Come Back Tomorrow, page 27
I glance up at him, and his gaze is full of sincerity and longing. He’s fighting so hard against his instincts when it comes to me, and I love him that much more for trying.
“You know all about my diagnosis and relapses and how I ended up here. I’ve had this blood infection for more than two months now. They were able to lower the bacterial count in my blood, but they haven’t been able to eradicate it, so after they’d given me the standard treatment for four weeks, they started changing the cocktail of antibiotics to see if they could come up with a combination that would kill even more of the bacteria. The first new combination they tried didn’t work any better, but they started me on a second one last week, and the bacterial counts are getting lower. Dr. Evans is hoping this one will wipe out the infection completely.”
The seed of hope I hear in his voice warms my heart, and I squeeze his hand. “That’s fantastic! If the infection is gone, will Dr. Evans discharge you?”
“Yes,” Will answers, but he suddenly looks uncomfortable. “But . . . I can’t go home because I won’t be able to take care of myself. Jenny is supposed to get me some information about an in-patient hospice center in the area that I could go to until I get stronger or . . . I end up back here.”
I stroke my fingers over his hand, and as I look at him, I realize I don’t want him to do that. I want him to come home with me so I can take care of him and be with him every minute. It would be hard on both of us but no harder than my having to watch him go to an in-patient facility and have strangers continue to care for him. I roll the idea around in my mind, already working the logistics of time off and finances.
“Tori?”
“Hmm?”
“I, um, asked you a question,” he says, looking shy and unsure.
“I’m sorry; I got lost in my own head for a minute. What did you ask me?”
Will looks as if he’s not sure he should believe me, but he takes a deep breath and says, “I asked you if you’d still come and visit me if I wasn’t here at the hospital.”
Oh damn, what a question to miss! He’s thinking I didn’t answer right away because I didn’t know what to say, that I was hesitating. I want to blurt out that I want him to come and live with me, but that’s probably not a good idea until we’re sure he’s going to be discharged, and I can give more thought to the details. “Of course I’ll come and see you wherever you are. Every day if I can.”
I love you.
“You’re very special to me, Will, and I’ll always be here for you, no matter what.”
His smile is brilliant and contagious, and I grin at him as he raises my hand to his lips, kissing it softly.
“You’re very special to me, too, Tori,” he says, staring into my eyes. The warmth flutters in my chest as I think I hear the words he’s not saying, the words he might not ever say, but I think he means them anyway, just as I do.
“Thank you for sharing all this with me. Will you tell me what the doctor says from now on? I really feel better knowing what’s going on.”
“Of course. It was hard to talk about this for the first time, but I’m sure it’ll get easier for me.”
Speaking of hard to talk about, I think it’s time I bring up the elephant in the room—the issue I really want him to tell me about today.
“Will . . .” I begin, but I meet his eyes and become lost in their green depths. I can’t bear to go any further. But I have to. “Will you tell me about your dad? About what he did to you?”
He huffs out a breath followed by the usual painful wince. “I knew you’d know the minute he walked in yesterday, and I couldn’t stop myself from reacting. I knew you’d see it for what it was.”
“You’re right. I did,” I say, trying to talk around the lump in my throat. “And now I need to know how he hurt you. Please.”
He swallows audibly. “I’ve never told anyone this. Not Jason. Not even my mother.”
“You don’t have to tell me, but I think it might help you to talk about it. Things get big when you keep them in your head. They take on a life of their own. Bringing them out into the open and talking about them can make them seem smaller.”
Will casts a glance at me, acknowledging the wisdom of my words. He bows his head and takes a deep breath, letting it out slowly.
“It started when I was thirteen. We used to horse around when I was that age, and then one day it turned really rough. He left bruises on my chest. He told me he was sorry, but he said he needed to ‘toughen me up.’ So he kept doing it—always when my mother wasn’t around—and he never left marks where they could be seen. I actually believed he was doing it for my own good until the first time he smiled while he did it. Then I knew he was doing it because he enjoyed it.”
I reach for his hand, and he grabs mine between both of his, holding on tightly to keep their shaking at bay. “Did it ever . . . escalate?”
“Yeah, it was worse when I did something wrong. The worst was the first and only time I decided to borrow the car without permission. He broke two ribs and my wrist. I had to tell my mom I fell down the stairs to cover it up.”
Jesus Christ, I should have killed that man when I had the chance! How the hell do you do that to your own child? And how did Elizabeth not notice this going on right under her very nose? “Your mom never suspected?”
“No, I don’t think so. Obviously, he has a temper, and he yelled a lot at both of us, but I don’t think she ever thought it was more than that.”
“So you don’t think he—”
“No, I don’t think he’s ever laid a hand on her like that,” Will says, shaking his head. “At least, not that I ever saw. He’s an emotionally abusive asshole, but I think he does actually love her, as twisted as that sounds.”
“Did it ever get better?”
“No, I . . . escaped to college. He got his hands on me a few times when I came home that first summer, so I made sure never to give him the opportunity again. I stayed away as much as possible until Jason and I got back from Europe. I had hoped once I was out on my own and somewhat successful, he’d accept me for who I am. But I was wrong.”
Suddenly, it hits me like a lightning bolt. I pull my hand out from between his and turn his right one over so the scar on his wrist is visible. “Was this because of what your dad—”
“Yes. When I told you I came to Seattle after Europe, that wasn’t entirely true. Jason and I went back to San Francisco for a while and tried to make a go of it there. I, um, did this,”—he runs his thumb over the scar—“a few weeks after I overdosed.”
“What made you do it?”
He closes his eyes and sits quietly for a moment. Then he slowly begins to speak.
“It was really bad when I got out of the hospital after the overdose. I don’t remember a lot of that time. I just wanted to escape, so . . . I spent a few months drunk and high. But it wasn’t enough.
“Um, after all those years of my father telling me I was worthless, I actually started to believe it. He forbade my mother to see me, but at the time, I was so pissed at her for just standing there when he told me I disgusted him, I didn’t want to see her anyway. My work wasn’t selling in San Francisco, and I was hitting rock bottom, realizing I was dependent on pot and Ecstasy, and I couldn’t stop, and I just . . . decided I didn’t have anything to live for.”
I honestly believe my heart has stopped; my chest hurts so much as I imagine the pain and heartache he must have been feeling. “What did you do?” I whisper.
“Jason found me. We shared an apartment, and one day, he came home and found me passed out on the bathroom floor, bleeding. I was lucky he happened to come home early that day, or I surely would have succeeded.”
“Oh, Will,” I say, gripping his hand tighter. I can’t believe how close he actually came to killing himself.
“What happened then?”
“Holy Christ, was Jason pissed when I woke up in the hospital, but . . . I got the help I needed, and a few months later, we left for Seattle. I needed a fresh start, and Seattle offered a whole new type of landscape for him to paint. Things were better here for both of us. I continued therapy and figured out how to paint again without the ‘inspiration’ of pot and Ecstasy. And then, my work really began to sell well. It took me almost two years to put everything back together.”
He swallows hard, then raises his eyes to me. He chuckles and tries to smile, but it’s more of a sour grimace. His eyes are frozen bitterness and sorrow. “Ironically, I finally felt like I had everything back together about six months before I was diagnosed. I must have done something awful in a former life to end up with that kind of karma.”
I perch on the side of his bed so I can wipe away the tear that’s sliding down his cheek. “Will, I’m so sorry.”
He shrugs, wincing and closing his eyes, causing a few more tears to escape. “It doesn’t matter. Some people just get the short end of the stick, I guess. Sometimes, I wish I hadn’t worked so damn hard to escape the addiction though. This would be a hell of a lot easier if I were high. And none of this would have even happened if Jason hadn’t found me.”
“No, Will,” I say, shaking my head.
“It’s true,” he says, his eyes red-rimmed when he finally raises them to mine.
“If you’d succeeded or stayed addicted, then I never would have met you, and I can’t live with any reality where that never happened,” I tell him, looking deeply into his eyes.
Will snorts. “Yeah, lucky you; you get to sit here and watch me die.”
“No, sweetheart. I get to share part of your life with you, and nothing will ever be the same.”
I love you.
He bites his lip and raises his eyes to mine, and I can see the storm raging there. Conflict and sorrow and regret for things he can’t change, things that were never his fault in the first place. Tears well up in the corners of his eyes . . . and suddenly, the storm breaks.
His face crumples as a sob tears from his chest, and I’m in his arms before the echo of the sound dies out, pulling his head to my shoulder. His tears are bitter and anguished, and I cry right along with him for all the horrible things that have happened to him and what is yet to come. I hold him and stroke his hair long after his tears are spent, and even with the medication, his breathing is still labored and uneven. Two weeks ago tonight, he was telling me he couldn’t eat anymore and that he wasn’t going to let the doctors help him. Since then, he’s gone through a severe depression, confronted his fears about his death, made peace with his mother, encountered his father, and told me his whole painful history in the process. The amount of stress and anxiety he’s endured has been incredible, on top of being terminally ill. He truly is the strongest person I’ve ever known.
I hold him tighter as waves of longing wash over me. I want to wipe away all his memories of everything that has hurt him. I want to protect him from the disease that’s stalking him. But most of all, I want to tell him I love him with all my heart. But I’m afraid. I’m afraid after everything else he’s had to deal with, my love for him will throw him right over the edge. But I do want him to know that he’s loved, that in the past two months, he’s become my whole world—the person I’m living for. I will tell him, I just have to give him a little time to rest between storms.
“Are you all right?” I whisper when it seems as if his breathing is finally back to normal.
“Yeah. I just feel . . . empty.”
“I know, sweetheart. You needed this after all the stress of the past few weeks.”
“I’m tired,” he mumbles.
“Go to sleep, then. It’s been another long, tough day for you, but tomorrow you can relax.”
I slowly lower him back to the mattress, and although he grunts from the pain, he doesn’t open his eyes. My fingers find their way to their favorite place as sleep consumes him.
Chapter 27
“Oh . . . Will . . .” I pant as his fingers circle my nipples, raising them to tight little peaks. I can feel his smile against my lips, and a thrill of happiness spikes through me. The past four days have been amazing.
Will woke on Thursday, feeling better after his breakdown, and things continued to improve from there. The antibiotic treatment they’re giving him now appears to be working. His bacterial counts are steadily dropping, and he hasn’t been feverish since last weekend. His level of pain is the same, and that still worries the hell out of me, but the lack of fever has allowed him to regain some energy, and he seems to be channeling it all straight to any place I’ll let him touch.
And when he’s not doing that, he’s drawing. Almost every time I’ve come to his room, including some of the mornings, he’s had his sketchbook propped against his chest, working diligently. It’s always the black sketchbook, and he slaps it closed the minute he knows I’m there. My curiosity about that book is starting to get to me—I need to ask him to show me that one.
He seems . . . hopeful. Jenny spoke with the hospice center for him, and they don’t have any immediate beds available, but he’s at the top of the list. That means when the doctors clear him, which is likely to be early this week, he can leave the hospital as soon as they have a bed for him. I’m still nursing my desire to take him home with me, but I haven’t said anything about it yet. I want to talk to Jenny first to get her opinion, and I haven’t gotten the chance to do it. She was pretty busy on Thursday and Friday, and quite frankly, I’d had my hands full with a horny and feisty Will.
I’m brought back to the present with a gasp as I feel Will’s tongue swirl around my nipple. How the hell . . . ? While I was lost in thought, he’s managed to kiss his way down my neck and chest, and although he’s bent over, and I can see a bit of a grimace on his face, he has my nipple in his mouth and is rolling it between his teeth.
I moan shamelessly, and he echoes the sound in a way that makes my thighs clench tighter. We’ve been making out like teenagers for four days now, and although I can’t do much in the way of touching him, he’s exploring my body as if it’s an undiscovered country. Groping is now standard fare, and yesterday he got bold and slid his hand into my panties. He has yet to try it today, but he’s heading that way fast.
He still has my nipple in his mouth, and I throw my head back, panting and groaning his name as he peppers my chest with eager kisses. “That feels . . . so good.” I whimper, and then he’s kissing his way up my neck to smash his lips against mine.
“I wish you could touch me,” he says, his words but a whispered breath.
His hand is down below his belly, and he groans as he touches himself. I can’t just reach a hand down there because of his tender areas, and he’s too uncomfortable to let me see where I’m going, so this is where we’ve ended up. What we’re doing has driven him crazy to the point that he can’t help but stroke himself.
“I wish I could touch you, too.” I purr at him, pulling his lower lip into my mouth. We kiss passionately, our lips trying to compensate for what we can’t do with other parts. The fire in my belly is molten and pooling quickly toward my center. My clit is throbbing as I tangle with Will’s tongue, and I’m about to put my own hand down my pants when he suddenly pulls back, gripping his belly as he grunts in pain.
It takes him a minute to get his breath back, but when he does, he grins at me like the cat that ate the canary.
“We should have stopped.” I scold him, but it does nothing to wipe the grin off his face.
“Didn’t want to,” he says, running his hand down my cheek as his green eyes dance.
I’m mesmerized by the look on his face. He’s so damn happy right now! The response of his infection to treatment has done wonders for him, both inside and out. His smile is contagious, and I can’t help but chuckle as I lean in to brush his lips again.
“Are you all right?”
“Yeah,” he says, but he winces again, and I frown at him.
“Is the pain getting worse?”
“Um . . . maybe a little bit. But I feel so much better now that the infection is clearing up. I’ll gladly take a little more pain if I don’t have to be exhausted and feverish all the time.”
I glance worriedly at his swollen belly, but he puts a hand under my chin and draws my eyes to his.
“Hey, it’s fine. Dr. Evans is going to drain the fluid as soon as my blood work comes back clear, so I won’t have to worry about that for a while. Then the pain will decrease to almost nothing, just like it did last time.” He grins at me, and I can’t help but grin back. His mood is infectious. I can’t even believe the change that’s come over him.
He glances down, running his finger over his afghan. “Maybe . . . once the infection clears and I’m at the hospice center, I’ll be able to do some PT and get back on my feet again. I’ve been so weak from the infection, but maybe once it’s gone, I’ll get strong enough that things could almost go back to what they were.”
“I hope so, sweetheart,” I tell him, running my fingers down his jaw. “I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you and help out in any way I can.”
“I’m counting on it,” Will says, winking suggestively at me and pulling me in for another kiss.
“Oh, I forgot to ask. Did you talk to your mom today?”
“Yeah. She’s so excited that I’m doing better, and she’s planning to come up for a week or two once I’m settled at the hospice center. She can stay at my place while she’s here. That way she’ll get to see some of my work.”
“That’s a great idea. I know she’s going to adore your work, and you’ll get to spend a lot of time with her.”
Will looks down again, and I see those long fingers start tracing squares. After a moment, he looks back up at me, a serious expression on his face.
“Thank you, again, for what you did last week. I’m so glad my mom and I had the chance to reconnect even though it was difficult. I don’t know that I ever would have done it if it weren’t for your encouragement and support. It means a lot to me that you were willing to do that.”
