Despite It All by Reese Knightley
Greene
Day one.
The beeping blared over the noise in his own head.
“Do you understand? Are you family?” The doctor’s voice sounded monotonous, like the voice from Charlie Brown’s teacher. Wa, wa, wawa, wa.
He didn’t understand.
“Sir, did you hear me?”
Exactlylike the teacher.
“He is family.” Mason stepped closer, wrapped an arm around his bicep, and turned him around. Mason dummied down what the doctor had said.
For all of them.
“He has a mild traumatic brain injury.”
“I was just talking to him.” Mason became a blur in the white hospital hallway.
“He wasn’t talking back.” Mason, with his hand still gripping his bicep, ushered him and their mom into the sterile room.
He wouldn’t even be in there if it hadn’t been for Mason.
They’d called him family. He didn’t deserve to be called family.
He’d stay until Forest woke up and then he’d leave.
Day two.
He stood at the edge of the room fighting his rolling stomach. The smell of medicine, bleach, and something just beneath the surface permeated the air. Today, the doctor told them Forest should be okay.
Dave arrived.
“I’m sorry. Give it time,” the doctor told Dave.
He would stay, just until Forest woke up, and then he’d make sure the man was okay before he left.
Day three.
He stood at the fringes of the room, fighting the smell until Forest’s mom came and took his hand. He swayed and sat in the chair she’d pulled to the edge of the bed.
She sat on the other side, but he couldn’t meet her weepy eyes. Leaning forward, he placed his forehead on the edge of the bed near Forest’s arm.
The incessant beeping gave him hope. As long as Forest was breathing and the machine was beeping, he’d wake up. He had to wake up.
He’d stay until Forest woke up and then he’d…he wasn’t sure he could walk away.
Day four.
Today he started to beg.
Dave sounded furious out in the hall, threatening to fly Forest out of there.
Dave’s yelling finally stopped when he heard Liam’s calm, deep voice.
A man could change. He’d stay until Forest woke up and then he’d tell him that a man could change.
Day Five.
He waved away the food Mason tried to get him to eat. His ass burned from sitting so long, but he’d gone way past caring.
That day, he moved from begging to praying.
The doctor said the diagnosis was now murky. Head injuries were tricky, they said.
He’d stay until Forest woke up and he’d fight to earn Forest’s love back.
Day six.
Forest’s eyes fluttered beneath his lids.
The staff was overjoyed.
Talk to him, they said.
He was caught in a hell he couldn’t seem to get out of.
This was a good sign, they said.
Then why wasn’t he waking the fuck up?
He rubbed his sweaty palms on the clean pair of jeans. Liam had brought his go bag. He leaned in to lift the hand closest to him and brought those still fingers to his lips.
“Wake up, Forest.”
Nothing, just the incessant beeping. A nurse came in and checked his vitals. She smiled one of those sad smiles and then left them alone.
“I’ll be your servant for the rest of your life if you’ll have me.”
He pressed Forest’s palm to his mouth, uncaring that the man’s mom was on the other side, holding Forest’s other hand.
“Wake up, Sunshine.”
He closed his eyes and brushed his lips along his fingers.
“I’ll try to be the man you want me to be.”
He cupped Forest’s fingers over his own and lightly brushed his thumb over the skin. “Please, just wake up. I’ll spend the rest of my life showing you how much I need you.”
“Not out of guilt.”
He snapped his eyes up and found Forest glaring at him with a fierce light in his eyes. A glare that said, why the fuck are you here holding my hand and why did you leave me, you bastard?
“Oh baby!” his mom cried from the other side of the bed and leaned up to cup Forest’s cheek.
She pushed the button near the bed.
Staff came running.
He was relegated to the fringes of the room again.
He stayed.
Even when he gazed at him accusingly. He came closer and sank into the chair near the bed.
And stayed.
Day seven.
He sat in the chair close to the hospital bed and watched the man he loved.
“Why are you here?” Forest finally turned his face from the window. “I don’t need your fucking pity.” The words came out breathy, rasping, the cursing sounding fucking sweet.
He cried silent tears.
“Sit down,” Forest finally whispered.
They were alone, just the two of them. Mom had gone home to change. Dave and Mason had come and gone earlier.
He’d stayed because he was never leaving.
“It’s not pity, I want to be with you.” He touched the top of Forest’s hand with the tips of his fingers.
Forest huffed and slowly turned his face away.
“Then why didn’t you stay?”
“Fuck, if only it were that easy,” he choked out. “You’ll hate me.”
Forest turned that all seeing gaze on him. “That’s impossible.”
He stared, all the words he wanted to say locked up inside. Something must have been reflected in his face because Forest gripped his hand tightly.
“Tell me, Joshua Greene. You tell me right now why you can’t be with me.”
That beautiful face blurred when the wetness hit his eyes and he wiped his free hand against his face.
“I’m an alcoholic,” he croaked.
It was one of the scariest things he’d ever done, admitting it to Forest and possibly watching the love and light die in his eyes.
“For how long?” Forest’s voice was devoid of emotion, flat, unlike anything he’d heard from the man before.
“My whole life.”
“Are you sober?”
He closed his eyes, then opened them. “This time? Almost ninety days.”
“Did you drink that shot of bourbon at Dillon and Luke’s house?”
“I did. I’ve been sober a few months several times over.”
He waited for the words that would end it all. Waited for Forest to toss him out on his ass.
The silence stretched and that damned beeping kept time in the background like a clock ticking away at the minutes he’d left with Forest. He wanted to look at Forest, wanted to see his reaction, but call him a fucking coward—he stayed staring at the man’s hand. A hand he still held. A hand that had tightened around his own.
“Joshua?”
“Yeah?” He chanced a glanced upward.
“I’m listening.”
And fuck if Forest’s eyes had returned to that warm blue instead of ice, and the lump in his throat was so goddamned big, he couldn’t get a word out at first. Then slowly, he told Forest his story.
“I keep slipping. I kept slipping,” he corrected.
“When did you first try to get sober?”
“Liam slapped me upside the head over a year ago.”
“How so?”
He turned his face away and gazed out the window. The ocean sat not far away, the sun glinting, shining in a silent fuck you to the rain from yesterday.
Haltingly, he told Forest everything of the day Liam had come to his home. Not leaving any of it out. If they had a shot, and he hoped to God they did, he needed to start with a clean slate.
“Oh, I fought him. Fuck, I fought him, but it didn’t make one bit of difference.” He smoothed a hand over his beard. “He’d been hellbent on saving my life.”
“And you didn’t get sober then?”
“I white knuckled it and kept slipping. I read up on stuff and I’d make it to the thirty-day mark, but I’d slip again.” He chanced a glance at Forest.
“The lone wolf.” The brief splash of a smile was so unexpected that his eyes burned and the pressure in his chest eased, and all it had taken was one beautiful smile.
“I had a hard time until almost ninety days ago when Liam dragged me to an AA meeting.”
With his guts puked out and body shaking, through blurry eyes and fogged up ears, he’d gathered around people who shared tales of unspeakable truths, who struggled with all levels of moral culpability. It was there that he found hope and had again put down the bottle, finally able to muffle the horrendous loop of his past and take a relieved breath. For how long, he didn’t know, but he only had to take it one day at a time.
“Those phone calls you see me make?” He rubbed at his mouth.
“Yes?”
“It’s to my sponsor, Pat. He got his twenty-year chip on the night I got my thirty day in the program for the first time.”
“Congratulations on your thirty days.”
“It’s almost ninety now.”
“Yay.” Forest smiled and linked their fingers. “Grieving takes a lot out of us.”
The room blurred again and he bowed his head, squeezing Forest’s hand tight.
“I know about your unit. I know how difficult it is to live on when those around us are dying.”
He drew in a deep breath and lifted his head.
“I’m here now. You’ll never be alone if you let me in.”
Swallowing around the knot in his throat, he could only squeeze Forest’s fingers while he struggled to let the hope sink through his hardened heart.
“Plus, I only drink socially.” Forest gave him a cheeky grin.
“Lucky you,” he huffed on a half laugh, half something else.
“What I’m saying here,” Forest squeezed his fingers hard, “is that I won’t ever drink around you. You can pretty much bet on that.”
“Easier said than done.”
“When I put my mind to something, I don’t give up. Besides, I don’t much care for alcohol.”
He could see it reflected in Forest’s eyes. See the trauma from the accident.
“I’ve never gotten behind the wheel after drinking.” He had to make Forest understand that.
“That’s good to know.” Tiny lines crinkled at the corners of Forest’s eyes when he smiled.
The understanding on the pretty man’s face made him think of endless possibilities. Forest made him believe he could be a better man.
“You don’t have any addictions?” he asked.
“My addictions would be sweets in the cupboard, Amazon shopping at midnight from the comfort of my bed, and you.”
“Oh yeah?” Overwhelmed at being claimed as one of Forest’s addictions, he laughed softly, caught up in the man’s gaze. Forest’s face perked up at the sound of his laugh.
“Yeah.”
“And what is it that you order on Amazon?” He brought their linked fingers to his mouth.
“A lot of things.”
“Tell me.”
“Lube,” he said with a laugh.
He grinned, pressing his lips to Forest’s knuckles.
Their eyes locked with that strange connection where bad things just fell away and left a man feeling all centered and shit.
“I want a chance with you, Sergeant Greene. I want the chance to make you fall in love with me,” Forest whispered.
He closed his eyes against the sudden burn.
“I’m already there,” he whispered against the man’s knuckles and then opened his eyes, holding those ocean blues and letting them suck him in deep. “You had me when I saw those red shoes.”
Tears welled in Forest’s eyes and he rose up out of his chair and leaned over the bed to kiss those waiting lips.