Love Notes ((Book Two of the Heartbeat Series)) (9 page)

Moist droplets are filling my eyes and my mother pulls her chair closely and takes my hand and says, “Madison please concentrate on getting better, we’ll deal with anything else later. I know that Kill girl flew in with him and Raeford and hasn’t left his side since their arrival.” She added, “You need to be honest with yourself and him and if you feel there is something going on or starting with them, and you have doubt, you need to ask him when you are able, but I feel he does love you. He looks so drained and concerned and several days ago when he arrived and you were in surgery he was beside himself. He could not forgive himself for not being here sooner.” She sat with me for a long time and we didn’t talk, we just communicated in our glances between mother and daughter. My mother said sometime later that I needed rest and now that I was stable she was going to join my Uncle Jake in the waiting room and tell others there that I was waking up. It was moments after she walked from my side my eyes were so heavy, I fought to keep them open, but fatigue won and my eyes closed.

Not sure if it was the medication keeping me slightly sedated but when I next opened my eyes the time on the clock is four o’clock in the morning. My room is dimly lit. I see on the bed next to my hand a dark head of tangled hair and I see that Rand is lying slumped over sleeping in a very awkward position. I don’t see Killjoy anyplace in the room as I look about to make certain she is not here. Perhaps I was dreaming that she was here, but it seemed so real. I have to laugh that my mother called her Kill girl. I look and see that Rand is still holding the pad of his thumb on my IV area just like I had envisioned before.

“Thirsty, I’m so thirsty” I speak in a raspy voice through my tender throat. I cannot swallow too well. Rand shakes his head; he’s not quite awake yet but says, “Madison?” I lift my IV hand to his and rub his slowly. As he turns waking up toward me, he looks so tired, so beaten. I want to ask him if he looks this way because of the guilt of being with her, possibly feeling sorry for me, but I am not sure if I’m ready to talk to him about Killjoy yet. He reaches up to my face and blocks my view from everything but his face closing into mine. He is wearing a shadow from not shaving and it scratched my face as he turns and begins to kiss me with desperation. I turn my cheek away from him and tears flow from my eyes and everything including his close proximity blur to me.

“Madison, I thought I lost you. I couldn’t think of ever losing you.” He pulls back slowly from my face and wipes my matted hair behind my ear and kisses my forehead resting there and breathing lightly on my skin. I feel the tears that are coming from my brow line and I know that he is crying. Rand is so emotional. I feel a slight heave in his breathing as he still has not removed himself from my forehead area. “I love you so much, but…” He stops in his thought as the door opened and it was someone looking to visit another patient. Before we were interrupted by this person, I wanted to hear him finish what he was saying. I know I was weak but I was hanging on his last bit of our conversation. My thoughts are wondering, but what? What does he want to say that he could not? I am too weak to respond. He lifts up and walks to the other side of the room and brings to me a cup with water and a straw and holds it to my lips that are cracked and dry. I take a sip and feel this liquid flow through my mouth and I swallow it savoring its wetness. I lick my lips with moist water and Rand takes the cup and leans in and takes his tongue and traces my lips with it so slowly, that I tremble. I drank in his lips. I give in and give my head a slight lift toward him to kiss him, and I let him enter my mouth and I kiss him too out of desperation, or if my visions were correct this could be our permanent separation.

The nightly nurse is too timely tonight as she enters and stops our kissing abruptly. She clears her throat, “Rand you have to leave now, it is past visiting hours and she needs her rest.” Rand turns to her and in a quick motion he is lying next to me and says, “I’m not leaving her, you can call security, but I need to be right here.” She looks at me and I nod that it is fine that he stays and I rest my head on his shoulder as I slightly move and we get comfortable lying next to one another.

“Madison, he has slept here the past few nights. This is the first time I have seen him actually lie in a bed. I have seen him in the chair, out in the waiting room and on the edge of your bed hunched over. There is something so endearing in his blue eyes that make me cave on our hospital rules. Well, your monitor looks great. You are out of the woods now my dear. You did have us worried for a bit, but you are very strong.” As she exits, she turns off the dim light and we are left surrounded in the night’s darkness only lit by the colors on my monitor. Tucked gently into Rand, I feel his comfort and I only hope I am so wrong about what I may have seen earlier. “I love you Rand, I feel so tired.” My eyes are heavy and I slip into sleep.

As the sun shines in the room, I awake to Rand who never left my side. He climbs off and slowly stretches. He is in desperate need of a shower, clean clothes a shave and a meal. “Rand, why don’t you get cleaned up here, I’m not going anywhere soon.” He smiles and leans into me and sweeps my hair from my face and kisses me so gently.

“Yeah, okay, Killjoy hooked me up packing me clean clothes. I won’t be long.” As he gathers his bag and enters the bathroom, I smile and then it turns to a scowl as the door closes. In my mind I want to know why Killjoy would be bringing him a bag of clothes. Why is she taking care of him? I know that she is in fact here, not actually in my room but in the area. Hell, she could be right outside my hospital door.

As my thoughts wander, I remember what I heard the doctors saying while I laid barely conscious. I think I heard them clear enough as they said, “So sad that she had to lose the baby.” I remember seeing them in my doorway. Had I been pregnant with Rand’s child? Wasn’t this just perfect timing that here I lost his child before he even had to know and he was already beginning to move on with Killjoy. I don’t think I will share the doctor’s conversation with him, at least not now, and I have a sudden sadness that I am feeling that I may have lost our child, a baby. Not that we planned at this time to have a baby but where we were in our relationship, we could have adapted quickly to making a baby together. At least I could have loved a baby, his baby.

My hospital room door opened slowly and as I could see the movement outside in the hall, my eyes stopped dead on the person entering to see me. Killjoy stood there, what a beautiful girl she was. She stood at the door cautiously and then stepped closer to my bed. I stared at her in disbelief that she would come in here so candidly. She leaned in to me to hug me. “What are you doing here?” I asked her sternly. Killjoy backed up and looked at me confused. “I think you need to leave my room right now, please just leave me” I continued in my strained voice.

Killjoy responded, “We’ve all been so worried about you, I can understand that you are not yourself. We care so much about you.” I could hear her but my head was slamming. How could she possibly care for me? She doesn’t even know me Perhaps it’s that she cares for Rand as I clearly saw that as she hugged him tightly on stage. I recalled seeing her all too clearly as she took her tongue to his neck and wrapped her legs around him in romantic bond, oh yeah, as my mind went wild. I was convinced all she cared about was Rand. Killjoy spoke quietly, “Madison I will check back in on you,” she smiled at me, but what struck me the worst was she came close to my bedside and took my hand and bent over and took hold of my wrist and held it close to her in a tender moment. I turned away from her, I could not look into her attractive eyes, and I couldn’t even give her another glance.

As she left my room and the door closed tightly, the bathroom door opened and Rand stepped in shaking his wet hair from side to side. “I heard voices, did the doctor come in?” he asked.

“No, no one was here,” I slowly told him. He reached over to his bag and took out his cell phone. I watched him as he sent a quick text and then he placed it back in his bag. I didn’t say anything to him. I really did not want to know if he was texting her, the very attractive Killjoy, that I just happened to have the pleasure of speaking with up close and personal. Believe me, she was more stunning up close than she was on the videos and the internet. I could see why a man would want to have her and why everyone but me seemed to know who she was.

“Love, what can I get you?” Rand asked and came close and sat on my bedside. I smiled at him and I knew I needed to address my conclusions about him and Killjoy and the sooner the better. I cleared my sore throat, “What I would love, suddenly seems I can’t have, but I would kill for real food. But Rand, I need to ask you this, why you did this to me?” Rand looked at me and scrunched his brow on his handsome face with question. “What did I do?” He looked stunned and still confused.

“Well as I see it, you need me to issue you the free pass to leave me to be with Killjoy, and perhaps my accident interrupted your plans.” As I spoke my heart clenched and the tears began to pour down my face. I could not hold the steady stream of them back. The dam broke and I cried so hard. I tightened my fists digging my nails into my skin, and whimpered, “I hurt so bad Rand, so very bad.”

Rand looked at me, “Babe hold on I’ll go get the doctor.”

“Rand, no, the doctor can’t help me. My hurt is from you…you are breaking my heart.” Rand still searching my face for answers and his expression stunned. Here I was letting him know that I could see he wanted to be with her as I had seen it displayed in their actions together. “What the hell are you talking about Madison? You have me at a complete loss here?”

I started to sit up and pain winced through my head but I had to make my stand, “Do I really need to spell it out? I have seen you with Killjoy! I have seen the video from your concert, those images I cannot get out of my head. I have seen you here in this room with your arms wrapped around her. I think you should leave now, please just leave,” I felt completely worn-out.

Still looking at me perplexed, his eyes seemed to change from bright blue to gray. “Madison, don’t shut me out.” He then raised his voice “Let me explain, you have no idea what’s…”

I quickly taped that down stopping him in mid sentence and told him, “I would rather you not say anything more. I do not need you to spell it out for me. Just leave me alone!” Rand shook his head and fired back at me, “Madison you are so head strong and COMPLETELY WRONG!” Then he walked wordlessly toward the door, the door to exit him from my room. Without another word, he raked his hands roughly through his damp hair and left my room, and didn’t look back. When the door shut behind him, I lost control. I began to sob and I got so upset my breathing was rasping. I rang the nurse’s button on my bedside. I clenched my fists in the sheets and shed more tears than I ever thought I could. The door sprang open and a nurse rushed in to my side and she told me calmly to breathe slowly and calm myself. After a few moments I felt a bit better and she left to get me something stronger to relax me. Just as my breath had calmed and I thought she returned, I looked up to see the vision of the lovely Killjoy and handsome Rand hand in hand coming into my room. “I cannot do this!” I hoarsely shrieked out at them.

They came closer as they both continued staring at me. “Please leave. Can’t you see I’m upset? It’s because of you.” Rand leaned into me and put his finger firmly to my lip and said “Madison, I think that since you hit your head it’s made your thinking delusional. Now, you’re going to listen to me, to us, very carefully. There’s one thing happening with Killjoy and I and it’s playing music.”

“Madison really there is nothing, and Rand is so hot but nothing is going to happen with us,” Killjoy shared. I turned away from them not wanting to listen any further but Rand continued to speak and in a calm manner to me like I was a child and needed to listen. Rand turned my face back to see his eyes, “Killjoy, is here because I have talked to her about nothing else but you these past weeks. Killjoy and I are friends and it would never work with her and me. I will admit, she is beautiful, sexy and can bang the shit out of the drums and can carry a great tune with me. I know she is standing here as I tell you this, I enjoyed jamming with her, she makes great music, but that is where it ends because Killjoy likes girls. And even when you act like this, I still love only you.”

“She likes girls?” I gasped out of my mouth, shocked and slightly embarrassed. “Yes, she does and on our flight here to get to you she said she wanted to meet you in person. She wanted to meet the woman that I had come to love so much and could never stop talking about. I love you Madison. Do you get that?”

I had been so stupid. I had jumped all over them and it was the furthest thing that I could have created in my mind. I was relieved but so insecure. Killjoy came to the other side of the bed and took hold of my hand. “Madison, I’m sorry about what you thought. You can call me Joy. My real name is Joy Kildare.” She patted my hand softly. As she laid my hand back down, she then touched my face with her fingers curved in such a delicate manner. I felt horrible as I had thought the worst of her, and here was this kindhearted girl reaching out to me. Immediately she pulled up a chair and dove right into very animated stories that Rand had told her about me.

“Madison, sometimes Rand doesn’t come up for air when he’s speaking of you. Let me tell you, if he ever treats you wrong, I will make you like women and be there to pick up the pieces,” and she gave me a wink. I had to laugh and it did hurt to laugh. Rand looked at me and felt relief and it shown on his face and he knew I believed him. Killjoy said she was so happy to have met me and wanted to give us some quiet time and if it was alright with me that she would come back to visit later. As she was exiting the door, the nurse returned to give me some medication and I was already tightly embraced in Rand’s arms. I cried again, but happy tears, and he rocked me back and forth. Rand told the nurse I was going to be okay, it was a combination of the accident, the surgery, the medication and some crazy thoughts that took over, but that I was going to be okay. She smiled and left us alone.