Write Your Own Song

Chapter 30

His callused fingers worried the smooth, green beads, but it wasn't any "Our Fathers" he was thinking of, it was Evelyn and he could sense her standing next to him. She was holding his hand, telling him everything was going to be fine and that she was going to wring Bobby's neck for letting him get hurt. The doctor was stitching him up and jabbed the needle a little too hard. Jack squeezed Evelyn's hand, willing the pain to stop. He knew she wasn't really there – it was all in his head and in the pain killers they'd given him, but that didn't make it any less real.

He was going to be okay, but he'd lost some blood and felt shaking and unsteady and very close to a breaking point he was surprised he hadn't already crossed somewhere between getting shot and slamming a tire iron into some guy's head. His knee was fucked up, too – the Super Bowl-worthy tackle he'd done had taken him back to square one as far as his recovery was concerned. After some x-rays, they put him in a shiny new brace with the promise of many, many weeks of physical therapy. He was beginning to wish he'd never gotten into Bobby's car that day he bullied him out of bed.

"Just a few days in Chicago, my ass," Jack muttered under his breath. Evelyn was no longer next to his bed, but he could hear the ghost of her laugh.

Something crashed in the hallway. "He's my brother and I have every fucking right to be back here with him!"

Jack groaned, sinking back into the gurney, wishing Bobby didn't have to plow through life like a bull in a china shop. The nurse adjusted the flow on his IV and smiled down at him. He wanted to warn her, but couldn't figure out what to say.

The doctor was taping gauze over the long gash the bullet dug into his side. He was telling him the instructions for caring for stitches, but he already knew them by heart. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt and souvenir shot glass.

The curtain flew back, revealing his brother, blood stained and surly. Jack wondered if he could feign a panic attack and get some valium so he could sleep through the next dozen or so hours. The pain killers weren't making him nearly loopy enough.

"You shouldn't be back here," the doctor said.

"It's easier just to let him stay," Jack said. "Trust me."

The doctor pulled off his gloves and stood up. "You'll be sore for a few days. Take it easy, get some rest." Glancing at Bobby as he left the curtained space, he said, "The same goes for you."

Jack got a real good look at Bobby and noticed the butterfly stitches that disappeared into his hair and the bags under his eyes. "You look like shit, man," Jack said and Bobby grunted.

"Can we go now?" Bobby asked.

The nurse who was cleaning up the stuff they used to stitch up his side explained that Jack just needed to get some fluids back in him and a good dose of IV antibiotics and then he was free to go.

"Are you sure he doesn't have to stay overnight? He fainted, you know." Bobby perched himself on the edge of Jack's gurney.

If Jack could have moved his leg, he would have pushed him off the bed. "I didn't faint."

"Yes you did, Princess. Swooned was more like it, actually."

"I passed out. It's totally different."

XxXxXxXxXx

Bobby found Remy sitting alone in the waiting room outside the emergency room. Someone had given her a pair of green scrubs and she had Bobby's jersey clutched in her lap. He'd been so wrapped up in dealing with the cops and worrying about Jack that he'd forgotten about her – he could be a real asshole sometimes.

"Hey," he said, trying to sound casual.

"Hey," she said without looking up. She seemed fragile and that wasn't like her. "How's the kid?"