“How you feeling brother?” Doc whispers.
I sarcastically laugh and croak, “Fucking fantastic.”
He sighs, but I don’t look at him as Mama snaps, “Less of the fucking attitude, Tyler. You tried to kill yourself, this isn’t a laughing matter.”
“Olive, get out,” Dad snaps, but Mama doesn’t listen, instead, she screams, “He tried to kill himself over that fucking cheating woman!”
“Olive!” Dad shouts in return, and I rasp, “She didn’t cheat…” gaining their attention.
Doc looks away, sadness clear as day over his features, so I know he knows, and I know for a fact that he’s found the proof I didn’t want to see. I was trying to take the easy way out, a way I want to take right now.
I feel like I can’t fucking breathe.
“Dirty?” I question, my throat fucking burning, but I ignore it.
“The footage from Clark’s has been refreshed since that date, so I’m trying to find any camera in the area,” Dirty states, and I turn my head to see him sitting next to the bed, his eyes also red-rimmed.
“Hospital records?” I question quietly while feeling Mama’s confused eyes on me.
“Internal tearing of the vaginal walls indicating rape, bruised ribs and side of her face cut, miscarriage, thirteen weeks,” he whispers, and my tears fucking fall.
She told me she tripped when I questioned her the next day, the side of her face was scraped and bruised.
I look up at the ceiling as Mama whispers, “No, she wasn’t, she…”
Dad cuts her off and states, “The day you were supposed to watch Cole so our son and his wife could have a date night, a night where Ash was going to announce she was pregnant, and you lied claiming to be ill, she was attacked outside of Clark’s by two men. One sat on her back while the other raped her.”
“No,” Mama chokes as I feel my tears trail down the side of my face, so much pain fucking filling me.
“I want to die, you should have let me die,” I sob, and Dirty grips my arm tightly.
“It gets worse, brother,” Doc whispers, and I look at him and demand, “How? How can it get worse than this? Than what I did after her ordeal, after she struggled to deal with it, to tell me?”
“Remember what Virginia said before you killed her?” he asks, and I frown.
“We are in love, and he’ll understand why I had to do it, why I orchestrated it!”
“No,” I choke, the memory hitting me, “Please no…”
“I’m so fucking sorry, brother,” Doc rasps, and I look back at the ceiling as my tears fall, and so much pain consumes me, I can’t breathe.
I want to die, she planned it. She wanted me and knew I’d fuck her if Ash pulled back from me. She knew I’d want revenge, she knew I didn’t fuck around in high school and felt pressured into family life too early, watching my every fucking move and despite showing Ash all my love, she saw between the lines of someone struggling.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
“You need to leave for a while,” I hear Anchor state, and I turn my head to see him sitting on the other hospital bed in the room, his eyes also red.
I swallow hard as Doc joins in and whispers, “A ride will do you good, will give you time to clear your head.”
I shake my head and deny, “No.”
“Please, Tyler,” Doc chokes, “You tried to kill yourself, I just got to you in time when I tackled you, otherwise your brain would have been splattered across your couch.”
“She was raped,” I whisper with complete heartbreak, “She lost our baby because she was raped and I-I… fuck…”
My body trembles with pain and sorrow. The need to end it all like a coward fills me, and Doc pleads, “Go for a ride, clear your head, try and sort your guilt out before you come back and win your wife back and never fucking let her go.”
“Do as he says Tyler,” Mama chokes, “We’ll help Ash with work and Cole but please, do this for her, for your son, do it for yourself because I don’t want to lose you. And as much as she denies it, she doesn’t want to lose you either, she’s just hurt and rightfully so, but please, you need to leave.”
