SWNOVELS Fragile Lives: Chapter 29
My sister’s face changes after that hug. I don’t know what they said to each other, but she changed after that. I see our old Leila back. This woman is determined and single-minded when it comes to her goals, and she just set one for herself. I just wish I knew which one that was.
While she marches toward me, I glance at Jake. He’s uncomfortable as fuck here. He hasn’t been anyone’s favorite as of recent, and people don’t like to be around him, and I can understand why since we had a few unfortunate situations while he was working for the department. He’s been deemed the local asshole, and I don’t know how he’ll be able to redeem himself in everyone’s eyes.
Alas, him going on a long leave of absence from the police department. The dude was abusing his power, so he was told to take some time to clear his head. I know he went to some sort of rehab after the shooting, but when he came back, he didn’t change much. So yeah, he was forced to take the leave.
Truth be told though, I wasn’t surprised to find him on the scene holding Archie together. Quite literally. I’ll never forget his determined look as he held the scraps of clothing to Archie’s back and front, trying to put pressure on his wounds. He probably knew the bullets hit his lungs, and he was trying to prevent them from collapsing. Jake’s always had a good heart, but he was steered in the wrong direction at some point. I still don’t know what happened with him—I tried asking as a boss, but he quickly shut me down, and the problems started right after.
Also, there’s another thing I’ll never forget—my little sister on the ground with Archie, that haunted look on her face, her body shaking. I’ve never seen Leila so lost and so scared. She’s usually so calm and collected, but she was anything but. I think at that exact moment, I understood what Archie really meant to her. I figured they were deep when I found him loitering by the diner, peeping in the windows, but it never occurred to me that their connection could be so strong and so mutual, to be honest. Leila’s never processed feelings the same way most people do. She’s so closed off and sometimes shy, even though she’d say otherwise. She always does—it’s a hobby of hers to piss off her big brother. But I know my sister and I didn’t know she could fall so deep.
As for Archie, I’ve always felt—well, for the span of the months I’ve known him—that when he falls, he falls till his last breath. And to be frank, I’m fucking happy it’s Leila. I know he’ll be loyal and responsible, and my sister will always be taken care of. What else could a brother dream of? I was a little scared for the same reason though—knowing Archie and seeing how much he’s struggled with life, I wasn’t sure he could survive my sister.
But I think he gets her like no other man could, and there is no danger of them ever separating…if he survives this.
But I’m fucking happy I was wrong. They’re perfect for each other—he makes her feel, and she makes him not.
“I’m staying here until he wakes up.” She stands by my side, facing our friends and family. “You can go or stay; it’s up to you. I understand everyone has their lives, and that’s okay. I appreciate you coming here. I’m sure Stephan would appreciate it too.”
Fuck this shit. Stephan. Why does she keep calling him Stephan?
Then it dawns on me. I haven’t even done a background check on him. He’s been with my sister—dare I say her boyfriend—and I haven’t even checked him out. I’m getting sloppy and too trusting.
“But,” Leila continues, “if you’re going to be sitting around here with sad faces, burying him before he’s even gone, please, leave. I can’t handle it right now. All we need,” she said ‘we,’ “is your support and positivity, not Debby Downers.”
Our father chuckles, “That’s my girl.”
“Jake,” she addresses him, voice firm; everyone’s breath hitches, “you saved his life, and I will be forever grateful. Thank you.”
He nods shyly and rolls his lips, not knowing what to do with all the attention he’s getting. Positive attention, for once. The old Jake would bask in this, but this Jake is on the shyer side. Maybe therapy really did him good.
I glance around the room—everyone’s looking between Jake and Leila, understanding that she just publicly accepted him, and they better not have any problems with that. The only hot, angry stare comes from Justin, and I feel a pang of surprise. I’d think it would be Kayla, since she was the one who suffered the most from him, but turns out, Justin hasn’t forgiven his brother for nearly ruining his relationship. Even though he did eighty percent of it on his own, if you ask me.
I move a little to her side, showing that I’ll always back her up, even if I have to smack someone around. There’s more than a decade between us, and when she was born, I always treated her gentler than my friends did their sisters. I’ve always felt closer to her. I still remember sleepless nights when I lulled her to sleep when she was teething and our mom was exhausted, or finding her in my bed when she had a nightmare and came to me; even as kids, she knew I would protect her.
And now I feel calm, knowing that I trust Archie to protect her.
And now he might not make it.
Fuck it, life is so unfair to the best of us.
About twenty minutes later, a nurse comes in and says that she can take one person to his room and the rest can visit once everything’s settled. Of course, it’s Leila. No one even questions her on that. She follows the nurse with a look of determination on her face, dead set on resurrecting him if she needs to.
Once she leaves, everyone collectively lets out a sigh.
Alex walks toward me, glancing at the door she just disappeared through.
“Was it bad?” he asks, his voice tight. I noticed that he looked bad himself, but I was too focused on Leila to offer Alex any support, hoping that he’d be fine on his own. Judging by his ashen face, I’m not so sure anymore.
I nod, unable to talk. I’ve seen those scenes before, but never with my sister and my friend involved. It’s hard.
“Do you think he’ll climb through?” His voice is even tighter.
“I fuckin’ hope so.”
He chews on his lip while watching his shoes. “I never made amends with him.”
I glance at Alex, not knowing if he expects reassurance or for me to somehow take away his guilt, but I can’t give that to him now.
“I was so fuckin’ angry that he’d disappear from my life that I said all that shit I didn’t mean.”
I find his eyes and hold them. “He would disappear without her, not the other way around.”
He gets what I mean. His throat works in a loud swallow as he nods in silent agreement.
“I’ve been there a few times.” His voice is rough. “When I came back, I’d been there.” His eyes dart away—he’s not present here, I don’t think. “It’s a tough place, and I think I missed the signs because I was too focused to go back there.”
I place my hand on his shoulder. “Don’t you dare carry this burden too. He’s good now; he’s got Leila.”
His gaze shifts toward the door where the nurse took Leila, and he flinches. “That’s another fuckin’ thing I’ve missed. If I just pressed the issue when I saw those fuckin’ prints around her house, he wouldn’t have been there.”
“That one is on me.” I squeeze his shoulder harder. “You told me about that, and I fucked it up.”
“You are n—”
“I can take one more person to his room now.” The nurse appears in the doorframe, and I jump into action, happy for the save.
“We’re not done.” Alex holds my gaze and steps away, letting me be the one to go inside. Weird, I thought he’d want to be the one since Archie was his friend first.
The nurse shows me the door and tells me I have about ten minutes before the doctor comes in to check on him.
When I carefully push it open, I find my sister quietly talking to Archie. I want to close it and give them privacy, but one phrase catches my attention, and I can’t stop listening now.
“I understand now,” she whispers, leaning in close to his face. “And I want you to know that if you leave, I’m not staying. Call it childish, call it stupid. But you heard me—I am not staying.”
Dread settles in my stomach because I know what she’s talking about.
The next few days are pure chaos. People come and go. Archie’s friend and basically adopted sister Cherry came and stayed in the hotel next to the hospital. She tried forcing Leila to go take a shower at home, but the stubborn mule refused. She says that she’s scared to let him wake up without her. I talked to his surgeon, who turned out to be one of the best in the States, and he doesn’t have any hope. How this surgeon happened to be in this hospital with a freshly printed license to operate is another question I’ll be figuring out.
The more I come to his room, the more I agree with the doctor. I’m not a professional, but I can see him slowly deteriorating. His cheeks become more sunken, and the circles under his eyes darken. My sister took on the role of caretaker for her significant other at the age of twenty-four.
And I couldn’t be prouder of her.
As the days go by, people start visiting less, but it’s not for lack of trying. Cherry had to go back to Boston to manage the businesses he still owns. Justin and Kayla come to visit on the weekends since it’s about a good hour away from Little Hope. Archie’s artists from a few parlors on this coast came to visit a few times, and as far as I know, one of the artists from California is flying in this week.
Alex comes every other day to quietly sit in the corner. I know he and Leila talked, but I’m not sure how their situation got resolved—I know better than to get between siblings. Freya came twice, but since she’s become more pregnant, car rides have been making her sick. Our father drove our mother here a few times with her homemade meals for Leila. I think her presence hurt Leila the most because her doting almost drove her to the edge. The last thing Leila needs right now is pity. Even from her own mother.
By now, Leila has pretty much moved in. Nurses tried shooing her away at first, but then just accepted her as a permanent fixture in his room. They even bring her snacks and treat her with more and more respect. And pity.
She works from here too. Since that article about the military exposure, she’s getting more and more requests. Being a freelancer, she can choose what kind of jobs she takes. And so far, she has only taken those that she can research from this very room.
One day, I came to visit them and found Jake quietly sitting in the chair while Leila leaned her ginger head toward him with a quiet whisper. When they saw me, she shushed her voice, rushed to finish whatever she needed to say, and then Jake walked away with a silent nod of greeting.
When I asked what that was about, she only smiled mysteriously and said that he was sent on a secret mission. I just shrugged and let it go—they’re allowed to have secrets, even if I don’t like it.
Fine, hate it. I know about everything in my county.
I haven’t been here since yesterday because we had an emergency in town, but today I came to cheer my sis up.
“Knock-knock.” I acknowledge my presence, and she lifts her head from the laptop where she’s typing, her fingers fiercely sweeping over the keyboard as if it personally offended her. “I come baring gifts.” I lift the large to-go cup of her favorite coffee from Little Hope. It’s probably cold by now, but the gesture is what matters, or so they say.
“Thank you.” Her face stretches in a wide smile. “I could use some caffeine.”
“Thought so.” I walk toward the bed where she’s sitting at Archie’s feet, propped against the pillows, looking very comfy for a hospital bed, and pass her the drink.
She takes a sip, and her smile becomes wider.
“My life just got a lot better.” She sighs loudly and leans back on the pillow, her eyes closed. “Hospital coffee tastes like shit.”
“You could always go grab one outside. There’s a good coffee shop right down the street.”
Her face darkens as her brows pull together.
“You probably should go and get something from there. You look even paler than before. Even your freckles are paler. Wha-a-at?” I step closer to look at her nose. “In fact, that big freckle on the tip of your nose,” I point my finger at her face, “that you’re so proud of, is nearly gone.”
She rolls her eyes, but smiles. We’ve been teasing Leila about her freckles since she was little, and when she discovered that big ginger dot on the tip of her nose, she paraded it around the house, talking about how proud she was of creating such a big one. I think she was six then. Ever since, we constantly joke about it.
“Mew,” comes out of nowhere, and I can feel my eyes widening. “Mew.” Louder this time.
I glance at Leila, who sends me a conspiratorial smile.
“What the hell was that?”
“That’s Midnight.” Leila’s smile is so wide, it threatens to split her face in two.
“Who the hell is Midnight?”
“He’s our cat.” From the way she smiles—so wide and proud—I think she has fifty teeth instead of thirty-two. My sister is a little shark.
“What the hell is a cat doing in the hospital?” I begin feverishly looking around, trying to find where the constant mewing is coming from.
Leila drops to her knees and peeks under the bed. “C’mon, Midnight boy, come to mommy,” she coos to whatever creature is under the bed. A black, skinny, and ugly as fuck cat slowly crawls outside. And when I say ‘ugly’ I mean it. It’s missing its left eye and ear, half of its face scratched to hell and back, and there are scars all over his body. But then he looks up, right into my eyes, I can clearly see the unbroken spirit in those green of his. He’s defiant and strong.
I instantly love the ugly bastard and crouch next to him on the floor, stretching my hand for him to sniff.
“How did you bring him here?” I ask as I make a move to pet the skinny thing, but he lets out a loud hiss and jumps on the bed. Settling on Archie’s stomach, he forms a furry ball and starts purring.
Leila’s chuckle soothes my worried soul—I haven’t heard her laugh for a long time.
“Midnight loves only Stephan. He tolerates me but loves him.” She makes at attempt to pet the ungrateful bastard, but he lets out a loud hiss, and she drops her hand with another laugh. “My powerful friend owed me a favor, so he made a huge donation to the hospital, I guess. So they let me have the cat.”
Huh, the same mysterious person who arranged the doctor and the chopper. I need to look into him when I get a chance.
Leila probably senses my thoughts because she sighs loudly and says, “No, don’t waste your time. It’s someone powerful I did a favor for, so he did a favor for me in return. Nothing to dig there, honestly. He lives very far from us and is not a threat. In fact, he is probably one of the good guys.” Then she adds sheepishly, “I think.”
“Was he connected to the shooting?”
“Yes and no.” She chews on her lips before responding—a habit she’s had since she was a toddler. “He gave me some insight that put a few bad people in jail. One of them got out, and here we are.” She spreads her arms.
“So he is responsible for it.” It’s not a question, but also, I’m not sure what I’m dealing with here.
“Not really.” She fixes the pillow under Archie’s head and tucks the blanket into his sides. “I sought him out for that information because I needed to know the truth. And the truth turned out to be very convenient for him, so he didn’t mind sharing.”
The man responsible for Archie’s wounds, was working alone. And he indeed was Leila’s stalker who wanted to punish her for ruining his criminal life. We found evidence of everything in the motel room two towns down where he’d been camping since the article about him came out.
Alex told me about the feeling he had when he went to her house, but I didn’t pay it enough attention. Archie being shot is one hundred percent my fault even if I didn’t pull the trigger myself. But I can’t go down that road now, not when Leila’s smiling for the first time in forever.
“Where did you even find that ugly thing?” I jerk my thumb at the purring cat.
“By the cabin in the woods. The other day when Jake was here, I asked him to go to the cabin and look for the cat. And here we are.” She shrugs, and I won’t lie—I’m surprised to learn about her asking Jake. And a little offended. But I guess they connected on some sort of different level that day, so maybe it’s a good thing for the both of them.
“Stephan said,” she continues, “he’d been coming around to sit on the porch with him before I got there, and then he became jealous and disappeared for a few days.” She turns to me. “Stephan was worried sick. Legit was checking out the window every ten minutes to see if he came back.”
“What’s that thing with Archie and Stephan?” I ask before I forget.
“Ask him yourself when he wakes up,” she answers with a smile and turns back to look at the motionless man and the cat who suddenly looks up, letting out the loudest mew of all of them.
The monitor beeps, and we both jump. Leila jumps higher. In fact, she flies across Archie and lands by his side, peering at his face.
“Stephan,” this fucking name again, “are you awake?”
A nurse comes rushing in and orders Leila to get out of her way. My sister moves, a scared look on her face, her eyes wide. Another nurse rushes in, followed by a doctor.
“His BP is dropping,” one of them reports, and they start firing medical terms at each other.
I glance at Leila—her lower lip begins trembling, and I’m at her side in an instant, quickly pulling her into a hug. She doesn’t say a word, nor do I offer any words of hope. I don’t know if they’d be truthful.