I closed my eyes. Rage threatened to boil, to tip over.
I needed to go.
Pulling off onto the road, I headed to the only place that ever managed to silence the noise in my head.
It was getting late, but that was fine. Didn’t care much about visiting hours. The nurses barely looked at me when I walked in. Maybe it was the bruised knuckles, or the hoodie pulled low,or the look in my eyes that said don’t fuck with me… Either way, no one stopped me.
When I reached the hospital, I bypassed the nurses’ station without a word. I pushed open the door to her room, the scent of antiseptic and stale air hitting me.
Mom lay unmoving, her breathing a rhythmic, shallow whisper that barely moved the sheets.
I sank into my usual seat, reaching out and taking her hand in mine. Her skin was cold and brittle, but holding it was the only thing that made me feel grounded, could calm me against the anger roiling throughme tonight. I watched the monitor, the jagged green line of her heart rate spiking slightly at my touch before settling back into its slow, tired cadence.
I let out a long sigh. Sometimes I wondered if she was really in there anymore, but the silence of the room was the only place I felt safe enough to be weak.
“Hey, Mom...” I whispered, the words catching in my throat. I waited, as if expecting a squeeze of my hand that didn’t come. “I needed to see you… It’s been a rough week. I don’t really know where to start.”
I rubbed the back of her hand with my thumb. “If you want the good news… I won the match. Saving every cent of it. I don’t want to owe Noah anything. Speaking of the bastard, he got me out of trouble with the law again. Now he’s giving me an ultimatum.”
My hands began to shake. “I either join his business and get off the streets, or… he pulls the plug. He didn’t say it in those words, but I know him. I know that’s the play.” I bowed my head, my voice cracking. “I can’t bear to see you go, Mom. I know it’s selfish to keep you here like this, but you’re the only one making this life worth anything. You—you’re the only reason I’m still trying.”
The steadybeep-beepof the monitor filled the void.
“…Do you remember the girl I mentioned? Ingrid? She’s starting to get under my skin... and I hate it. I don’t like how much it gets to me. We’ve only known each other a few weeks, and I don’t even know how to handle my own head, let alone the things she makes me feel. Am I losing it? Maybe.”
I let out a bitter, self-deprecating laugh.
“She’s-she’s just so soft, and sweet, and scared of her own damn shadow. I don’t fucking know what to do with that. The other night at the match, someone spilled a beer on her. A normal person would’ve been annoyed, maybe yelled. She just... she broke. She cried like she was beinghunted. I got her back to the locker room, offered her some dry clothes, and do you want to know what my dumb ass did?”
I looked at my mother’s peaceful face.
“I tried to take her shirt off. I just wanted to help, to make it better, to show her I wasn’t a threat. And she let me. But then I saw it, Mom. A bruise. A handprint on her arm. It was too big to be hers, and the grip... it wasn’t an accident.”
My gut twisted low, almost painfully.
“And I know who did it.”
I looked past my mom now, gaze lost in the distance as my mind turned back to that call Ingrid had taken at the tattoo parlor, the angry male voice rapid-firing at her in a language I didn’t understand but a tone I knew all too well. The image of her flinching at his voice, the way she curled into herself like he was right in front of her…
Yeah. I knew exactly who the bastard was.
“She hasn’t told me,” I said, “doesn’t feel comfortable enough to yet, I guess. But I know who it was.”
And then I saw her walking to her front door tonight, as I sat helpless and watchful, my doll returning to a home ruled by the bastard who put his hands on her—a man who dared to put his hands on my girl.
Something cold and murderous settled under my ribs.
I leaned back, the weight of two different worlds—my mother’s fading one and Ingrid’s broken one—pressing down on me.
The room darkened around us as the sun began to set. My thoughts churned until they were nothing but silence.
Eventually, exhaustion yanked me under.
I drifted into a restless sleep in the plastic chair, still holding my mother’s hand, still thinking of a bruise on a girl I had no business wanting as badly as I did.
Chapter ten
Tristian
