Worth It (53 page)

I kneel down before her and take her face in my hands. I need to hold her, to touch her. “Are you hurt anywhere?” I ask, dreading the answer.

She shakes her head. “I think I have a few bruises, and my throat hurts, but I think I’m fine,” she rasps.

My jaw clenches when I see her busted lip and the bruises already starting to form on her neck, but I need to know…

“Did he…” I whisper. I’m unsure if I want the answer, but I know I need it.

She looks down and shakes her head. “No, you saved me in time,” she whispers, her voice trembling. Tears begin to cut a path down her face. “Thank you.”

My shoulders sag as relief washes through me, and I wrap her in my arms. If I could, I’d curl her inside my body to keep her out of harm’s way forever. She clings to me, needing the comfort even more than I do. I give it to her freely. I’ll always be here for her.

“I’m just so glad I found you in time. What were you doing out here?”

“When I saw him, I was so petrified. I didn’t think. I just bolted,” she mumbles into my chest.

Confused, I draw back to look at her. “You know who he is?”

She nods tentatively. “Yeah.” She swallows thickly. “That’s my ex that hurt me in high school.”

I feel my eyes grow wide when I realize what she means, and my body grows so solid it shakes.

I’m gonna fucking kill him. That fucking fucker broke her, and then he tried to rape her again! I’m gonna fucking kill him. He’s dead.

I start to stand to do just that, but she grabs my face in her tiny hands and stops me.

“No, don’t. It’s over. Stay here with me. I need you here with me,” she says with a quivering voice.

Her shaking body and the tears in wide her eyes pierce pinholes in my anger, but my need to end him still pumps through my veins. I clench my jaw tightly, working it back and forth. She pleads with her eyes as I struggle. Finally, I sigh and nod my head slowly. I realize that not only does she need me now, but also she’ll need me in the future, and I can’t be there for her if I’m in prison.

I reach into my pocket to pull out my cell. “We should probably call the cops though.”

She nods, and I dial 911. I explain what happened the best I can, the whole time holding her close and looking toward the road. I’m anxious for the cops to get here and lock his ass up—probably after a hospital stay.

I finally hang up and tell her, “They should be here in a few minutes.”

She nods.

I don’t want her out here any longer, so I say, “We should get you inside, so—”

I don’t get to finish my sentence because there is a searing pain in my shoulder, and I fall forward, hard, from the force of whatever hit me. My head hits the pavement, and everything goes black.

Bang!

Jed doesn’t finish his sentence, but he crashes into me, and an agonizing pain shoots across my shoulder. I can’t catch my breath because it hurts so badly. Hurt isn’t even the right word, but I don’t think there is a word for this scorching pain. I don’t even know what the fuck just happened, but I do know that Jed is dead weight on me, and I’m struggling to breathe from both his weight and this pain.

“Jed,” I croak.

Then, I see him. Todd’s face is a bloody, beaten mess, and he’s aiming a gun at me. The edges of my vision start to fade to black. I hear sirens in the background, but they’re not going to make it in time. I think Jed is dead on top of me, and I’m about to join him. I know it. I know it deep in my gut that I’m going to die.

“I’m going to shoot this fucker in the head to make sure he stays dead, and then I’m shooting you, so you can’t be tempted to whore around anymore. If I can’t have you, no one will.” Todd glances toward the road. “Pity though that I’m not going to have time to fuck that pussy again.”

His voice is garbled, and I can barely make out his figure. I think I’m panicking, but between the pain and my fading consciousness, I don’t have it in me to truly feel anything. Just as I fade out, I see his silhouette lift the gun, and I think it’s pointed at Jed’s head. I don’t really know.

The last thing I hear is another gunshot, and then I feel Jed jerk on top of me, followed by splattering on my face.

I’m slowly becoming aware of my surroundings. I hear murmurings, but the sound is muffled, like they’re underwater.
Am I drowning?
Everything is blurry. Then, I feel it—the agonizing, burning pain in my shoulder that feels like it’s on fire, and the flames are charring me from the inside out.

I manage a strangled cry and try to twist, but I can’t move, and my heart starts sprinting.

Is Todd here? Did he tie me down? Where is Jed? Oh, my fucking head!

My breathing grows rapid, and I need to get out of here, but every twist and turn is a hot branding iron to my already flaming shoulder, and I can’t get free. Despair washes through me, and I begin to sob.

“Shh…you’re going to be okay.”

A man in a white shirt appears in my view, and it’s then when I notice I have a clear plastic cup over my face.

“My name is Greg, and I’m a paramedic. We’re in route to the hospital, okay?”

I nod the best I can, but I let out a strangled cry because every movement hurts.

“Have you had any drugs or alcohol?”

I shake my and cringe against the pain.

“Medical Allergies?”

“No,” I croak.

“Okay, I’m going to give you nitronox. It’ll help with the pain.”

Without waiting for a response, he twists his torso, and he must be turning on the gas.

I start to feel the effects almost immediately. My eyes are heavy, closing on their own, but I can still make out the noises around me.

“Do you know about the other patients?” I hear another male voice ask as I begin to fade from consciousness.

“There was nothing we could do for the headshot victim. He was gone when we got there, but…” Greg says solemnly.

The end of his crushing statement is muffled as I start to dissolve into unconsciousness.

Jed.

Oh God…Jed.

This can’t be real.

He can’t be gone.

Blackness.

Beep…beep…beep…beep…

I groggily open my eyes, and in my lethargic state, I try to take in my surroundings. I look down to see I’m wearing a hospital gown, and a blanket is covering my legs. I have something huge and heavy along my left arm, and with a foggy head, I turn to see a massive cast running the entire length of my arm and across my chest. It is a shoulder cast, I conclude vaguely.

Reality starts to settle in as images assault my mind—Todd, the gun, he shot me, he shot us, Jed.

Jed is dead.

My breathing is erratic, and I can hear the
beep, beep, beep
pick up speed.

This is not happening. It’s all a nightmare, and I’m going to wake up anytime now.
This isn’t real. It can’t be real!

“Shh, it’s going to be okay, baby girl.”

I turn to see my mom sitting in a chair. She rubs the sleep out of her eyes before she leans over and grabs my hand.

“You’re okay,” she tells me.

Her words don’t calm me at all.

A nurse rushes in. “Sweetie, you need to settle down. You can’t get worked up like this right out of surgery.”

“Jed,” I croak, throwing a hopeful look at my mom.

Her eyes well with tears, and my stomach bottoms out.

“He’s—”

“Don’t say it!” I scream. I move to cover my ears, but I only have one hand. I try in vain to somehow cover both ears, but I only succeed in thrashing around. I know I must look like a lunatic, but I can’t help it. I don’t even care. I can’t hear those words. I can’t. To hear them will make them real.

“You’re going to hurt yourself, Anna,” the nurse scolds.

I ignore her. “This can’t be real. This can’t be real. This can’t be real,” I chant over and over.

“I’m going to have to give you a sedative,” she says.

I start to feel the cool trickle in my veins, so I stop struggling and just sob. My mom is trying to soothe me, but I can’t hear her voice over the roaring in my ears. Everything starts to fade quickly, and I welcome it. Sleep will offer my aching heart comfort. In my sleep, my heart hasn’t been shattered into a million pieces. In my sleep, I’ll be with Jed, safe in his arms.

Why? Why, why, why did this happen? Why did such an amazing person have to be taken from me? Taken from the world?

As my conscious begins to dim, my last thought is how truly fitting the blackness overtaking me is.

Without Jed, the world is a darker place.

Six months after the shooting, I stand before the gravestone etched with the name of the man I will never see again. I know I need to do this, so I can have closure, but it’s hard, harder than I thought it would be. It’s difficult to wrap my head around the reality that he is no longer on this Earth, no longer laughing or joking or…living. He’ll never make anyone else feel the way he made me feel—never.

He’s gone, gone forever.

I glance down at my hand and twirl the engagement ring on my finger. I learned later that Jed had planned on proposing the night he and I were shot. That night though, it never left his pocket. Pain lances through me, and a tortured sob escapes my lips as I relive that horrible night. I don’t fight my grief. I let the tears come. I remember the pain and the trauma that night caused. It’s hard to imagine how much one night, one minute, one decision can change a life forever.
Would this have happened if I hadn’t run away?

It took almost four months for me to have full use of my shoulder again. The bullet went right through Jed’s back and through his lungs, and then it went into me where it shattered a joint and tore up ligaments before finally lodging itself in a muscle in my back.

I let the tears slip down my face for the loss I carry. I weep for what Jed lost that night. My drops of sorrow stream heavily, and I let them free fall down my cheeks and onto the ground where the man I will never see again is buried.

Letting my emotions out is one of the most helpful things I’ve learned in therapy. I no longer bury my feelings, but I let myself embrace them. The pain that lances through me as I stand here is impossible to accept though. This man changed my life forever.
How can I possibly embrace this kind of inner turmoil?