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The thing I can’t wrap my head around as I’m lying in this fucking hospital bed, wishing it was me, was why wasn’t it? Why am I still here? What fucking purpose is there to this life? What reason could there possibly be for me to live instead of him? I don’t have a baby daughter. I don’t have anyone to go home to. Nobody gives a shit if I’m here or not. But Adler had people who still needed him, so he should be the one recovering.
The rage and indignation I feel over that injustice overshadow everything else. I’ve gone rounds inside my head with God, the universe, or whoever the fuck it is who’s in charge of this bullshit destiny. And at my darkest, when I’m lying here alone, wishing I was dead, I entertain thoughts about finishing the job fate fucked up.
I’ve examined the distance to the window in my room, wondering how much force it would take to shatter it. How much effort would it take to heave my broken body out of it until I splatter onto the concrete below? How long would it take to bleed out if I grabbed one of those shards of glass instead and stabbed myself in the throat? Would it be as long as Adler? Would I know what he felt then?
My phone rings from the bedside, and I flinch, annoyed that I forgot to silence it. But knowing that it’s probably my mom, I make myself reach for it. She’s been calling me every day since I woke up. I don’t feel like talking to her. I don’t feel like talking to anybody. But these few minutes we force conversation keep me from thinking about the inevitable.
“Hello?” I push the word past my parched lips.
“Madden,” Mom replies quietly. “Did I wake you?”
“No.”
I don’t tell her it’s the middle of the night here. It doesn’t matter. I don’t sleep anyway, and this is the only time she can call me privately. To her credit, she’s held up her end of the bargain, fulfilling the one request I asked of her before I deployed. If I was injured, I didn’t want anyone else to know.
“How are you?” she asks.
“Living the dream,” I answer gruffly.
The other end of the line goes silent, and a part of me hates being such an asshole, but I don’t have the energy to be anything else right now.
“I heard they’re transferring you to the hospital in Bethesda in a few more weeks,” she tells me. “I was thinking maybe I could come visit if you want.”
“Why?”
More silence. And then I hear her shuffling around, her voice uncharacteristically emotional when she speaks again. “Madden, I know I haven’t always done right by you. I’ve probably failed you in more ways than I can count. But I do love you. I want you to know that. And you don’t have to go through this alone. I can come to you.”
I close my eyes and swallow twenty years of repressed anger. There’s no point in telling her she’s two decades too late for apologies. Because at the end of the day, no matter how fucked up it is, I still don’t want to hurt her that way.
“They have a good medical team,” I reply. “They’ll help me. I don’t want anyone to see me like this.”
“The doctor tells me you’re making good progress,” she says. “Once you get through physical therapy, hopefully you’ll start feeling like yourself again.”
“Yeah, I guess.” Except physical therapy can’t cure the fucked-up thoughts in my head.
“Everybody keeps asking about you,” she adds. “Adam is worried. So is Bianca. She calls me all the time from New York, asking for updates. I was thinking maybe I could just tell them now that you’re coming back to the States, and then—”
“No,” I clip out.
She sighs, and I can almost imagine her pouring herself a glass of wine. “Okay. I just don’t like lying to them. It’s getting harder to find things to say, and it feels wrong.”
“Why is Bianca in New York?” I ask because I can’t help myself.
There’s a long pause on the other end of the line before she answers.
“Things have been a little rocky with her mental health,” mom says. “This transition with Adam at TCA has been a very stressful time for both of them. They were bickering a lot, and Bianca wanted more attention than he could give her. She has a history of these episodes apparently, and she’s been in and out of treatment, which we didn’t know. But when Adam started showing up to work with bruises and scratches all over him, Stefan felt he needed to step in. We had a meeting with her parents, and we all felt it would be best if she went to inpatient treatment, which she did.”
