Page 77 of When the Stars Fall
Fucking hell. “It’s not fine. Let me see it.”
Reluctantly, she let me take her hand in both of mine. I tried to be as gentle as I could but she winced and I could already see that it was starting to swell.
“What did I do?” I asked, my voice cracking on the words. My chest tightened and I could barely breathe. I wanted to cry like a fucking baby. Yesterday morning I saw our baby on the monitor, its heart beating steady and strong, and I’d vowed to be the best father I could be.
“You didn’t do anything. I just... it was me. I fell off the bed.”
“You fell off the bed?” Bile burned the back of my throat as my hand went to her stomach. “Are you okay? Is the baby okay?”
“I’m fine. Really. I’m okay,” she assured me, placing her hand over mine.
How could she be okay? None of this was okay.
I piled up three pillows and propped her elbow on it. “Hold your arm up so your hand is above your heart. It’ll help...” Help what? The swelling? The baby inside her? Her own sanity? How had it come to this? I never thought I’d see the day when I needed to protect Lila from me. “I’ll get you some ice.”
* * *
Thankfully,Lila’s wrist wasn’t sprained but she had to keep it wrapped for a few days. At night, I’d get into bed with her and wait until she fell asleep. Then I’d move to the floor or the sofa. Sometimes I’d just pace the living room or sit on our balcony until the cold seeped into my bones.
If I got a few hours of sleep at night, I was lucky. I couldn’t even trust myself to sleep with her. I was trying to lay off the whiskey and the drugs she knew nothing about. Trying to be better for Lila. For our unborn baby. I’d been sober as a church mouse since the night I hurt her wrist and two weeks had gone by with no further incidents.
Until today.
I was a bomb about to detonate and I didn’t fucking know how to control that or contain my anger.
“What the hell is going on?” my dad shouted. “Jude. Let him go.”
I released my hold on Pete, the little shit who did concrete work for my dad, and gave him a shove. Then I turned and strode away, needing to put space between us.
“Get back here,” my dad called after me. “You have a job to finish.”
I turned to face him, not fully trusting myself not to plant my fist in Pete’s stupid-ass face. “I need to go.”
“It’s two in the afternoon. You’re not going anywhere until you tell me what the hell is going on with you.”
“Why don’t you ask Pete?”
“Dude.” He held up his hands. “I was just making conversation. No need to go all mental on me.”
My jaw clenched and I tried to breathe through my nose. “Just making conversation? Do you even know where Afghanistan is? Could you find it on a map?”
“Hey man, I don’t get what the big deal is. You used to be a Marine, right? I mean, you’re trained to kill. All I did was ask how many ragheads he killed,” he told my dad. “And he slammed me against the wall, the psycho.”
My hands balled into fists. The douchebag was whining to my dad. I wanted to shove his head up his ass. We’d gone to high school together and I didn’t really know him then, but I knew he hung out with Kyle Matthews which made a lot of sense.
“I wasn’t trained to kill,” I said through clenched teeth. “I was trained to protect stupid shits like you. And they’re not ragheads. They’re human beings. So watch what the fuck you say.”
“Okay, okay. Show’s over,” my dad told the guys on the crew who had stopped working to watch the drama. “Pete. Get back to work and keep your opinions to yourself. We need to get this foundation laid. And you,” my dad pointed at me then used two fingers to summon me like I was a dog who had been trained to do his bidding. “Come with me.”
I stared at his back as he walked away, fully expecting me to follow him. Instead, I strode to my truck and climbed in. As I pulled away, I saw him in my rearview mirror shouting for me to come back.
Twenty minutes later, I pulled off the highway and parked in front of The Roadhouse.
The scent of stale beer and cigarettes greeted me as I walked through the door, my vision adjusting to the dim interior. Multi-colored Christmas lights flashed behind the bar and a country singer wailed from tinny speakers that crackled on each note. I pulled up a stool at the bar, my arrival raising the total number of customers to four, and stared at my reflection in the Budweiser mirror behind the bar.
“Well, would you look at what the cat dragged in. You’re not looking so good, baby.” Colleen Madigan flipped the cap off a bottle of Bud and set it in front of me on a cardboard coaster. Reaching for the top shelf, she grabbed a bottle of whiskey and two shot glasses that she set on the bar and filled to the brim. She raised her glass in a toast. “Here’s to my boy. May he rest in peace. And here’s to you. Reese loved you something fierce. He couldn’t have asked for a better friend.”
We downed the shots and set our glasses on the bar. The whiskey burned a trail down my throat. Like battery acid. That’s what lies tasted like. She refilled my shot glass and I knew she would keep them coming until I was too drunk to walk out of here.
