Love Song

Jordan

Amy had picked me up to take me to the hospital sometime around one o’clock. I wasn’t going to see my daughter. I couldn’t bring myself to do it yet. It was bad enough having to go home without her and not knowing whether or not she was going to be alive tomorrow. I was going to see Zakk. Despite the fact that he’d cut me out of his life and we hadn’t spoken since my wedding, he’d still come to the hospital to see me. That had to mean we weren’t lost forever. If he didn’t make it through, I didn’t know what the hell I was going to do. Was this some kind of punishment? Maybe God is real, and he’s punishing me for my lack of faith. He’s punishing me by bringing Ryan in my life to trap me, by making my daughter’s life a question of “what if?” and Zakk’s car accident. Though…I can only blame myself for staying with Ryan. I could’ve told my parents from the very beginning what he’d done. I could’ve gotten out of it, but I didn’t. I stayed, married him, and brought an innocent child into my mess. I was in now.

I slowly made my way towards Amy’s car, my arm holding my still slightly sore stitching together. When I got into her car, I found Sean sitting in the back seat. He gave me a warm smile and leaned forward to touch my shoulder. I patted his hand and nodded at Amy to start driving.

“So how did everything go last night?” Amy asked as she stopped at a stop sign, leaning over to look from left to right. As she pulled out into the street, she glanced at my face.

“Everything went fine!” I snapped, crossing my arms petulantly. Surprisingly, I wasn’t lying. Ryan wasn’t exactly gentle with me. But he probably felt enough sympathy for me to just leave me alone. Maybe he cared enough about his child to not have the will power to hit me. I observed him while he watched TV last night, trying to find an answer in his hard brown eyes. I couldn’t find one. All I could see in his eyes was the hatred that I had for him. I hated his eyes. I hated him. Oh god I hated him.

Amy pulled up in front of the hospital and turned to look back at Sean, “take her there will you? I’ll go park and meet up with you in a minute.”

Sean nodded and got out of Amy’s car, grabbing my hand to help me out. He shut my door for me and we went into the hospital. When we finally got up to Zakk’s room, the lights were brightly lit and he was flipping through channels on his TV. He didn’t look so out of it this time, he looked so much better, although big bruises still stained his skin and he was still wrapped up.

I tapped on the door, “can we come in?”

Zakk turned and gave me a welcoming smile as he turned off the TV, “of course you can.”

He attempted to at least sit up in his bed, but I gently brought him back down, “I don’t want you to hurt yourself just to see me.”

He grimaced as he lay back down in his bed. I bent over to fluff his pillows as he rested his head and back against them. Once he was settled and comfortable, he gave me a look that made my heart sink down to my stomach. My heart paused and I sucked in my breath.

“How’s Aria doing?” he finally asked. My heart resumed its normal beating and I let out a big sigh. I looked down and used all of my will power not to cry. Zakk had taken the time to ask how my child was doing, when he had so much of his own stuff to worry about. Aria had crossed his mind and he cared. Ryan hadn’t asked me a damn thing about Aria, and that was his daughter. Aria wasn’t Zakk’s and he still took the time to ask.

“I don’t know. I have yet to see her,” I murmured.

“Why haven’t you?” he inquired.

“I’m not ready to see her yet,” I pressed my lips together, “I don’t think I want to until they tell me for sure that she’ll be ok.”

“Jordan, you know you can’t do that,” he said softly, “let’s say Aria doesn’t make it. You’d hate yourself if you didn’t visit her.”

“Would they even let me see her?” I tried to stop the flow of my tears with the palm of my hand pressed into my eye, but they came anyway.

“Wouldn’t hurt to ask,” he lifted his hand to grab mine, taking it away from my eye. I nodded but I couldn’t bring myself to say anything more. After that, Zakk was starting to feel immense pain and he asked for a nurse to come and bring him his pain medication. Sean and I took that as our cue to leave.

“Are we going to see your baby?” Sean asked. I considered it. I didn’t know if I could handle seeing my daughter. But I didn’t want to have her in the hospital all by herself since her father was completely useless. I took a deep breath and nodded.

When I first saw Aria’s tiny, fragile little body, I burst into tears. She looked like she would disintegrate and blow away if they turned the air conditioner on. I wanted so much to just hold her little hand, but I was sure she’d break. Sean squeezed my shoulder but I could barely feel it. I was numb to everything and everyone.

“My sweet baby,” I whispered as I watched her little chest strain to move up and down, “I can’t believe I let it get this bad…this is all my fault…”

“Jordan, how could this be your fault?” Sean said.

“Because I screwed up more than I could ever have imagined. Did I ever go to my parents when my English teacher was raping me and beating me? No! You wanna know what I did instead?! I married him,” I fell back onto the chair next to Aria’s incubator, “I’ve already ruined my daughter’s life, if she gets to even have one!”

My shouting had caught attention and Sean helped me up to lead me outside. He sat me down on a bench next to the front door. I immediately fell onto my side, pulling my knees up to my chest. Sean had no idea what he was supposed to do. Amy was still god only knows where trying to park her car and I was creating an uncomfortable situation for him. He shouldn’t have to deal with my stupidity, my lack of responsibility, my lack of dignity, my lack of everything, essentially.

“What happened?” I sat up and saw Amy walking towards the bench where we were, pushing up the sleeves of her white sweater. Little drops of mist had clung to her curls and bounced with them as she ran up to us. Sean grabbed her by the elbow and pulled her aside. I watched Sean point to me as he made other gestures with his hands and Amy looked at me with forlorn eyes. They came back over to me and Amy sat down next to my feet. She patted my legs as a signal for me to sit up and I unwillingly did so.

“Jordan, it’s not too late to put Ryan away for what he did,” she mumbled, rubbing my shoulders.

“No!” I trembled and held my head, “I can’t do that…”

I felt Amy’s hand pull away. I knew my sudden outburst of terror scared her a little.

“He wouldn’t be able to hurt you anymore Jordan,” she said.

“I’m too afraid…I’m a damn coward alright?” I snapped, “Amy…just…please take me home.”

Amy obediently nodded and helped me back onto my feet. The car ride was a slow one. We sat in silence, so much that Amy was too uncomfortable to even turn the radio on to break it. She finally pulled up to my driveway and took the key from the ignition.

“I just want you to know that once you’re ready,” Amy’s voice had lowered to a whisper, “you know where to go.”

I nodded as I got out of the car and walked across my front lawn towards the front door. I almost turned to get back into the car. I knew this would be that moment where I stayed or I created a new and better life for myself and for my daughter. But how could I possibly get her out of here when she couldn’t even breathe on her own yet? My hand hovered over the doorknob as I seriously considered it. My lip quivered as I finally grabbed the knob and twisted it. Ryan sat in the recliner chair with his eyes attached to the TV. I closed the front door behind me but kept my back pressed against it. His eyes darted towards me and my toes curled in my shoes.

“Where were you?” he asked.

“I was at the hospital,” I replied, “I was visiting Aria.”

“And…Zakk had nothing to do with your visit? Or is it coincidence?” he said. He turned off the TV and turned the recliner chair to face my direction. I swallowed hard and sighed.

“He’s my friend…he would’ve wondered why I wasn’t there,” I murmured, “he ended up in the hospital trying to see me.”

He stood up and made his way towards me. I bit my bottom lip and I could almost feel the pop of my tooth penetrating my skin. His fingers twitched, like he really wanted to raise his hand to hit me, but he didn’t. He simply grabbed my wrist and pulled me into the kitchen. He pulled out a chair and placed it next to the sink, “sit.”

I cautiously sat down in the chair, blood running down my chin. He tore a paper towel and got it wet with cold water. He grabbed me by the chin and pressed the cold paper towel against my lip. This was the only time I’d ever seen him be gentle with me without someone being here with us, watching over him carefully. I had no clue why he was acting like this, and I cracked my knuckles nervously, waiting for the catch. But it never happened. Maybe I hit a soft spot when I told him I saw Aria, I don’t know. But I wasn’t going to relax, no matter how many times he tried to help me. Cleaning up a bloody wound on my lip isn’t going to change years of abuse.