t or at least shouldn’t complain. 

I could have divested her of the impression that I’m gay and I didn’t. Having her confide in me, trust me, seems more important, or at least that’s what I tell myself as I close my eyes and try to imagine it isn’t him causing her to make the noises I can hear drifting into my bedroom window on the evening breeze. 

Instead, I imagine that it’s my hands sweeping over her soft, pale skin, raising goose bumps behind every touch, every caress. I visualize the dark, copper tinged coffee coloured waves of her hair spread out across my pillow and the dark, chocolate pools of her eyes gazing up at me full of desire. I picture my dick slipping into her soft, wet folds; disappearing into her body, feeling her heat squeezing around my cock. 

“Je t’aime, mon ange,” I whisper as my hand slides down over my stomach to the ties on my pajama bottoms needing the release even as guilt and pain make my stomach twist and clench uncomfortably. But it doesn’t do any good anymore to tell myself that she’s Max’s girl. It’s not just because she’s sexy and funny anymore. Now that I’ve seen into her darkness and I’ve seen a glimpse of her insecurity, now I know it’s much more than a crush. 

What am I going to do about I don’t know…I honestly don’t know.