“Love you too,” I laugh, flipping her the bird. Dahlia pokes her head around the corner, making sure I’m not naked before she comes over to give me a peck on the cheek.
It’s been one hell of a long road, but it’s good to finally be saying goodbye to my deluxe accommodations provided courtesy of the University of Rochester. I’ll still be collecting frequent flyer miles, but after today, I’ll be putting up with Dom’s driving every morning and afternoon. I only hope I survive that as well as I did the accident.
“The doctor already signed the paperwork, so hurry it up or we’ll be late.” One of the nurses comes into the room to see if I need any help getting dressed. I’m doing fairly well at this point, but nothing ever seems to go the way I want it to so I let her help me one last time. Today is not the day for me to be stubborn because I’ll likely wind up a rumpled mess.
James, Dom’s dad, raps his knuckles on the doorframe before joining our little party. Over the past month, we’ve gotten pretty close. At first, it was bonding over what an asshole my father is and later, over what an amazing man I’m going to marry.
My stomach does a flip as that thought crosses my mind. After the accident, I wasn’t sure there would be a wedding. Following a particularly rough day of physical therapy, the type of day where nothing went right, I yelled at Dom to go home. After he did, I broke down and cried like a little bitch.
“You don’t have to stick around because you feel sorry for me, so just go,” I yell, wheeling down the hall to get away from Dom’s sad eyes. “Hell, if I could,I’drun away from me. It’s not fair of me to expect you to deal with all of this. It’s not what you thought you were getting into and there are no guarantees I’ll ever get better.”
“Not with that attitude you won’t,” Dom hollers through the corridor. The nurses don’t even bat an eye when we bicker this way.
I’m already in my room, struggling to transfer into my bed when Dom storms into the room. His face is red and the tendons in his neck are bulging. It seems I’ve finally pushed him to his breaking point.
“You absolutely right, Tony,” he bites out, stalking across the room to stand over me. “I didn’t sign up for this shit, but neither did you. Tell me something, would you leave me if I was the one in that chair?”
“Of course not,” I say, offended that he’d think such a thing. “When I asked you to marry me, I knew that meant better, worse, sickness, health, blah, blah, blah,” I stammer, waving my hands in the air like a lunatic.
“Then why in the world do you think I’d do that to you?” He leans over, gripping the bed rails tightly. “You think I didn’t know all of that shit?”
“Dom, it’s been a shitty day. Just…go home. I think we need some time apart right now.” The words cut me to the quick, but I refuse to take them back. Every day Dom spends up here with me creates a chasm between us. I miss being able to hold him while we sleep. When I’m not reliving the accident, I’m dreaming about our first night in the house, when I told Dom that I loved him. That night was the night I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life loving him. But now…I’m waiting for the day when it’s too much and he walks away. It may not be today or tomorrow or even this year, but I can’t stop thinking it’ll happen.
“Tony, I love you, but I’m not going to be your punching bag.” A tear trails down Dom’s cheek and I hate myself for hurting him. “I’m going to leave before either of us say anything else we can’t take back.”
“I love you,” I whisper as Dom’s back disappears around the corner.
“Hey, they have you drugged up today?” James asks. He kneels in front of me, tying my shoes the way a father does for their child. I miss being able to tie my shoes without the bow winding up on the side from having to do it sideways.
“Huh?”
“You got spacy there for a minute. What’s going on?” Once I’m ready, James motions for me to lead the way down the hall. I look over my shoulder and see Kennedy and Dahlia carrying bouquets and balloons. While James helps me into his car, I’ve asked the girls to make a stop by the children’s ward to see if they’d like my collection.
“Just thinking what a lucky bastard I am,” I admit as the automatic doors open. I’ve been outside plenty of times since the accident, but it’s different this time. This time, I don’t have to face going back inside to spend another night trying to sleep through the constant action on the ward. “I’ve screwed up so many times, I’m not sure I deserve this.”
James collapses my chair, putting it in the trunk once I’m situated. “You absolutely deserve happiness,” he says. “You and Dominic, you’re good for one another. And let me tell you, my son is one of the most forgiving men I know. It took him not speaking to me for a while for me to realize what I had done by making my displeasure known. And then your silly ass went and got hurt, and it was like fate that you wound up here.”
“You believe in all that fate and destiny crap?” I ask. I never used to think about such things, but the stars have aligned too many times in the past year for me to not believe in destiny.
“You look me in the eye and tell me it’s crap,” James challenges me. “My son’s told me about how the two of you met. I’d say that was the first of many fated moments.”
“Hard to argue with that,” I respond, looking out the window of the car. Dahlia and Kennedy come running out the doors and climb into the back seat.
James eases the car onto the highway, always mindful of bumps or potholes that could jar my still tender back. The pain isn’t like it was in the beginning, but it’s still an ever-present reminder of what happened.
A short while later, we pull into the driveway of Andrew and Cara’s vacation home. Cars already line one side of the drive, but the other has a huge sign:
RESERVED FOR WEDDING PARTY
A smile threatens to split my face in half. This car holds the majority of the wedding party and James parks directly in front of the garage door.
True to his word, Dom had our friends and family on standby, ready for a wedding the moment I got out of the hospital. After our fight, he came in the following morning, letting me know how serious he was about being my husband.
“Tony, there’s only one thing I regret, besides not asking you to wait for us that morning,” Dom says, sitting on the edge of my bed.
“Yeah? What’s that?” I challenge, still raw over the fact that he actually left yesterday. It was the smart choice, but I’m pissed off at myself for letting it get to that point.
“If I could go back in time, I would have insisted that we get married as soon as possible.” He kisses each red scar on my battered knuckles. “I don’t plan to spend another day of my life apart from you. The day you get out of here, we’re making this official. The only thing I want to know is if we’re going to be the DeLuca family or the Tricoli family.”
