Page 335 of Vicious Saint
“What is that?”
“Just something to put you to sleep so we can get you all fixed up.”
“Please…please don’t. Let me see Saint first.” I attempt to move, but my limbs feel boneless.
The needle gets inserted, and the nurse, who I can see now is named Christi, gives me a sympathetic smile. Which, in turn, gives me hope she’s about to honor my wishes.
I’m wrong, because seconds later Christi is ordering me to count back from ten for her, and I barely make it past “tell Saint I love him” before it’s lights out again.
And this time…with no blinking until many hours later.
44
Hendrix
For the first few days, my hospital room was like a revolving door. Cops and doctors asking questions, nurses taking vitals, changing dressings, pumping me with a ton of meds. All while emphasizing how lucky I was to be alive.
Luck I stole from a man I cared so deeply about.
Whose funeral I cried through on FaceTime with Theory.
Christmas passed without mention, then the new year, even Saint and Theory’s birthdays. Those being the only two I felt myself enough to acknowledge.
Mom, Auntie, Vic, Theory, Archer, and Bex showed up in shifts, not wanting to overwhelm or push me to talk. But Saint being Saint, refused to leave my bedside for a minute. Every time I’d wake, he was either holding my hand in a chair next to me, sleeping on the couch, or threatening to kill anyone who denied taking my vitals every twenty minutes.
He spent the days in no specific order, flipping through channels, partaking in one-sided conversations, and force feeding me grape Jell-O when I refused to eat.
It wasn’t until I was released that I spoke to Saint with more than an absentminded “yes”, “sure”, or “no thank you”, and requested he take me back to the mansion. Where I’d end up spending three more weeks held up in my bedroom unwilling to leave it.
“I just have-ehto fix the clasp, then I’m all finished,” Antonio, Carlo’s jeweler who made his necklace, announces from across the table set up in my room.
He’s been here for over an hour, tools and all, repairing the broken links. Something I was told would’ve taken twenty minutes max if I agreed to let go of the necklace.
But this necklace isn’t just a necklace—it’s a sacred reminder.
Of how much Carlo loved me.
How much I loved him.
The ultimate price he paid to protect me.
In silence, I remain with my arm extended across the table, holding the horn between my fingers as I stare out the window.
My mother and Vic are behind me in another one of their whispering matches I keep pretending not to hear—because knowing I hear results in conversation and me having to actually speak to them.
No fucking thank you. They can shove questions and condolences up the ass with their secrets.
Mom, as relentless as always, goes on about being worried I’m not responding to my shrink, and Vic once again responds with things like, “Hendrix just needs more time” followed by “numbness is a stage of grief.”
He’s wrong, I don’t need time.
I can’t be numb.
Because numbness implies my feelings are masked, not gone.
In our fleeting time together, Carlo managed to fill spaces in my heart I never thought I should care about. Using unbound loyalty, protectiveness, and devotion to offer a glimpse into what my life would’ve been like if I had a father.
Arealfather.
