The light comin’ in through the slatted curtains fell in fat grey fragments across the hospital bed, highlightin’ the gold of Lou’s hair but shadowin’ the beauty of her face. I leaned back in the chair with my broad back pressed uncomfortably to the rigid plastic contours and raked a hand through my hair.
It was hard to look at her as she was, curled up and frail in a white room stripped of all personality. It was embarrassin’, avoiding a bedridden face, like racism or sexism, any-ism. But I couldn’t wrap my mind ’round the fact that my girl had cancer.
Again.
And that she hadn’t told me about it in the fuckin’ first place.
It had taken five hours of ridin’ my bike through coastal back roads to figure out where she’d been comin’ from.
’Cause she had a point.
If she’d told me about the cancer from the get-go, there’s no way I woulda let myself go there with her. I wouldn’t’a kissed, fucked or held her like she was my woman.
I woulda coddled her, told her to take care of herself and maybe watched from afar, like I’d done the first four months after seein’ her again at that party.
And then Lou wouldn’t be mine.
That was somethin’ even harder to wrap my head ’round.
Because that girl lying in that bed was mine the way a sculpture created by an artist was his. I’d formed her soft clay shape with my words then cast it in copper with my hands and finally she’d settled in her current shape. A little warrior rebel with the soul of an angel in the body of a sinner.
A contradiction and the most beautiful one ever born in nature.
A nurse came in with a soft, nervous smile at the huge biker sittin’ in his leather cut beside the bed of a teenager. She checked the machines and glanced at me like she wanted to ask for a minute alone to do something to Lou a man shouldn’t see.
The plastic chair screeched as I pushed it back.
The woman watched me as I dipped down to place my hand across Lou’s damp forehead and press a kiss to her cheek. “Be back.”
I walked the white corridors with my hands shoved deep in my pockets and my shoulders at my ears.
To occupy myself, I went to the vending machine ’cause I’d forgotten lunch in my quest to find Lou.
Took the side staircase and found it had that stale dead and dyin’ smell.
Counted the stairs as I took ’em two by two.
Lingered over my choice of drink—tea or coffee, milk or sugar—when I only ever drank coffee black.
Kicked my boot against the vending machine while it poured my drink then thrummed my fingers against my thigh when it took too long.
Anything to keep myself from thinkin’ about my little Lou up in that hospital bed sick and wrong with somethin’ I was helpless to fight.
I grabbed the coffee and took the stairs back up at a clip, reachin’ her room with a head fulla panic like somethin’ could’ve gone wrong in the three minutes I wasn’t by her side.
The nurse was still there. Her startled expression collapsed with empathy when she caught the fear in me.
“She’s good for now. Just got a little dehydrated. We’re giving her fluids and after some rest, she should be just fine.”
“Thanks,” I grunted, movin’ around to sit in that fuckin’ orange chair again.
I pulled it right up to her bed and took her hand.
The nurse left quiet.
I was lucky Betsy had been on staff that day or else I wouldn’t’a been allowed in when I found out Lou was even there. I’d spent two hours thinkin’ worse, that the Nightstalkers had got ’er or she’d been hit by a car or some shit.
It’d been her ex-boyfriend of all fuckin’ people who called H.R. to tell her that Lou’d been taken away from school in an ambulance. No surprise that the kid knew ’bout us at that point—everyone in Entrance fuckin’ did—but I had to give the kid some grudging respect for pickin’ up the phone for his ex like that.
It’d been Betsy who’d had to deal with me when I started yellin’ at the bitches in reception who wouldn’t tell me where my girl was.
It was Bets who’d told me that Lou had Hodgkin’s Lymphoma again.
Loulou stirred slightly, unpeelin’ her heavy eyes to reveal those true blue eyes I loved so fuckin’ much.
“You’re here,” she croaked.
I nodded, pulling our tangled hands against my mouth to give hers a kiss. “Wouldn’t be anywhere else.”
Tears wet those eyes and made my heart clench.
“Even though I seriously suck?”
I grinned despite the turmoil in my fuckin’ gut. “Yeah, Lou, even when you seriously suck.”
She closed her eyes and dragged in a shaky breath. “Thank God.”
“Told ya you were stuck with me,” I reminded her.
She grinned like that was the best thing she’d ever heard. “Can you get up here with me?”
I eyed the little bed skeptically, which had her laughin’.
“I’ll lean up and you can sit behind me? Please, I’m cold and all I want is you all around me.”
Immediately, I let go of her hand and gently helped her scoot forward so I could settle myself against the raised back of the bed and pull her against my chest. She rearranged the blankets against us and carefully pulled the tubes in her hands out from underneath them.
“Sorry I didn’t tell you,” she whispered as she tucked my arms tighter around her body.
I pressed my lips to her hair. “Forget about it. I know now.”
“What does this mean for us?” she asked, her voice girlish with fear.
That fear wrapped cold fingers around my heart and squeezed like a motherfucker.
“Nothin’. You’re still my girl and I’m still your man. You need anythin’, I’m here for you. That includes puke clean up, pickin’ up drugs at the pharmacy, all that kinda shit. It also means you need someone to sit in the hospital with ya and your parents are too fuckin’ selfish to do it themselves, all the better for me ’cause I’m gonna be here every fuckin’ time.”
She sighed into me, settling warm and contented as a cat when I stroked a hand over her hair.
“I might lose it, you know,” she muttered.
My hand stilled on the masses of gold silk. “Fuck, baby.”
“You might not want me. Cancer isn’t a pretty illness, Z.”
I gripped her chin and tilted it up ’til I could look into those scared eyes. Pressed a warm kiss to her lips and said, “Don’t be a fuckin’ dumbass.”
“I might die,” she whispered even softer.
“You might,” I agreed ’cause I wanted to be honest with her but the thought had daggers shootin’ between each of my ribs, all angled at my heart.
“Do you think I’ll go to heaven?” she asked me.
“Fuck yeah, which sucks for me.”
She shifted between my legs, tippin’ her head up so she could look past my bearded jaw and into my eyes. “You going to explain that to me?”
I reached out to rub one callused thumb along the plump curve of her lower lip, my concentration so intense it felt like my eyes burned. “You asked me any day ’fore I met you, I woulda said there was no fuckin’ chance I’d get into heaven. A man like me havin’ done the things I did, things I needed to do? Fuck no.”
When she tried to protest, I pressed my thumb harder against her lush mouth and felt my face turn to fuckin’ stone. “Now, I ain’t makin’ you any promises here, little warrior, but if your fine ass is going to heaven—and it fuckin’ well is—I’ll find a way to get there too. If I gotta move into that fuckin’ church and pay penance every goddamn hour, I’ll do it. If I gotta give up boozin’, guns and drug runnin’, I’ll fuckin’ well do it and I’d do it now if it meant I got a place beside my girl behind those pearly gates.”
She bit her lip to keep from cryin’ because she knew I didn’t like her tears and then she valiantly tried to lighten the mood. “You’d probably have to give up cursing too. I think that’s a pretty tall order.”
“Fuck yeah, it is,” I agreed before jerking her even closer to me until we were fused together, until I could feel the reassurin’ beat of her heart against my chest. A heartbeat so much more important than my own. “Do it for you, Lou. Do anythin’ for you.”
