Under the Cornerstone (20 page)

I wake to my name being screamed and my body being jolted.

“Noely, please wake up,” I hear Johnny beg.

My eyes flutter open to find his blue eyes on me. He looks scared to death, but the background is moving behind him. I try to sit up, but can’t. I notice my vision has drastically improved.

“I’ve got you, baby,” he tells me and then it dawns on me he’s running. “They’ve got an ambulance here. I wasn’t waiting for them to come up and get you.”

“Okay,” I croak out.

“Sir,” I hear several voices call out.

“She’s hurt!” I hear Ryan yell from behind Johnny.

“Put her on the stretcher,” a man directs.

Johnny places me on the stretcher and looks over my body in a hurried manner as the paramedics do the same.

“I’m fine,” I tell them and attempt to sit up.

I push down with both hands to help myself upright, but my left arm doesn’t cooperate and the pressure of my weight causes an agonizing pain to shred through every cell in my body. I scream and pull my arm to my chest to cradle it.

“It’s broken,” a medic states.

The ride to the hospital is long and lonely since none of them were allowed to ride with me. I beg for pain meds as soon as I see a nurse, but I’m quickly dismissed and told I’ll have to wait for a doctor. I don’t have my cell phone, I don’t really know which hospital I’m at, and I’m by myself. I let the tears roll down my face freely as the pain and fear take over.

After twenty minutes of sobbing quietly, a man stops and checks on me, “Are you okay?”

“No,” I say, but refuse to make eye contact.

“I’m a doctor. I can help. Let me get you a room and we’ll get that arm x-rayed immediately. What happened to your face?” he asks me.

I don’t answer him, because I don’t really know what happened to my face other than… Carrie.

“Hold on, I’ll check this chart,” he says and opens up a file on my bed. “I need a CT stat, and make sure she’s in a room when she gets back from radiology!” He yells over his shoulder.

The doctor walks off as the vibrant colors of scrubs walk back and forth. My bed begins to move and I’m carted off to radiology. I have to wait an hour in a holding room for a CT scan, and another forty-five minutes for an x-ray of my ribs and arm.

I have no pain medication, no one’s hand to hold, and no way of getting in touch with my friends, the only family I have. So, I sob like a child for hours. My face is soaked, my nose is stopped up, and my heart hurts. All the bullshit I’ve been through in my life, I don’t think I’ve ever been so lonely. Never.

I also realize I don’t want to die alone. The mere thought scares me so much I keep crying. I don’t want to die somewhere one day in a hospital by myself with no one to love me. I don’t want to leave nothing behind. I want to leave love behind. I want someone who loves me more than anything else in this world to hold me when I leave this world. It’s morbid, but clarity can often come from trauma. Whatever was holding me back from pursuing a relationship with Johnny evaporates with the tears that roll off my face and dry on my shirt.

I want it to be him that holds my hand through the good and bad. He’s always been the one doing it anyway. I want it to be him that I lay next to each night. I want to spend every minute possible loving him and when my time comes I want to know I spent my life loving a person who loved me unconditionally. He’s always loved me unconditionally anyway. It was always supposed to be him. I see that now.

I’m wheeled back to the emergency room when I hear four men I love raising holy hell.

“What do you mean you don’t know where the fuck she is?!!” Johnny yells.

“Look in her goddamn chart!” Jimmy follows.

“I swear to God, I’m suing this place for losing her. Fucking find her now!” Ryan adds.

“Noely,” Rich is the first to see me and I break down again.

Johnny pushes a bunch of charts onto the floor to make his final point to the nurses and then jogs with me. All four of them surround the bed, and the man pushing it politely asks them to let him push me in the room and then I’m all theirs. Surprisingly, they don’t give him a hard time.

Moments later, I’m in a small room and the guys rush my bed. I push up off the bed and lunge at Johnny. I wrap my good arm tightly around his neck and hold on for dear life. My ribs protest, but right now I can ignore them. He holds me just as tightly, but helps guide me back down to the bed. There are so many things I need to tell him right now. I need to say things to him that are overwhelming my heart to the point it might explode.

“I got you,” he whispers while I sob into his chest.

The doctor comes in and Johnny pulls away from me, but I grab a handful of his shirt and plead with my eyes.

Please don’t leave me.

Maybe it’s the epiphany. Maybe it’s the adrenaline and emotions, but I don’t want him to be out of my reach.

Dr. Carson announces the ulna bone is broken in my left arm and needs to be set and cast. Nothing abnormal shows on the CT Scan, but my blurred vision, headache, and nausea are all symptoms of a Grade Two concussion. Before I can ask for pain meds, Jimmy demands I have something for it.

Moments later a nurse returns with a syringe and injects it into my IV. I have no idea what the woman gave me, but it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy. A warming sensation flows through my body. I close my eyes and let it course through my veins and take the edge off the pain.

I beg for Johnny to go with me to have my arm set and cast, and without much fight they allow it. Setting your bone apparently requires a doctor to snap it back in place. It wasn’t pleasant, and I muffled my screams by biting into Johnny’s shoulder.

He held me as close as he could and whispered words of encouragement, “You’re doing good, Noe. I’m so sorry. I’m here. Hurt me back. It’s almost over. So tough, Noles. I love you.”

The last three words were all the encouragement I really needed.

The doctor keeps me overnight for observation and then releases me the next morning. Everyone is quiet and somber as we drive back to my hotel room. Johnny gets me inside while the guys fill my pain medicine, and I doze off and on until they return with something to take the edge off the pain.

Each time I wake Johnny is staring at me with those stark blue eyes.

“I’m okay,” I tell him.

“I’m just making sure you don’t stop fucking breathing,” he says with anger in his voice.

“It’s not your fault, Johnny.”

He breaks eye contact at those words, turns his head, clenches his jaw, and doesn’t respond.

Chapter Twenty-One

I sleep for most of the next two days. My favorite four men stay close by, and even Alex stops by frequently to check on me. I hear the murmurs between my bouts of sleep about Carrie. Apparently she was not only arrested but forced into a psychiatric hospital for three days, because she exhibited signs of a psychotic break.

Imagine that.

When I am lucid, it’s quiet around me. No one says much. Johnny speaks the least of them all. He only speaks to ask for my food requests and to ensure I’m comfortable. He’s lost in thought most of the time, or at least when I’m awake.

I dream each time I sleep. Maybe it’s the narcotics, but the dreams that fill my head are of Johnny and myself dancing in the rain. They are of me telling him I’m ready, that I want to be with him. I confess the things my heart is so full of. I tell him all my fears, hopes, and dreams, and then I ask him to protect them. He promises to make my dreams his own and to help me fulfill my bucket list. He tells me he wants to be there for every single one I cross off.

But, when I wake he doesn’t say anything at all. Not really anyways. Beyond the questions regarding my care and comfort, he’s far away. He’s lost somewhere in his own head doing only God knows what. I want to pull him out of there and find out what’s inside. I want to protect his fears, hopes, and dreams too, but he’s not ready.

At times I pretend to be asleep and listen to his sighs. I peep through my lids to watch his blue eyes fill with so many emotions and I watch him fight a war against each one.

“It wasn’t your fault,” I finally tell him again after four days.

“It was,” he counters.

“Did you ask her to harm me?”

“You know I didn’t.”

“Did you speak ill of me in front of her? Give her any indication that you wanted to harm me?”

“I know what you’re doing, and you can’t absolve me of this,” he looks away, breaking our eye contact.

“Did you?” I repeat.

“Of course not!” he yells and stands from his chair.

“Were you happy she hurt me?” I ask.

“What the fuck do you want, Noely? Of course I wasn’t fucking happy she hurt you. I wanted to kill her. I was literally homicidal, but my need to protect you took precedence and it’s the only reason she’s still alive. The same need to protect you I’ve had for fucking years! I can’t protect you anymore, Noe! You were right! You were right all along! You are always fucking right! You’re so rational and insightful! You were fucking right,” his voice cracks at the end.

“So everything before that? Everything we did, everything you asked of me, it doesn’t matter anymore?” I ask with tears in my eyes.

“I’ve never said a word to you that I didn’t mean, Noe,” he looks at me with heartache in his eyes.

I throw the covers back and stand from the bed, “Then what’s going on in that head of yours?”

“I… you… you were right. There will always be someone else. There will always be another woman waiting to remind you she was there first. There will always be some bitch trying to claw her way inside and rip us apart. You didn’t think it was fair for me to ask you to live like that, and it wasn’t. My selfishness made me do everything in my power to make you see that you could live that way as long as you trusted and loved me. I should’ve never asked that of you. I was greedy. I want you so fucking much it hurts. I love you so much it hurts, but all I’ll ever do is get you hurt and eventually I’ll destroy you. I can’t live with that.”

“So what are you saying?” I ask confused.

“We gotta stop, Noe. It hurts like hell, but I have to let you go. I can’t be selfish anymore,” he says, but won’t look me in the eyes.

“You can’t even look me in the eyes when you spout this bullshit, so you don’t really believe it. You don’t really feel this way. Who told you to say this? Who got in your head?”

“Nobody, Noles. I got in my head. I remembered every word you ever said, and I finally realized I can’t always get what I want because sometimes that destroys people. I won’t destroy you,” he finally raises his eyes to mine. “I won’t destroy you.”

“You didn’t hear the words I still have left to say,” I tell him as the tears spill down my face.

“Don’t. Please don’t. This isn’t easy for me.”

“Don’t what?”

“Go back to Brooklyn, Noely baby. Live your life. Be you. Keep finding yourself. One day, you’ll see I put you first. You’ll thank me when you have an amazing husband, kids, and life. You’ll be so thankful you weren’t tied down to me.”

“Go back to Brooklyn?!! Live my life?!! No!!!” I scream at him.

Ryan and Jimmy walk into the bedroom concerned over our raised voices. They walk in to find two people they love tearing each other apart. They walk in to see tears and looks of despair. It looks like someone fucking died in here.

“Noe?” Ryan asks but I don’t take my eyes off Johnny.

He ignores them and walks to me. Johnny takes my hands in both of his, holds them tightly, and raises them to his mouth where he places several kisses on them.

“I’m sorry. I wish it was different. I wish I could be who you need me to be,” he whispers.

“You are who I need you to be,” I sob.

“Go back to Brooklyn,” he says and drops my hands.

He looks up my face, tenderly wipes away my tears, and then turns and walks away from me. I launch myself after him.

“No!” I scream and grab him by the shoulders.

He spins around, “Don’t do this, Noe.”

“I love you. I’m in love with you. When I was in that hospital I realized I didn’t want to die alone. I don’t want to spend my life worrying about the unknown, so much that I forget to fucking live. Don’t make me do that without you. You said you wanted this. You begged me. I’m begging you now,” I wail like a child.

His eyes leak a steady stream of tears, “I’m the reason you were in that hospital.”

“No! You didn’t do that. You didn’t do it. Don’t do this Johnny. Please don’t do this.”

He places his hands on my shoulders and gently moves me back a few steps, and then he walks away from me again.

“Are you punishing me because I left Brooklyn? You win. I feel like shit. I know what it feels like and you haven’t even walked out the door, Johnny. You win. You fucking win,” I bawl.

He yells at me, “Fuck! I’m not trying to hurt you! I’m trying to save you! I’m trying to give you the life you deserve! One without me! I don’t want this, Noely! I don’t want this! But I have to fucking do it. I’m doing it because I fucking love you! Don’t you get that?”

I launch myself at him again and wrap my arms around his neck, “I don’t get it. I don’t get it, Johnny. You’re hurting me. Please stop hurting me.”

“I’m doing this for you,” he whispers.

“No. You’re doing this because you’re scared like I was, and it’s okay. We’ll work through it,” I assure him.

“I’m not afraid to love you, Noely. I’ve never been afraid of the way I feel about you. This isn’t about that. This is about giving you a beautiful life. One without me in it to fuck it up. You said it yourself, there will always be someone else. I can’t do that to you. Not ever again. It almost got you killed, and I’d rather live in a world where I know you’re happy and healthy without me than a world where you don’t exist at all. I want to live knowing you exist and that you’re okay even if that means that you aren’t in my life. Even if that means I have to figure out how to live without you… if it means you’re okay then that’s what I have to do.”

“But I’m not okay,” I argue. “I’m not asking you to live without me. That’s not what I want.”

He pulls my hands from around his neck and holds them for a moment before he drops them, “Let me go, Noe.”