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It was the icing on the cake of a perfectly fantastically fucked up day.
In between those twenty minutes that it took me to get to the scene where I’d convinced myself she’d be on the side of the road dead, added to the words she’d lashed at me, I was a mess.
And the last thing I wanted to do was go into my room where my family was waiting to berate me.
However, when I got there, Tyson let go of my hand and all but pushed me onto the bed.
I groaned when the jolt caused my lungs to shake in my chest.
“Owww,” I tried to breathe through the pain, but that only seemed to make it worse.
“Jesus Christ, Tyson.” Zip reached over me and slapped him upside the head. “He just had surgery.”
“I would’ve thought you’d want him in pain,” Tyson teased as he resumed his lounge on my bed.
With my eyes squeezed tightly shut, I slowly worked myself onto the bed, my body feeling so damn weak it wasn’t funny.
It took me a solid two minutes to get where I wanted to be, and once I was there, it took me another three to get my breathing back under control.
It was only as that happened that I realized the seating arrangement had been changed.
My mom and siblings were on the couch. Tyson was still on the bed. But Zip was now between Tyson and me.
And her cool hand was pressed against my hot forehead.
It felt divine.
I wanted it to stay there and never move.
But she did move it once she saw my eyes were open, and then turned her back to me and started watching the movie that was playing on the television.
We were now on The Winter Soldier.
Damn, I missed my favorite part of the last one.
But at this point, maybe I didn’t deserve happiness.
Maybe what I deserved was to miss the best parts of every single movie, have her hate me forever, and have nothing good ever happen to me again.
I closed my eyes and once again tried to breathe through the pain.
Only, this pain wasn’t physical.
• • •
At some point, I must’ve fallen asleep, because I came awake with the knowledge that there were a lot fewer people in my room.
“He’s been absolutely shattered,” I heard my mom say. “I thought it was because you left, and I’m sorry for thinking the worst of you, it’s just how he was acting… Gosh, I thought that you’d ripped his heart out. I had no idea that he’d ripped his own heart out.”
Zip sighed from the bed next to me.
I could almost feel her breath on my face.
“I’m not sure that either of us were thinking very clearly,” she admitted. “I knew what was happening after a while, but I was so freakin’ mad that I didn’t even think to follow him over here. I should have.”
I wish she would have.
Maybe this pain in my chest wouldn’t be so acute.
“Maybe you both made some bad decisions,” she agreed. “I can’t say that we make the right ones when emotions are high.”
“No,” she agreed. “What happened with that woman and the baby?”
“A freakin’ mess,” my mom grumbled. “Nash’s crew chief apparently slept with her. Sometime before she and Nash broke up, but not very long. Like a few days at most. She left, then showed up with a baby that definitely didn’t look anything like Nash. God, she was a gorgeous little girl. But she looks exactly like Akon. Same hair. Same eyes. Same dimple. That was why we knew she wasn’t Nash’s. She has such cute little dimples. Exactly like Akon’s.”
“Oh,” Zip replied. “Do you know if Saranda has come back into the picture at all?”
“Saranda tried, yes. But Nash was able to hook Akon up with a great lawyer, and for now, she’s being accused of abandonment. There’s a temporary order in place that keeps the baby with Akon until they can get to court and settle it.”
“Good,” she grumbled. “I don’t know Saranda, but I do know that anyone who abandons their own kid needs to get their lives in check.”
“Completely agreed,” Mom murmured. “What are your plans now, Zip?”
“I still have to work,” she said. “The circus doesn’t run itself. But I’ll be at every appointment and surgery from now on. He won’t be able to get rid of me a second time.”
I blinked my eyes open at that to see her staring directly at me, as if she knew I was awake and wanted to make sure that I knew how serious she was.
“He starts chemo tomorrow,” Mom said, sounding tired. “You can go with him.”
Fuck.
“I’ll make arrangements,” she said. “Anything in particular that I should be aware of for tomorrow?”
I closed my eyes once again, not wanting to hear anything more.
To be truthful, this entire damn thing zapped my strength, and it felt like I was barely holding my head above water.
