Fragile Truths (32 page)

“At least just stretch your legs and go for a walk, grab a coffee and some air,” Mom tried again.

“Fine,” I relented as I pushed the chair back and stood angrily. “But you promise?” I shot the nurse a look and she nodded firmly.

I reached over Frankie’s sleeping form and gently pressed my lips to her head, “I want to see those eyes when I get back, Capella. I miss you.”

I hesitated, hoping the touch and my voice would stir her but she remained silent and still.

I stepped into the corridor and caught Harry and Nik hanging by the water fountain. Harry turned to look at me expectantly but I shook my head. The spark that had flickered in his eyes for a moment ebbed away. He gave a simple nod before he turned back to Nik. “What’s going on?” I asked as I approached them.

Nik smiled at me for the first time in years, the pity he held was adding to his anguish over Frankie. He’d grown to respect and care for her too over the week we’d all spent in hell, and for that I owed him my life.

“Yard’s gone,” Harry said and I watched as his jaw tensed in preparation for my explosion. Yet, all I could do was shrug.

“We’ll find him. I have bigger things to worry about right now.”

Nik narrowed his eyes, “Nothing new?”

I shook my head and swallowed back the pain again, “No. Why won’t she come round?”

“Maybe she’s just too tired,” Nik answered softly. “That girl has endured so much for the past god knows how many years, maybe now, now that she finally has peace in her life, maybe she’s just taking a well-earned break.”

I smiled. Maybe he was right, maybe her body was saying ‘Fuck girl, now we sleep.’, maybe she’d fought for so long she needed time to heal the many wounds.

But there was one demon left to deal with and I lifted my eyes back to Nik. “I need a favour.”

20
^th
January 2014

Tate

I wiped the blood from my hands on the rag Nik threw over to me. My lip curled at the state of my shirt. “Fuck! I’ll never get used to the mess of this crap.”

Nik laughed as he smeared the blood decorating his hands across the face of the one occupying his
judgement pedestal.
I shivered as I viewed the state he was in. It was like he’d been turned inside out; his guts were gently positioned across his lap as though Nik had placed them there to keep them safe. He had no teeth left; they were lined up orderly on a tray beside the chair. His fingernails were situated on another tray, the pattern they were lined up in an exact replica to how they had been on each finger.

“You are fucking sick,” I grimaced as a shudder ripped through me with the serenity covering Nik’s face.

He laughed again. “But so adorable,” he retorted as he squeezed my cheeks. “Been a pleasure working with you.”

I smirked as I looked down at the person, or rather carcass, occupying my choice of chair. Jarod’s dead eyes were staring up at me, the life in them drained many hours ago. But after flicking a glance over Jarod’s friends, Nik’s
clients,
I realised Jarod had actually got off lightly with me.

21
^st
January 2014

Tate

“What the hell is wrong with her?” I barked at Dr Graham as he wrote some shit onto the clipboard. “Why isn’t she waking up?”

He sighed and pursed his lips. “You need to appreciate how much Francesca’s body has gone through, Tate. Although she has accepted the new kidney, which in itself is something you need to celebrate, the infection that was already ravaging her body when she was brought in, is giving her body some hard work to toil through. Her brain is taking a break while her body heals.”

I ran my thumb over her knuckles, encouraging touch to rouse her. “I suppose. But what if…” I couldn’t say what was worrying me but he knew. His eyes lowered to Frankie as sadness paled his skin.

“I can’t lie to you and tell you she will wake soon because I can’t make that promise. You just have to be patient.”

“I don’t want to be fucking patient,” I shouted. “I want her to wake up, I want her to open her eyes and look at me. I want to see her beautiful smile touch her lips again. I want to hear her tell me she loves me. I want to tell her that all her demons are in hell. Do you understand that?”

“Yes,” he answered softly. “I do understand but there’s nothing either of us can do to alter the outcome I’m afraid. And getting angry will not help, although I understand your resentment. Talk to her, Tate. Tell her stories, anything that may help stimulate her brain and give it that jolt of encouragement it needs.”

“I’ve been talking to her for six days. She doesn’t even so much as flicker her eyes in recognition. I’m running out of things to talk about.”

He smiled sadly but didn’t speak further before he exited the room and left me and Frankie alone together again.

I knew I should be grateful that she was alive but I couldn’t help the infuriation and anger at the situation. She had managed to do something she’d promised herself for so long and she couldn’t enjoy the moment.

I was terrified she would never be able to enjoy anything again. The anger and resentment weren’t because of her slumber, they were there because I was terrified, petrified that she would never wake up. The pain that tightened my chest every time I viewed her closed eyes was so intense I was frightened to take a breath in case the oxygen detonated the fire simmering away inside me, its furious burn the only thing signifying I was still alive over the numbness encompassing me.

The radio my mother had brought in to stimulate Frankie was advertising a new car on the high street, promising 160Mph and more safety features than any other car out there. “Hear that, babe. I reckon your dad could do with that one. He mentioned he never beats you on the track. Maybe we could club together for this new one for him, it sounds like it will give him an inch on you anyway.”

I smiled at her, sweeping my fingers through the softness of her hair. “I bet I can beat you, I’ll enjoy watching the grill of your little pink pram in my rear-view.”

I closed my eyes as the anger with her silence bubbled up again. The sores on my lips were getting ravaged again, my teeth chewing furiously as I tried to hold back the anguished scream that wanted to vent.

My chair flew back as I shot upright and started to pace, the rage discharging shots of adrenaline around my blood stream. My throat was on fire as I refused to let the sob out.

“Jude’s doing well,” I told her as I tapped my fingers on my thigh to
Avicii’s
latest track. “He’s been coming to see you. How about that, you have a big brother, Capella. And he’s already pulling rank with you. You’re for it when you wake up, you were supposed to follow Bruno’s lead and you didn’t so he’s after your ass.”

I quirked a brow at her. “That’s after I’ve spanked the holy hell out of you.” A small laugh erupted, “Although I have no doubts that you’ll enjoy that, my little dirty girl.”

I sagged into the chair again as the adrenaline died and left me bitter and hollow once more. I slid my hand over hers, enclosing my fingers around hers before pulling the back of her hand to my lips, “Babe, please… I can’t… I can’t do this without you. You’ve been in my life so long that…”

I squeezed my eyes closed, fighting with the grief inside me, I couldn’t allow its freedom. It would finish me.

“I love you Frankie, my God, so much. I need you here. I’ve lived my life for you. My heart only beats with yours and its struggling, Capella. It’s struggling to go on without you.”

I dropped my head to the bed, my forehead against her stomach as I savoured the beat of her heart in my ear, “Your soul wants to go home, baby. It’s ready now.”

I was breaking. Finally and ultimately, my soul tore open and crippled me with its intense pain. “No,” I sobbed as I wrestled to keep it caged but it was so powerful it ruptured and exploded in an agonising wail. “Fuck, no!”

I wouldn’t do this pussy shit. I needed to stay strong for her.

Yet, at long last, as I broke before her, I accepted that she was never coming back to me. She would never tell me she loved me again, she would never laugh with me, or dance in the rain. I would never get to drop to my knees before her and offer myself to her, I would never see the pleasure on her face as I idolised her body. Nor would I ever see her beautiful smile as she walked the aisle towards me, and I would never get to hear the cry of our children.

“Don’t do this to me, please Frankie. I’m begging now, pleading with everything I have for you to wake up.

How fucking ironic that
A great big world
and
Christina Aguilera’s
bloody
, ‘Say
something’
filled the silence of the room, the words making me face up to the finality of losing her.

‘Say something, I'm giving up on you,
I'll be the one, if you want me to.
Anywhere I would've followed you,
Say something, I'm giving up on you.’

I scrambled on the bed beside her. Time froze around me when I heard the drop in her heartbeat on the monitor. I pulled her against me, fuck all the damn tubes and wires, I needed to absorb her, feel her with me when she went. “No, no, no.”

“And I am feeling so small,
It was over my head,
I know nothing at all.
And I will stumble and fall,
I'm still learning to love,
Just starting to crawl.”

I started to sing to her, my voice quiet in her ear as I felt the pull of her soul from within me. My own soul held on, refusing to let go of something that had kept it company for so many years. But I demanded its release now, knew she needed it to help her go where the next part of her journey would take her.

My head rested in the crook of her neck as I felt the shift inside me, the loss of more than just my soul’s companion. I breathed her, inhaled as much of her as I could as I sensed it slip away from me.

“And I will swallow my pride,
You're the one that I love,
And I'm saying goodbye.
Say something, I'm giving up on you,
And I'm sorry that I couldn't get to you,
And anywhere I would've followed you,

Say something, I'm giving up on you.”

The monitor hummed as she left me but my cries swallowed the sound. I didn’t just break; I died right there with her. The agony that tore through my soul was so intense I really thought I had gone with her.

“Ahh fuck…” I couldn’t breathe. I was choking on sobs and tears, their pursuit to engulf me was consuming and devastating, crushing my lungs as my fingers clawed and grabbed at her.

“Hey…” Frankie choked out. “Don’t cry. I’m here, I’m here.”

I shook my head, angry at my mind’s tricks as I just let go, liberated the pain and crippling heartache, terrified their imprisonment would tear me in two.

“Ssshhh,” she whispered in my ear. I smiled when I realised I’d left with her. My soul had carried me over with her.

I opened my eyes and shivered when I felt her fingers in my hair, her touch lighting me up and bringing a beat to my heart for the first time in days.

“Tate?”

I lifted my eyes, my brain refusing to accept that we were still in the hospital and not sat on a random cloud somewhere. I don’t know which was more painful, the sob I’d released when I thought she’d died or the one that erupted when I realised she was awake and very much alive.

“Frankie…?”

She smiled, and fuck me, the Angels sang, they fucking heralded her with damn bloody trumpets. “Hello.”

The door flew open as hospital minions descended in their masses and shoved me out of the way as I stood in shock staring at the most beautiful star in the universe. Her eyes never left mine as test after test was performed. Her smile never left her face as she drank me in and I ate her up. My soul danced and sang like a god damn Glee wannabe while hers revelled to be home once again.

***

“It was so dark,” she whispered as I spooned her from behind, this time taking extra care not to dislodge any wires… oops!

“In your sleep?”

She nodded and paused, “But… it was so serene and calm. I treasured the tranquillity for the first time. It was like the darkness was healing me, the shadows chasing me were trying to soothe the pain and the stillness giving me the time I needed to mend.”

I kissed the back of her head, inhaling the sweet scent of her shampoo as I held her close. I refused to ever let her go again. I would be another appendage to her now, she would never hack apart our attachment. The bond was now too secure, our tie too knotted and secure.

“I felt you,” she revealed. “I could hear you and feel you but I couldn’t seem to reach you. You followed me through the darkness, your words and spirit constantly with me but I couldn’t seem to reach out far enough to touch you.”

“I felt that too.” I admitted, “I could sense you with me, feel your heart beating beside mine but it was like seeing your reflection in water and every time I reached out and touched you, you floated away again. But then when I felt your soul begging to go back to you, I thought you were leaving me, I thought…”

She twisted round, her face taut with pain as she turned to look at me, “I will never leave you. You own me.” Her fingers lifted until they were touching my lips. “You’re the master of my universe,” she added with a small giggle.

I smirked at her as I bit her fingers playfully and growled, “Babe please, tough, rough and fucking hard, or hell even God, if you don’t mind. You make me sound like some lame comic book hero.”