I was tired of being one of them.
I was the reason she was here. She joined our senior class a week before homecoming. I knew the girl didn’t have any friends, so I asked her to go with me. It didn’t hurt that she was naturally beautiful, she still is. Her lightly bronzed skin made her look like she was kissed by the gods, and that straight flowing brunette hair paired perfectly. She was beautiful in her own unique way.
We ended up dancing two times at homecoming, both agreeing it was a dump. I’d bought my first Harley back then and offered to take her for a spin. Little did I know that the bike ride would turn into the beginning of her abuse. My father had just walked out on my mom, and mom didn’t know how to handle any of that shit, so she went north, and I didn’t blame her at all for making that choice. She wanted an escape. After she left, I had practically nothing. I had an opportunity to go with her, but I declined. I wanted to finish out my school year there – at home.
I wasn’t worried about a place to stay, a roof over my head, or even feeding myself. I knew that I’d be fine. I had Rage, my best friend, my brother. He’d watched out for me when we were kids, and I did the same for him. Our bond was to never be broken, we’d always be there for another.
Rage and I had been friends for ages, he’d dropped out of school and started the Demons of Hell MC. I was his first patched in member, his VP, his second hand.
He gave me the sense of family that I didn’t have at home – the club gave me the brotherhood I needed when everything was falling apart.
I never would have had imagined that the small biker group we created about would turn into this. Our numbers were growing day by day. We instilled fear into many who opposed us, and even the ones that joined us.
Roxy and I had two dates after our homecoming dance. We’d talked and laughed like we were long lost souls. I saw something with her. That is, until Rage stole her away from me. He scooped her up out of my grasp like I didn’t matter. I’d said the hell with it and let it happen. A girl wasn’t worth losing my friendship, or at least that’s what I told myself.
I blamed myself for this, for everything. This was all my fault, and I couldn’t sit here and deny that it wasn’t. If things had just gone differently… I think of what I could have done, if I had just stayed away from Rox – if I didn’t even blink in her direction, she wouldn’t be here today.
It was no matter, though. This shit wasn’t going to keep happening. I didn’t give a shit anymore. Yeah, Rage was my best friend. Even being my best friend, it didn’t give him a right to be doing what he had been doing for years. She was so close to death this time.
The docs wouldn’t tell me shit because I was not family, but I was no idiot. All that blood, her eyelids fluttering that entire time. It was close. Too fucking close for comfort. She’d been down that road so many times. I thought long and hard, still not able to understand why she never tries to leave, why she’d always stay. I didn’t want to think that Rox has a death wish, but she may have.
There is no way to say for sure what fucking happened before I came back home. I just knew that no matter what, she wouldn’t tell me. I doubt that she was going to be honest with the doctors who were treating her. Every time this has ever happened she stays quiet, not speaking of her abuse, not letting any of us in on what actually happens. I witnessed some of her beatings myself, clenching my fists and grinding my teeth. I was a coward, I was the man that should have defended her. Instead, I did nothing.
Rage has done a lot of shit to Rox. Public beatings, beatings behind closed doors, offering her body up to anyone who wanted to use her in any way. It was sickening. If I had a wife, I would not be fucking offering her up to anyone who wanted her. She’d be mine – off fucking limits. Rage though, he didn’t care. I wonder if that was how he views her, as a thing bound to him; as a piece of property that he holds all rights to, or as a human being.
I’d have bet on the first half.
“Mr. Carmichael?” I turn to look at the blonde woman who is walking towards me in the patient seating area. After Roxy becoming a frequent of flyer here, I knew almost every doctor, nurse, and tech that was on payroll here. But this woman? She was new blood.
“That would be me,” I tell her as I get up from my seat. I extend my hand and flash the smile that I knew turned all women into mush. She shakes my hand for just a moment before she began to speak to me. I could tell by her tone of voice and body language that things aren’t good.
“Mr. Carmichael…” She pauses midway through speaking and goes silent. I don’t miss the way she stares at me, chewing her bottom lip like she wants to say something to me, but was refraining from doing so.
“Cough it up, doc. What’s going on with Roxy?” I urge her to tell me what I wanted to know. I was not her enemy, I just hope she could see that.
“I know you aren’t family. I know that, and I’m risking a hell of a lot by telling you any of this. The nurses here seem to trust you, they seem to think that you are the only decent human being besides Roxy that lives in that fucking motorcycle gang. I’m telling you this because I trust my team. If they trust you to be a decent human being, then I do too. Do you understand?”
“Loud and clear.”
“Follow me, then,” she orders. I follow close by as we walk past the nursing station and down a long hallway filled with rooms for patients. She opens a doorway into another room which looks to be a small office, flicks the light on, and shuts the door behind me. “I shouldn’t be fucking doing this. I could lose my medical license for this.”
“I got it, doc. You won’t lose your medical license. Tell me what’s going on.”
The doc scoffs at me, like what I said to her is insulting. I supposed it is. Who am I to promise her that she won’t lose her medical license? “Roxanne Stevens is lucky to be alive tonight. She was on death’s doorstep when you brought her in. I thought that girl was going to be in a fucking body bag, do you understand? That’s how far gone she was. She’s stable. For now. I don’t know what’s going to happen, I can only tell you that if something like this happens again, she will die. She is not strong enough to keep taking these god forsaken beatings over and over again. This time, she lost her child. I don’t know if she’ll bounce back like she has before. This time, it’s different.”
This time she lost her child.
My mind is repeating it over and over again in my mind. I wanted to think that I misheard her, but I knew I didn’t.
“She was pregnant?” I ask, looking at the doctor to confirm what I thought I heard.
“It looked like she was around five months. I’ve already completed her DNC, she’s had two blood transfusions, and I’m keeping her hydrated, on antibiotics and painkillers. I’m doing everything that I can to give her a fighting chance. I need you to do the same thing.”
“Heard loud and clear, doc,” I mutter, knowing exactly what I was going to be doing.
I was giving her a fighting chance.
Chapter 5
The heart gets confused when it’s constantly told I love you by the same person who destroys it… -R.H. Sin
Roxy