Page 89 of Guitars and Cages

I squeezed his hand as best I could. “I will, just, don’t you fuckin’ go dyin’ on me, asshole,” I stammered, crying hard again.

“You’re...the...asshole,” he managed before going silent again.

The monitors kept on beeping, or I might have completely panicked. As it was, I was barely holding it together.

“He’s talking—that’s good, right? That means there’s a chance?” I asked through my tears.

“There’s always some chance. By all rights he shouldn’t have made it this long, but he has. All we can do is hope and pray and sit with him until...well until the good Lord sees fit to decide.”

“He doesn’t deserve to die!”

“Death isn’t something we deserve, son. Death just happens.”

I sighed and retreated behind my hair, ’cause I couldn’t agree with him; some people did deserve death, and I was one of them. We were all silent for a good long time, with only the woosh, beeps, and blips of the machinery for company.

Chapter Thirty-One

“Why don’t you both go down to the cafeteria and get something to eat?” Earl suggested, several hours after Gage had spoken to me.

Eve stood, but I didn’t want to go with her, so I stayed where I was. “I’m fine, I don’t need anything.”

“Git, don’t need you ending up in a bed, too.”

“Yes, sir,” I said with a sigh, running my hand over Gage’s once more before leaving the room. Conner was still waiting for me, sitting in the visitor’s lounge reading a book. I ignored Eve and went to stand next to him.

“You okay?” Conner asked as he stood.

“No, not really, but I’m a little better than I was. He woke up for a moment, long enough to know I was here, anyway.”

Conner put a hand on my shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “That’s better than nothing.”

“Yeah. We’re, uhh, supposed to go eat. It’s been awhile, I guess.”

Conner nodded. “Yeah, we didn’t stop for breakfast; we probably should get something. I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.”

“I’ll eat, I guess,” I said, staying beside him.

Eve was watching us, her eyes hard and a bit angry. Despite all the years that had passed, I still remembered how to get to the cafeteria. The idea of anything too solid wasn’t sitting well with me, not since the mescaline, so I grabbed fruit, juice, and Jell-O, and sat down across from Conner, hoping Eve wouldn’t join us. It was too much to hope, I suppose.

She plopped her tray down next to Conner and looked from me to him and back again. “So, is he why you didn’t come home?”

“No.”

Conner glanced at her, and then looked back at me, bewildered.

“Conner, meet Eve. Eve, this is Conner. Eve would be my ex-girlfriend.”

“And the mother of his son,” she cut in.

I sighed and turned my attention to my food.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Conner mumbled.

Since I was ignoring her, she turned all her attention on Conner. “Let me guess: he never mentioned that he had a son, did he?”

“Dammit, Eve, leave him be. For fuck’s sake, Conner and I haven’t known each other very long, so no, I didn’t tell him about the kid. I only told him about you and Gage last night so he’d know why the hell I needed to come back.”

“Well, excuse me for being curious,” she huffed. “Maybe I’m still trying to understand what you could possibly have been doing that was so important that you couldn’t be bothered to be a man and be responsible.”

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