But that sucked too.
The recovery was painful. I hated the painkillers, the bed, the hospital room. I would’ve hated the food if there was an occasion for me to eat it.
There was not.
I got deliveries daily. From Nora. From Avery.
It was either those women who delivered it or Tiffany. Tina. Fiona. A lot of the times, it was Lori. Equally often it was Calliope, either with Elliot or without. Beau’s father was also a constant visitor.
Clara, of course, was there as often as possible. Although I hated it. I didn’t hate seeing Clara, I loved seeing her. I wished I could see her every moment. We had, up until I was shot, spent almost every single day together for almost a year.
It felt like part of me was missing without her.
But she’d spent too much of her young life in a hospital, and she had trauma related to those memories. Not to mention the trauma of me beingshot in front of her.
She was coping as well as a five-year-old who witnessed that could. She was Clara. Resilient. Happy. But I noticed the dull in her sparkle. The tentative way she moved around the room, the way she clung to her father and me.
I saw it all. And I knew Beau did too.
And Beau, above everything, was an excellent father. So he put Clara first. As he should have.
He brought her to the hospital every day. She colored with me. Did crafts. Snuggled and watched movies. Ate brownies from Nora’s bakery. When it was time for her to go home, Clara displayed what was the closest I’d ever seen her come to throwing a tantrum. Technically, what she did couldn’t be described as a proper tantrum. But there were tears, harsh words to Beau.
It killed me. Every time.
And I knew it hurt Beau too.
I knew Beau was struggling.
I hated that I was worried about Beau’s feelings after the way he’d hurt me. But it was impossible not to. Beau did nothing but take care of Clara and me. He didn’t ask me for a single thing. He just took care of me.
He came back alone, some nights. I knew Clara was having trouble sleeping. Every night, she asked in a small voice if she could stay with me. She promised she wouldn’t take up much room, that she’d go straight to sleep.
It had been physically painful to say no, to promise it wouldn’t be long until I was out.
I needed to get out. Even though I was getting taken care of by everyone in town. Cole flew down and stayed for days, basically holding vigil at my bedside. My brother was there—not for long because he felt uncomfortable. Because he didn’t know how to be there for me. And because he was fucking terrified of Beau.
I wasn’t pleased with Jack about his intervention, his part in my breakup with Beau. Not that I confronted him about that. It wasn’t exactly the time, nor did I have the strength. Also, it wasn’t his fault. He shouldn’t have been able to break us. Break Beau. He had breathed life into doubts and cracks that already existed.
He left, our relationship still strained, but I wasn’t going to discount it completely. Cole left soon after, with plans to come back once I was discharged from the hospital.
Which, every day for the past two weeks, I hoped would be the next day. I tried to heal my body out of sheer force of will, for Clara.
It didn’t work. Force of will clearly didn’t matter much against a gunshot wound.
But eventually, I was cleared to leave.
Beau came back on my last night in the hospital. He mostly just read as I slept.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered after I woke from a harrowing dream that wasn’t a dream at all. It was a memory.
Beau looked up from his book, instantly taking off his reading glasses. I wanted to tell him to keep them on because he looked so handsome.
But that wasn’t appropriate, given our non-romantic status.
“What in the fresh fuck could you have to apologize for?” he rumbled.
I wanted to smile. A glimpse at the grumpy Beau I’d once known, one I still loved, was comforting.
