Page 86 of The Jester and His Outlaw: Part 2

Spending his days in hospitals, doctors’ offices, pushing me around in a wheelchair… that’s not fair to him. It’s not what he needs or what he deserves. I won’t ask him to stay with me and it will hurt less if I end things now.

“No, I don’t need time to myself. I have all the time in the world. Isn’t that obvious? I just needyouto leave.”

“What?” he snaps, his anger and fear rising. Even from the hospital bed, I can see his body trembling, the way he holds his palm fisted against his thigh to keep from grasping his hair and shaking.

“You need to leave. I don’t want you anymore. I don’t want you coming hereanymore.”

He staggers back as if my words are a physical blow, an unsteady breath falling from his lungs. “You…” Dark brows pull together and his head cocks to the side ever so slightly. He isn’t looking at me, but at the floor. “Please, Outlaw. You don’t mean that. Please don’t do this to us. Let me be here. Let me help you. I fucking love you.”

“Help me? There is no helping me.”

“That’s not true.” He brings himself to my side and I’m instantly swarmed with the familiar candied grape scent I love, the subtle hint of laundry detergent intertwined. He grabs my hand, not releasing when I try to yank it away. “Outlaw... Where is this coming from?”

“Where is this coming from?” I bite out. “Hello, Riggs, I’m laying in a hospital bed and can’t move my legs, can’t hold my bladder. I can’t walk and probably never will be able to. Hockey is out the window and my Olympic career is not going to happen.”

“And? You think those things are going to turn me away?”

“They should, Riggs! We’re not married. You have an out.” His eyes fall shut with that jab. “I can’t live on my own, can’t do anything on my own.”

“You’re everything for me. I don’t need an out and you’re not on your own. You never will be if I can help it.” His inhale is shaky at best, providing little oxygen for him, but he manages.

“Because I can’t be!” I’m surprised I’m able to hold my sob back this time, letting my words come out clear but nearly hysterical and so exasperated I’m exhausted just getting them out. I sense it the second his walls come up, his resolve slipping into place, and my heart cracks a little.

Good, he needs to walk away. He needs to let me go and find someone else.

He will find someone else because one thing I did was help him change. He’s not the person he used to be.

This won’t hurt forever.

“I don’t want this,” he says, more to himself than to me, and a tear slips down his cheek. My eyes fall shut for a moment while I collect myself. I will never forget the defeat in his eyes or the way it’s like someone is burning my heart from the inside out, sauteing it in a pan of scalding oil.

Neither do I.

“I do.”

“I can’t believe that for a sec—”

“Out!” I half scream, half whisper, my desperation for him to stay getting the better of me. I never knew letting the person you love go for their own good would hurt so badly. Selflessness is supposed to feel good, but this is like my world is imploding, crumbling. Death would be better than watching Riggs’ heart break right before me.

Riggs doesn’t turn around and instead backs his way all the way to the door like he knows exactly where it is, on rewind, and has completed the action a thousand times. I guess he has. He’s been here just as much as I have. I reckon he knows exactly where the door is.

All the more reason he needs to go. I won’t be the one dragging him down and keeping him in hospitals and therapy appointments holding on to hope that I’ll be able to walk again, letting him down as well when we realize it’ll never happen.

He glues his eyes to mine, drinking me in as I am him. This is the last time I will see him in more than a passing glance. I don’t even have to be there to move my stuff back out of the apartment. Not like I’d be able to do much, anyway. Legs that once were so strong that I’d pushed to great lengths and completely taken for granted are now useless, not capable in the slightest to help carry boxes up and down the stairs.

Our rendezvous was fun while it lasted, while I had the best thing to happen to me.

But all good things end, right?

“This isn’t you, and I know this isn’t what you want. You’re mine and I’m yours. That’s just the way this works. But I’ll give you the time you need. I love you.” He says those words with so much conviction that he’ll be back, that I will endure this pain again and again because he won’t let it go. The selfish part of me that is screaming for him to come back, begging my brain to call him in here and make the pain go away, will hold him to the promise that his words convey.

“This is what I want,” I say, but he doesn’t hear me because he exits without another word.

CHAPTER38

RIGGS

This isn’twhat she wants. She’s struggling right now, loathing herself. She will come around. I will get her back. I have to give her some time.

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