not too late, Blake. It’s never too late, as long as you’re still able to fight. And Jake is worth fighting for.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“AUDREY, YOU DON’T need to be here,” I muttered in the radiologist’s waiting room. “I’m fine. Go shopping with your mother.”
“I’ll go shopping with my mom later,” she insisted, wrapping her arms around mine. “Besides, I like getting to spend more time with you.”
“You already spend a lot of time with me.”
“And yet, it never feels like enough,” she replied sweetly, before kissing my cheek.
I grumbled a reply as I heard my name being called. Picking my head up, I answered, “Yeah?”
The technician approached with a kind smile. He probably looked like that all damn day. Always smiling, through the good and the bad, delivering some optimism even in the crappiest of times. I could never survive in a job like this. I’m too real, too bitter.
“You sprained it, but there’s no break,” he said with a goodhearted nod. “Keep it wrapped up and use it sparingly. You can take some ibuprofen if the pain and swelling gets bad.”
“Got it,” I replied, nodding. “Thanks a lot.”
“Of course.” He turned his smile from me to Audrey and added, “Tell Ann I said hi, all right?”
Audrey grinned sweetly as she pulled her purse onto a shoulder. “Oh, I will. Have a great day, Jeff.”
“You, too,” Jeff said and turned toward the door from which he came. Then, with a look over his shoulder, he pointed a finger at me. “Oh! And no more punching refrigerators!”
I forced a chuckle, lifted my bandaged hand and replied sardonically, “Learned my lesson, Jeff. Thanks.”
We left the radiology building and stepped into a cold late-November morning. Audrey hugged my arm to her side and asked what I was going to do for the rest of the day while she hit the stores with Ann. I shrugged as I unlocked my car and replied, “I don’t know. Might go home and get some shit done.”
“What kind of shit?” she asked, climbing in.
“Well, someone’s been a bit of a distraction,” I shot her with a wink and she blushed, “so I’m a little behind on cleaning and laundry. Should probably do some of that.”
“You want me to come over and help?”
I narrowed my eyes as I started the car. “I’ve been cleaning and doing laundry for a long time. I really don’t need any help.”
“Yeah, I know,” she replied innocently. “I just didn’t know if you’d like the company, or um …”
I glanced at her with accusing eyes. “You’re afraid I’m gonna drink all the booze and really fuck up my hands.”
Audrey grimaced apologetically. “I’m sorry. I just know you’re hurting and I’m worried about you being alone.”
I’ve never been one to open up about my emotions. Hell, that was why I’d started receiving therapy from Dr. Travetti in the first place. To get it out and have an outlet. But Audrey was changing that. With her, I felt I could be open and honest, and so I replied, “It feels good to be worried about for once, but I’m fine. I swear.”
“Okay,” she said, almost satisfied, and I started the car.
***
The house suddenly felt hollow thinking there’d be no chance of Jake living here full-time. I never noticed that before, during the weekends when I considered the time away from him as a welcomed reprieve. But now, as I realized our regular time together was running out, the silence came to me as a scream before dying as a pathetic whimper in the pit of my chest.
I dulled the noisy quiet by keeping busy. I vacuumed the living room, swept the kitchen floor, and dusted the shelves. I loaded the washer and managed to fold some of Jake’s clean clothes with my busted hand. Two hours of chores flew by without too much thinking, but once there was nothing left to do and I sat down on the couch, the eerie hush came for me again.
Our pictures were everywhere—the drawing of the two of us and the photographs on the mantle. Jake’s puzzles were stacked on a shelf beside the TV, and his DVDs were on a shelf below that. Coloring books, board games, and buckets and buckets of Legos cluttered another set of shelves, and as I looked at all these things, I wondered how empty my house would be once it was all gone. How despairingly sad. How pointless.
This house had always been with Jake in mind, and without him in it, what was