Page 38 of The Love You Hate
CHAPTER TEN
Nate
I can’t feel anything. I’m numb to the emotions I’m supposed to feel because everyone around me feels so much. It’s a defense mechanism so I can be an exacting Charge Man, except now that I need to feel things I can’t. I’m torn between worrying about Presley, even though I know she’s fine as Gray has sent me reports three times a day, and wanting to crawl into a hole a die next to Felix. Gray says Presley isn’t even leaving her house for the bakery in the morning. It worries me, but also makes me feel relieved as she’s not getting into her usual trouble. All I can think about is how weak I am around her. I know who her father is. I know who she is. It was a moment of weakness, feeling like I had a friend when I told her about Felix, his illness, and the medicine that would be keeping him alive if her father wasn’t the world’s biggest dick. I was awful for doing it, but I couldn’t stop myself.
Felix’s wife is hysterical. His children don’t really know what’s happening, but they know it’s not good. I’m sitting at the patio table outside with his youngest, Willow, because we’re probably on the same wavelength.Get me the fuck away from whatever is happening because I don’t like it.
“Do you want me to push you on the swing?” I offer as she slurps up the last sips of a juice box. Willow shakes her head, and blonde curls bounce in front of her eyes. “What about the slide? I’ll catch you at the bottom if you go too fast.” Yesterday, I made the mistake of not waiting at the bottom to catch her and she flew off so fast she skipped like a rock across the grass.
She shakes her head again and crushes the small box with both hands like a savage. “We could color in the unicorn coloring book again,” I offer. “Or play dolls in your dollhouse. I’ll be the dog again.” She belly-laughed when I made the dog cook dinner and give the baby a bath. It’s the only time she’s laughed in the past three days.
My mom pokes her head out and gives me a worried look. It won’t be long now. It’s sadistic. The whole watching someone you love die thing. I wouldn’t wish it on my enemy. It should be outlawed. Closing my eyes, I pinch the bridge of my nose. Willow senses the swift change in demeanor and takes off to the playhouse in the corner of the yard next to the swing set.
When I don’t say anything, Mom moves in. “Honey, I’ve missed you so much. I haven’t seen you look this good in a long time.” The words unsettle me. She senses the shift in my emotional duress. The training that didn’t take. The failure of a Charge Man I’ve become. “Felix is asking for you.”
I shake my head. “I’m taking care of Willow. He’d want me to take care of Willow instead.”
“Son, you can’t run from this.”
I’m running fromeverythingright now. “Running is part of my job.”
“It doesn’t have to be. Why don’t you settle down? I know you have enough money now. You know you don’t have to work another day in your life. Please, honey. If Felix can teach you anything it’s that life is short and the things that are important aren’t things. They’re people.” Another pang in my chest, a scar bubbling to the surface. Presley. Felix. Family. Children. Fuck if all these things aren’t tearing at me like a plague.
“You know it’s not that cut and dry,” I reply, not meeting her eyes.
“It can be and you know it,” she says softly.
The doorbell chimes, echoing through the entire house including outside. “That’s probably the doctor,” Mom says, voice cracking. “They needed him here to, ah, pronounce him. It is the only way to avoid an autopsy, having a doctor present at the death.”
“Go sit with your sister, Mom. She needs you right now. I’ll play with Willow.” Because I can’t face the cold hard truth that she’s right about everything.
She nods. “You’ll regret it forever if you don’t say goodbye.”
Mom goes into the house to find my aunt, and I hold up one finger to Willow who is peeking at me through the window of the playhouse. “I’ll be right back,” I call out.
Willow doesn’t reply, she slinks back into the shadows of her imaginary, perfect house, unlike the one she actually lives in.Just say goodbye, Nate.I tell myself. Easy. I say goodbye all the time. In the military, I said last goodbyes to many. This one is cutting deeper. When I get to the living room, I see my family grouped around a man in the doorway, dressed in all black, covered in tattoos who is breathing heavily. His look is ominous, but his face changes when he sees me.
“Sullivan,” he says.
I nod and gather the air of dominance I usually have as I stride forward. This is business. I don’t know what kind yet, but I follow him outside leaving my family staring after us. He leads me down the long drive to a white van. I’m unarmed, but I’m not worried. “Listen, man. I can’t give you information, but this is for your cousin.” He pulls out a large suitcase from the back of his van and hands it to me. “Call the number inside when you need more.”
“Wait, who sent you?” I ask, trembling as the realization hits.
He shakes his head. “No, man. That’s not how this works. Hurry on,” he says, accent thick. “Was told it was an emergency.”
Presley did this. Presley did. My heart racing, I turn and run back to the house quicker than I’ve ever run. Everyone makes way for me as I head down the hallway into the back room where Felix is dying. The doctor is sitting in a chair next to the bed, defeated in every way except that he’s still there—waiting for the inevitable. Delicately, I put the suitcase on the floor next to the bed and unzip it. “Save him!” I scream. “Do it now!” It’s not a polite order, but as soon as the man sees what’s inside his eyes light up and he moves into high gear.
“How did you get these medications? Where did you find them?” I take the card from the top and tuck it into my pocket.
“No questions, just do it now.”
“This is everything I need to save his life right now. Whoever sent this knew exactly what stage and state Felix is in right this second. How?” The doctor is talking to himself as he draws up the drugs and inserts them into the IV on his pale, unmoving arm. What if I’m too late? What if this doesn’t work? It means that Presley cared enough about me to risk her life.
Felix doesn’t come to for another hour and a half, and it’s a long ass hour and a half. His organs eventually start working for him instead of against him and the doctor is running all kinds of tests in the makeshift lab they’ve set up for him in a guest bedroom. I come in behind him as he’s staring at a small tablet screen. “It doesn’t make sense, Nate. He was nearly dead. These were drugs that maintained him before he took a turn and lost access to them, now it seems they’re curing him. Making him well again. Each dose I give him improves his numbers more and more.”
“The drug has been improved?” I ask, tone low.
“It has. It’s the only thing that would make sense. I think if we dose him over time with what you were able to get, it might cure him altogether.” He breaks his gaze from the screen. “You have to tell me where you got these. Do you know how many more I could save if I had access to these medications? Illegal as I’m sure it is, I’d risk it all to save my patients. I haven’t had this much hope since Lexington Pharma closed down, granting many unwarranted death sentences.”
