Statistic (24 page)

I just wasn’t ready for it.

Blah Blah Blah. I know. I am whiny and annoying. I am acting like such a chick. I get that. I can’t help but wonder how life would be different if I never met Brent, and the events of the past couple months never happened. But, life is full of what ifs. We can’t take them back or do things differently. We have one chance to get shit right and I just didn’t this time around.

I put on a smile and mingle with all the guests. Thanking all of her family members for coming as they all whisper behind our backs about how strange it must be for your fiancé’s ex wife to throw a baby shower. But I don’t care because I am pretty sure my
give a fuck
button broke a long time ago.

The presents pile up and I plaster on my fake smile for the crowd.

The fake smile that has become a staple since I walked out of Jackson Revere’s life.

A knock on the door startles me as I am making dinner for the boys, who are running around in the backyard, playing pirates on the playscape Jackson built for Liam many moons ago. It seems like forever since I have seen or spoken to him. The last time being in the hospital when he tried to explain himself to me. I ignored the subsequent text messages and phone calls, and damn was he persistent for a long time.

I figured this past week he finally got the hint as the phone went silent and I was able to start processing everything that happened between us in my mind without the constant interruption of his little text messages.

As I open the front door, I see Ann standing on my porch. Jackson’s mother looks like she has aged a decade in the month since I last saw her. She is holding a news paper, and a man I vaguely remember from the picnic stands next to her.

“Ann? Are you okay?” I ask, as I open the door to let them both come in, “why don’t you come inside?”

After the pair walk through the door, the man turns around and greets me.

“I am not sure if you remember me, but my name is Craig. I’m Jackson’s partner at the department.” I nod in understanding and wait for the two of them to continue.

“Would y’all like something to drink? Sweet tea? Water?” I am trying to be hospitable, wondering why they have both come to visit me. I try and push the dread from the pit of my stomach, but something just isn’t sitting right with me. I wouldn’t put it past Jackson to send his mother over in an attempt to win me back, but what kind of good would his partner do?

They both shake their heads, and decline anything to drink. I just stand there watching them both and waiting for one of them to speak first. I expect Ann to begin with reasons why I should take Jackson back, but Craig speaks first.

“Jackson is in the hospital.” he says in a monotone voice. Completely flat with no emotion in his words. If there is one thing I’ve learned in the past couple months, it is to trust my gut. When I started thinking the worst had happened when they chose to visit me at four-thirty on a Wednesday afternoon I knew that nothing good would come of it.

“He was working on another undercover case, and one of the perp’s made him. They shot him, and he is in the ICU at St. Lukes.” I don’t understand how this man who is Jackson’s partner can stand here and speak with so little emotion about what was happening to him.

“Is he going to be okay?” I ask, unsure of what else I should really say. I am stunned into momentary silence because I honestly have no idea
what
to say. The only thing that begins to run through my head is the fact that Jackson may very well die and I never forgave him. I never went to him and talked to him about everything that happened. I never let him off the hook for what he did and how horrible he felt in the end. Even if he was the one who saved my life.

I pushed him away when I probably needed him the most. And now, he could die. Alone.

“The doctors are hopeful, but he hasn’t woken up yet.” Ann says, and I can hear her voice shaking as she speaks the words. I don’t even know what I would do if my own son was put into that position. But, I certainly wouldn’t be able to sit on the other side of this table as calm as she has remained.

“Aurora, please go to him.” Ann says, and my stomach turns. I’ve put this off so long and now the man that I am still very much in love with is laying in a hospital bed in a coma. If he dies, I would never be able to forgive myself for losing the month we could have had together. But I pushed him away. I was selfish and now I could very well lose the best thing that ever happened to me since Liam was born.

“I know this is very bad timing, but a lot of things have changed over the past month. It isn’t just me and Liam anymore, Ann. Max, Brent’s son had no one to take him in and was put into the custody of child services. I took him in to live with us. He deserved better than being stuck in dead end foster homes because of the bad choices of his father.” I wipe a tear from the corner of my eye.

“Aurora, Jackson told me all about it. He’s kept close tabs on you, and relayed most of what you have been doing to me. That doesn’t make a difference to me one bit. You could have one or four kids and I would still be here begging you to go see my boy.” Ann says, as she reaches across the table to take my hands.

“Please, Aurora. Go see Jackson. Sit with him, and talk to him. Everything you have wanted to say, get it out. The doctors keep telling me that he can hear us all. The more we talk to him, the greater the possibility there is that he will wake up. The longer he stays in the coma, the worse off he will be. From one mother to another, I am begging you to go and try. For me.” How can I deny her that? How can I say no to a mother who is so desperate?

I have so much I want to say to Jackson, but I know my words will fall on lost ears with him being in that state. I just need to start getting it all out. Maybe this is where I need to start my own journey of forgiveness with him?

“Can you watch the boys for me for a little bit? There is dinner in the oven and it should be done shortly.” I rise from the table scrambling to look for my purse and cell phone before I make my way to the front door.

“I will bring you, they have him pretty guarded at the hospital.” Craig says as he joins me in the doorway.

The boys coming running into the house as I am almost out the door and I remind them to behave for Miss Ann and I will be back in a little while. After dinner they are instructed to get ready for bed, something they have begun doing on their own the past couple nights.

“I want a good report from Miss Ann.” I sternly say before I join Craig in the driveway where he is waiting for me in his unmarked police car. Seeing his car, I think back to the first night I met Jackson and the obvious police car I parked next to which turned out to be his. I was so stupid and naive. Not putting two and two together way back at the beginning. I’m just a trusting person by nature, which is why Colin’s betrayal was so much worse than it would have been for most women.

The drive to the hospital is long, and Craig tries to make small talk a couple times, but my one-word answers probably make me seem like a bitch. The truth is the opposite. I am worried and nervous. Heartbroken that something like this has happened to Jackson when I wouldn’t as much as answer a text message from him. My conscious screams at me, telling me the way I handled the past month was wrong. Jackson was only doing his job. He was tracking Brent for so long, and he couldn’t take a chance on ruining all the work he had put in by telling me who he really was.

He only lied about one aspect of his life. While it may be a big aspect, everything else he told me all that time was the truth.

“Jackson really loves you.” Craig’s words interrupt my inner thoughts. The boxing match against my conscious I was losing because I am beginning to realize I really did the wrong thing. Handled this all the wrong way.

“How do you know that?” My curiosity gets the best of me and I play into his game.

“He told me.” He is silent for a couple moments while I sit and think about what he just told me. Jackson loves me, enough to tell his partner. I am only guessing that is a pretty big deal when it comes to guy code. “I know he lied. It sucks, but it is part of our lives sometimes. It took my wife a long time to understand and accept it. Granted, we met under different circumstance, but she is proud of the job I do. You seem like a nice girl, Aurora. I know you would feel the same way about Jackson if you could accept this and move on. But… it’s not my place to tell you to do that. I can only let you know that I had never seen Jackson so torn up over a woman and I’ve known him since we were eighteen years old in boot camp together.”

For a moment I remember back to the picnic and what all the police wives had to say about the work their husbands do. How it is long hours and dangerous work. These women were proud of the job that their men did. I could see in their faces how happy they were, even if it got under their skin sometimes.

The rest of the car ride we sat in silence and as the car came to a stop in the parking garage of St. Luke’s hospital, I turned to Craig without thinking and said my piece.

“I’m not a bad person. I can promise you that. But, I’ve been through a lot in the past couple years and I wasn’t ready for everything that happened. Lying, it is a trigger for me. A big one. I am sure in time this is all something I will be able to get over. But, it is so fresh for me. I just need to do this on my own.” Craig nods, acknowledging everything I said.

“Aurora, you aren’t a bad person at all. I don’t blame you for your actions and I don’t think any compassionate person would. We can’t pick what hand we are dealt in life, we can only play the cards we are given. Jackson is a winning hand. Just remember that.”

I don’t recognize Jackson at all. There is a tube down his throat, which appears to be doing the majority of his breathing for him. Nurses walk in and out of the room in a rush and I am dazed for a moment just watching all that is going into his care right this moment.

“He is stable. You can talk to him and touch him. Just don’t start pressing buttons.” a younger nurse says as she makes her way out of the room and down the hall. That is when I realize I am still standing in the hallway. I haven’t even made it through the door way into Jackson’s room. I just froze in the middle of the hallway with a large audience of police officers and other random onlookers.

“It’s okay. Go in. I’ll be out here.” Craig says and gives me a little nudge. I think it is exactly what I needed to be motivated enough to visit with him. He isn’t the big strong man who saved my life, or made love to me on so many occasions. He is broken and helpless. Struggling to stay alive.

He is tough and I know I shouldn’t worry about him. But as my stomach flip flops, I know that my worry for his well being is real. A tear streams down my cheek as I sit in the chair next to him, and take his hand. He doesn’t move or squeeze my hand like he has on so many occasions, and the tears come faster.

I remember Ann’s words. Her pleas to talk to him ring in my ears.

“I’m bad at this. I know if you were here and awake you would laugh at me for talking to you like this. Or even what I’m gonna say.” I try and laugh, but the lump in my throat only makes the most hideous sound come out.

“I’m so sorry you got hurt. This is all my fault.” and I genuinely feel this way. I’ve asked myself over and over again if he would have continued to go on undercover work if things had been different. If I had reacted a little more rationally instead of flying off the handle.

“But listen, Jackson. You can’t leave me yet because I need you. Remember those plans we made together? Those are all I sit and think about at night when I am trying to fall asleep. I look for your car every day when I pull into the neighborhood.” I squeeze his hand, and wipe away a couple tears with my other hand.

“Come back to me. I’ll make things right, I promise you. Just wake up and come back to me Jackson Avery Revere. Or your mother is never going to forgive me.” I finally get a little bit of a laugh out.

I sit there by his side for hours. I pull the chair next to the bed and fall asleep with my head next to his hand at one point in time. Craig, and all the other police officers sent here to visit or guard Jackson don’t disturb us. The only occasional bother is a nurse or doctor coming to check his vital signs, or push some kind of medication into his IV line.