my cheek.
“Journey is a gift to the two of you; a gift to us all. I’m so glad you’re home, honey.”
“So am I, Melody.”
With one last squeeze of my hand and a wave to her son, she exits, leaving us alone again.
“I’m going to ask to take a shower. Maybe you should go and get some rest and come back later,” I say into the awkward silence, reaching for the call button for the nurse.
“No. I’m not leaving. Knowing my mother, she has stuff in the bag for me, too. Does the baby need to be changed or anything?”
She probably does, but I know what he’s doing. He’s trying to avoid me.
“Here, hand her to me and I’ll change her while you tell me why you gave up on me and packed all my stuff.”
“Jesus, Clove! Do you really think I gave up on you? Is that what you think?”
“I’m not sure what to think. All I know is, I’m lost. I feel like everyone around me is skidding past me at a thousand miles per hour. I’m trying to catch up here. You and my dad are both treating me as if I’m fragile and you’re afraid I’m going to break. But what the two of you fail to realize is, you cannot break something that is already broken.”
Instantly I see that my honesty has forced him to face the truth, and it changes his entire disposition from sadness to anger. The air around us grows so thick that it’s like trying to see across the street through a dense layer of fog.
“Look, we were fine until my mother came in here a few minutes ago-”
“We were not fine. Nothing is fine. This,” I gesture between us, “is a shield, Turner.”
“A shield for what? You are making no sense to me at all. Are you telling me that everything you just said to me about still loving me and missing me and not forgetting about me was a goddamned lie? Do you really want to know why I have all of your stuff boxed up and at my mother’s house? Come on, tell me, because the way I see it, you are looking for a fight and coming up with whatever reason you can find to have one.”
I can almost feel steam coming out of my ears.
“You’re joking, right? For the past year, I have thought you were dead. You have no idea what I have been through! I have been fighting against and arguing with the two people who I hate most in the world this whole time. It seems like all I know how to do now is fight! I don’t know anything else anymore. So the answer to both your questions is, yes!” I shout, my breathing becoming heavier.
“Why did you give up on me?” I ask bitterly. “Did you think I ran away with him on my own, that I choose him over you?”
His face contorts in anger, nostrils flaring. His piercing look makes me wish I hadn’t brought up the subject of Trent.
“I boxed up all of our stuff, Clove. Everything. There isn’t a damn thing left in that house. It’s been sitting empty for six months now. Six months, and do you know why? Because I couldn’t stand to be in there! I couldn’t look at anything in that house! Not a bath towel, because I feared he might have used it. Not our couch, because he probably sat on it! Not that shower, because he bathed himself in it, and sure as shit, especially not our bed because I know damn well he slept in it WITH YOU!”
He starts to shake, and even though I know he has hold of Journey firmly enough in his hands, I want her back, and I want him out of here. Just as my fingers curl into a fist, a fear-inducing bolt of pain hits me so strong that it takes over my body. I can’t breathe. I start to hyperventilate and the feeling inside me is as if I am being shoved inside a little ball and there is no way I can fit. My legs give out and I collapse onto the floor.
“Oh, God! What’s happening?”
I roll to my side, clenching my hands over my chest.
“Clove? Help! Somebody help us!” I hear Turner screaming as if from a distance.
Everything happens next in a blur. I feel myself being lifted onto a bed. People screaming, Journey crying. Pressure... there is so much pressure on my