Jessie

Waking up HURT.

I shifted and stirred and my whole body ached, bright flames of pain igniting in my chest and gut and leg and spreading through my whole being as I groaned and sat up, pushing off the airbag. Fuck...

I reached for the key, punched it into the airbag, beating it deflated with screaming muscles. I unbuckled the seatbelt and wrenched the door open with a shriek of metal, and collapsed out onto the sodden ground.

Shit, this hurt. I'd expected it, but I hadn't realized how MUCH it would hurt.

I looked over my body, cataloging my injuries. Each breath stabbed, and I had a feeling I had multiple broken ribs. I felt sick at the sight of the blood-bubbling hole in my abdomen, and I guessed I was bleeding internally as well soaking my shirt with red. Morgan's gun must've gone off in the crash. The weakness and brilliant pain in my lower right leg told me the bone was probably broken. I brought trembling hands to my face, felt my smashed nose. My face hurt to touch, hurt with every inhalation, probably a broken cheekbone. Was that a chunk of torn skin hanging off the side of my face? I couldn't even begin to catalog every injury, every pain. I could move though, agonizingly.

I lifted myself up on the doorframe of the wrecked car, fumbled under the seat, pulled out the first aid kit before collapsing back to the ground. I screamed in agony as I pulled off my jacket, and I used a couple of ab pad gauze bandages secured with an Israeli bandage to cover the gunshot wound under my ribs. Propping myself up against the car, I unfolded a SAM splint, used it and two rolls of kerlix to stabilize my lower right leg.

By the time I was done, I was sweating and shaking with pain, and my limbs were feeling numb with overload. I was bruised and crushed and shot and broken, bleeding out slowly. I sighed. I wasn't strong enough to finish this.

The syringes of heroin had survived the crash inside their little leather case, and it took three sticks with trembling hands to put the needle in my left arm.

Warmth and peace and tiredness filled my body as the drug caught and spread through my bloodstream. It felt like the pain retreated after a few endless moments, buzzing in the background as I breathed slow and peaceful.

No.

I focused my consciousness against the tiredness I felt, aware of the drugs effects and fighting back.

I couldn't sleep here.

I pulled my jacket back on, pulled myself up on the edge of the car, leaned in, slowly guiding myself back onto the smashed car seat between it and the steering wheel.

Morgan was crushed against the passenger side console - I'd deactivated the airbag yesterday when I'd gotten home, and cut most of the way through the seatbelt.

He groaned as I slapped his face. "Wake up."

He couldn't move, trapped as he was, injured as he was. It surprised me he was still alive, but guys like this didn't die easily. He reached for me, and I batted his hand away.

"Hi," I said. "Told you I'd watch you die."

He groaned again, scanned my face for pity, for weakness. When he spoke, blood leaked from his mouth. "I... You die too. Shot you."

"Yeah well. It was worth it. I'll live longer than you."

"Worth it? To kill me?"

I struggled to find the words in the numb, warm heroin haze. "You think you can sacrifice anyone you want, their time, their money, their lives. As long as you tell yourself it balances on the other side, that makes it ok. Bet you never thought there'd be someone who hates you... That... so much they'd be willing to sacrifice themselves to stop you."

"I was...I...I was doing...my best. For," he coughed violently, tried to shift out of the wreckage. Failed. Collapsed back into the tangle of metal and upholstery and plastic with a cry. "For my brother."

I looked at the dying man and tried to summon up some sadness. Some pity for the years I'd taken from him, from the lifetime of pain and violence I'd cut short. I felt nothing. All my rage was gone, all my hate, all my sadness. All that was left to watch.

I sat and watched. The rain turned to snow and dusk faded to night and the cold deepened. Morgan kept trying to fight his way out of the crushed car and failing.

Eventually, he stopped.

I watched as he cried, tears mixing with blood on his face.

I watched as he called out for his mother, moaning and begging deliriously with pain.

Morgan blinked and came to some semblance of alertness. He reached out to me with a trembling hand. "Hold my hand? Please? I...I don't wanna be alone."

I pushed his hand away. "You are alone."

I blinked and shook painfully awake. Everything hurt and lethargy had found its way into my breathing, my bones, my body slowing as pain returned. I looked over at Morgan, and his eyes were focused on something far, far away. I reached out and felt for a pulse.

He was cold and still.

It was over.

Almost.

I fell over as I crawled out of the wrecked car, crying out at the snowy night sky as I collapsed to the ground. Another shot of painkiller - this time into my leg - sent the weakness retreating after a long moment, and I fought the tiredness that came with it, pulling myself up, figuring out how to plant my leg to stumble over to Grand Prix. It growled to life, and my leg twinged pain through the drug haze with each press of the accelerator.

I almost fell asleep at a stoplight in the city, and it was only the honk of the horn behind me that roused me. Cmon, Jessie. You can't fall asleep now. Soon. Soon you can rest. I shook my head until I felt disoriented, focused on the pain in my leg and my gut. I had a pretty good idea from my anatomy classes and working at the training hospital what damage the bullet has done inside me.

The hospital parking garage was deserted, and I climbed slowly out of the Grand Prix, hobbled over to the stairs.

Fuck, stairs.

I pulled myself up the railing, one step at a time, and the action seemed to accelerate my bleeding. My abdomen felt hard, and blood-soaked my shirt and jeans as it leaked out of the sodden bandage. Not that far now.

The plan had been - if I survived the crash - to go overdose in Gary's room. That wouldn't be necessary now. All I'd need to do was wait.

And I wouldn't need to wait very long.

The hospital hallways were dark and empty, and I crept along, supporting myself tiredly on the wall, leaving a trail of blood on the paint. I turned the corner and collapsed to my knees.

Huh.

That was weird.

I could see myself sitting there.

I shook my head and pulled myself up weakly, kept walking. I still felt disconnected, separate. Memories flashed through my head, out of order, random, and I stumbled forward in a disjointed haze, all at once.

I'm thirty-two years old, and I'm dying.

I'm eight years old and my mom tells me that my dad isn't going to be around anymore, that she needs to find herself.

I'm thirty-one and Gary goes down to the ground in a brawl in downtown Denver. I clench my jaw and bash some black-jacketed asshole in the head with my stick.

I'm twenty-seven, barely dressed, sitting on a shelf in a Minneapolis warehouse, and a very handsome soldier walks by below me.

I'm twenty-nine and the sun shines down on the deck of the yacht Gary had rented, and I kneel naked on the deck as he clasps a collar around my neck.

I'm fourteen and I'm screaming at my mom because she found the love letters I wrote to my high school boyfriend. I'm ashamed when she reads them to me.

I'm eighteen and I'm sitting next to a fireplace in an unfurnished apartment as I detox from antidepressants. McKenna makes pasta from a box and brings it to me.

I'm thirty and I'm lying in a hospital bed. The only child I'd ever have was killing me. I'd aborted it, and I don't know why I feel an incredible sense of loss, but I do. Gary sleeps on a rug next to my bed.

I'm fifteen and I don't feel anything at all.

I'm thirty one and the doorbell rings while I'm sitting at the dinner table, talking with McKenna and Gary. Sienna is about to walk into my life.

I'm eleven and I'm standing with my mom at my dad's funeral. She told me that he killed himself because he missed us.

I'm twenty-eight and sitting in my rocket, crying as I read about Gary's death.

I'm twenty-eight and drunk and I walk into the Milwaukee bar where I had my first date with Gary and he's sitting at the table in the back and my heart overflows with joy.

I'm thirty-two years old, and I'm dying.

I leaned against the doorframe to Gary's room, looking in at him resting in bed. Still sick looking, still small looking. Still dying.

Weakness robbed me of balance and I hit the floor with a wet meat smack. So close.

I dug my elbows in and crawled forward, dragged myself up on the bed, left leg first. I bit my lip and moaned as my right leg swung up after.

Once more, I was lying in bed next to Gary. A tube down his throat kept him breathing, tubes into his body pumped in medications, a line taped to his right hand kept an emergency call button within reach, beeping machines monitored what little life he had left.

But I was lying next to Gary.

I'd missed this.

I reached out and brushed my fingers over his stubbled face. "Hi daddy," I whispered. "I missed you."

No answer, but I didn't expect one. The doctors told me that he could hear me though. Wasn't that why I'd been reading to him?

"Good to see you again. I bet you're wondering why I look like shit, huh." I coughed and it hurt so bad it brought tears to my eyes. The pain was returning with a vengeance, even as I grew more tired. "I did it. Finished what you started. Kept Sienna safe. I stopped Morgan, got some justice for all those people he hurt. For you."

Another cough racked me, blood spattering the white sheets and pillow and the side of his face. I was breathing hard, fighting to suck in enough air as pain and weakness overcame me. " We're gonna have kids someday. Won't that be something? I wonder...I wonder if they'll have your eyes..."

I blinked, fought to rouse myself awake, blinked against encroaching darkness.

I'm thirty one and Gary sings to me in a hotel room in Denver, comforting me, telling me he still loves me as we slow-dance across the carpet.

I brushed his face again. Warm. It'd be the last thing I saw.

"I wanna dance with you," I whispered. "I see a world where people live and die...with grace. The karmic ocean - " another violent cough and I couldn't breathe, only mouth the words as I struggled for air "dry up and leave no trace. I wanna dance with you. I see a sky full of the sta - "

###

I parked the motorcycle in the garage, dropped the ice cream in the freezer. A quick detour through the house to hang up my backpack - the kitchen smelled delicious - and I glanced out back at the garden. A couple massive Tupperware chests full of corn sat by the tan stalks on the left, and I smiled. Up the hill at the way back of the yard, I could see small figures moving.

I let myself out into the chilly evening and walked through the garden, brushing my hands through the crisp, dry stalks of corn. It hadn't frozen yet, and we were leaving the hot peppers until the very last minute. Probably have to spend a day processing them. Beets and potatoes and onions would get dug out soon.

I trudged through the long grass, and the terrain grew steeper. I cut in and out of the bands of trees that grew along the hillside, firs and pines and bare brown trunks reaching for the sky around me, needles rustling underfoot as I walked, breathing in the cool air, feeling it on my skin.

"Mommy!" From a clearing ahead, a little girl's voice called out, and Nina sprinted towards me. I crouched and picked her up, spun her around laughing, put her down. "How was your day?"

"We picked corn and did math and had elk sandwiches for lunch!"

"Sounds yummy! Where's everybody else?"

"Right here." Gary ducked under a branch, kids in tow. "Got home and decided we should go for a walk."

I hugged them all in turn, listening to them babble about their day and their walk, Gary looking on happily. "Why don't you kids get headed home," he announced. "Your mother and I will be right behind."

"Ok!" Nina grabbed her older sister's hand and sprinted away, the smaller children rushing to catch up.

"How was your day?" He asked, smiling.

"Good. Got some new ice cream. Got to smart off to an old farmer who should really be more careful with an axe, and be way nicer to his nurse. Good day."

He gathered me in his arms and held me, tight, powerful arms and firm body against me. "I waited all day to see you. Feels like forever."

"I missed you too."

"Wanna dance?"

I laughed. "Here?"

"Yeah, why not?"

Gary shifted his feet and we were swaying together. "I wanna dance with you," he whispered. "I see a world where people..."

I closed my eyes and snuggled my head into his shoulder as he half sang about how much he wanted to dance with me. This felt perfect.

I was in his arms again.

###

The End

###

I've been around the world and I

I've tasted all the wines

A half a billion times

Came sickened to your shores

You showed me what this life is for

I wanna Dance With You

- Dance With You, Live