Page 37 of Sacrifice
“They do.” I wipe at the tears with the hem of my shirt. “They had a panel of doctors go over her results today and they seem very confident that we have a good ‘game plan.’ The therapy is what they talked about the most.”
“Are you going to need help getting to the hospital or anything? I can’t miss too much work, but Will is on a different shift than I am. I know he’d jump in if you need him.”
“I’ll figure it out.” I look at his pocket, knowing my water notice is in there. I feel like such a burden to him. I wish more than ever that Gage was here . . . for all of us. “I’ll take care of my water bill this week, too.”
“Stop it.” His tone gives little room for argument. “I’ve got it.”
“No, Crew. I’ll pay it this week.” I don’t want to argue about this. Honestly, I don’t want to give two thoughts to the damn water bill right now. I don’t even have the money to pay for it, but I’ve figured these things out before. Maybe Mr. Ficht will give me a small loan.
“Damn it, Jules. You have enough to fucking worry about. Stop fighting things that you don’t have to fight.”
“These things are my fight. They aren’t yours.”
“How can you fucking say that to me?” Even he blanches a little at the level of his voice. He shakes his head, his voice quieter. “How can you act like this isn’t my fight? Huh? Fucking explain that to me, Julia.”
I swallow hard and try to remember why. Everything is blurring together. “We aren’t your responsibility, Crew. I don’t want your pity. I don’t want to burden you with my problems.”
“Pity?Is that what you think this is? You think you aren’tmyresponsibility?”
“We aren’t, Crew,” I all but whisper. “I’m your brother’s widow, the mother of your niece. You have no obligation to us.” I look him in the eye and force a swallow past the lump in my throat. “And I can’t have you be a part of our life and leave us, too. Especially not now.”
“What are you even talking about?”
“You walk away when everything gets hard. You walked away from me once. You walked away from your mom when she was sick. You walked away from your responsibilities and good judgments and look where that got Gage. I just . . . I can’t count on you, Crew. I can’t. This isn’t my heart or water bill on the line. This is very seriouslyour livesin the balance now. You have a way of barreling into people’s lives and taking over and then just going and not caring how it affects them. And right now, I have to be completely focused on Ever and not worrying about when you’ll leave. You’d crush her if you left her now, more than normal.”
“You’re saying you think I don’t care about you two?” He looks at me in disgust and my heart drops.
“I know you care about Ever. I’m not saying that. I’m just saying that I have to protect her from you in case you take off. Her life is so unstable already.”
“Protect her from me? Damn, Jules. Give me a little credit here, won’t ya?”
“Crew, I’m sorry. I just . . . I’m overwhelmed right now. I’m just socompletelyoverwhelmed right now.”
“Don’t you know I care about you, too?”
“I’m recalling a conversation from the park where you made it very clear you don’t do anything for me. And that’s fine. But I have a lot on my plate right now that I need to deal with. Things just got really serious here and I . . .” I hiccup back a sob.
His chin dips and he swears under his breath. “Jules, I didn’t mean that. I was just pissed.”
“It doesn’t change the truth behind it.”
“There is no fucking truth behind it,” he says defiantly, taking a step towards me. “You’ve always been something to me. Don’t you see that?”
“Yeah, sure. I saw how much of ‘something’ I was to you the day you came home after months of being in Minnesota and you just walked away. Again.”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“You know what? That doesn’t even matter. We haven’t talked about it in years; there’s no reason to talk about it now.” I hear Ever cough in her room and my breath catches in my throat. “Especially now,” I whisper.
He watches me intently, his eyes searching my soul.
“Call me if you need anything.Whenyou need something, I should say.” He walks to the door and opens it but stops one last time. “But just consider for one fucking second. Leaving you and going back to Minnesota was me telling you how much I cared about you. Andthat,Julia, has never fucking changed.”
I watch the door shut behind him.
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