Sliding Down the Sky Read online

  Ally looked like she was gonna cry, and I suddenly realised that I’d been standing there, staring at her.

  “Just talk to us,” she pleaded, her blue eyes brimming with fear. “Please? What’s going on?”

  If only I knew where to begin.

  Chapter Three

  “We all have to face pain, and pain makes us grow.”

  – James Taylor

  Sass

  It had been almost five months since Leo found me. I was curled up in the corner of my bedroom, in the apartment I hadn’t set foot outside of for weeks. Paparazzi had set up camp outside my building and I couldn’t risk going out there again. The curtains remained firmly closed, and I hadn’t eaten in a few days. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d even taken a shower. My body was numb, even the pain in my arm had abated.

  I was bathing in darkness, both inside and out. I revelled in it, sinking into it like a stone into the ocean. I wanted to die, and he knew it.

  My head ached. The throbbing had started when I woke up in the hospital just over seven months before, and it had never stopped. It was like a thousand songs being played by a thousand different instruments, all at the same time. The neverending noise was shredding my soul, a constant torture, a reminder I didn’t need. I remember thinking that this must be what hell feels like.

  After ignoring the phone and the door once too often, Leo made the building manager let him in. He hauled me to my feet and threw me in the shower, fully-clothed and practically comatose. He sat beside me, his arm around me, until the water washed enough of the darkness away for me to see the light again.

  He saved me because I didn’t have the heart to save myself.

  That was the beginning of my journey back to life. It wasn’t the life I wanted, but it was the life I was left with. It was up to me to stand up and move on. Looking back now, that was my rock-bottom, and despite the contstant temptation to curl up into a ball and sink into the depths, I couldn’t allow that to happen.

  It wasn’t an easy road. Salvation never is. Salvation hurts like hell, because the road seems neverending and much steeper than you remembered on the slide down.

  In the days, weeks and months that followed, Leo never left my side. He moved into my apartment, he made sure I ate and washed, and he shielded me from the media. He ferried me to and from appointments with a therapist and my doctor. He made sure I took my meds. He never gave up on me, even though I was often tempted to give up on myself.

  Eventually, the numbness wore off, but pain filled the vacuum. Physical pain, mental torture – sometimes it was unbearable. I lashed out at him, because he was there. I said things, things I regret now, but it didn’t drive him away like I hoped it would. Once, I accused him of being a martyr. I think that hurt him more than anything, although I didn’t know why at the time. I had no idea then, how much he had given up for me. He calmly told me he was my brother, he was staying, and I better get used to it. Then he told me to think about what our parents would do if they could see me now. It was that thought that festered in the dark recesses of my brain for weeks afterwards.

  The days blurred into each other. I was like a crackhead going through withdrawal. Lost and hurting, for a long time I didn’t want to be saved. I wanted him to let me wallow, but there was no chance of that. Instead, there was medication to even out my moods, therapy to talk through my fears, and then finally, a turning point.

  He wanted me to accompany him, his wife Gemma and three-year-old daughter Aria here, to this white-picket-fence town, and help him renovate and manage a bar he wanted to buy.

  I couldn’t even leave the apartment, and he was asking me to move to the other side of the country.

  I panicked. I wasn’t equipped to go out into the world, I didn’t have the necessary tools anymore. The last time I had, I was a different person. I had a career I was passionate about, friends who cared about me, a world of opportunity at my feet.

  Then there was the other version of me, the out of control one, the one that scared me when I saw her in the mirror. I wanted to make sure she was never going to take over my life again, but I could still feel her, standing behind me, waiting.

  The new me was still… new. I needed time to get to know her, to adjust to her life. I was still trying to figure out where she fit into this jigsaw puzzle of a world. Now was not the time to make any momentous decisions.

  But Leo wouldn’t let up. The more we talked about it, the more I could see how much the bar meant to him. It was his dream, and he wanted me to share it, with all of them. Who was I to stand in his way? I had taken him away from his wife and child for long enough. Even though he didn’t come right out and say it, I knew he wouldn’t leave me there alone. He didn’t trust me. I understood. I didn’t trust myself.

  I didn’t want to be responsible for ending his dream, just because I had thrown mine away.

  I think that’s when I realised how much he was willing to sacrifice for me. Maybe I’d known it all along, but the knowledge had been buried beneath all the shit I carried around inside my head now.

  It had been almost five months since he’d found me curled up in the corner, half-dead. Some days, I felt like I was still there. My life was so different it was almost unrecognisable, especially to me. My music had fallen silent. It no longer thrummed in my veins or beat out a steady rhythm inside my chest. The deafening multi-instrument orchestra in my head was gone. Instead, there was a vast emptiness and the knowledge that it was my own fault. My punishment was that I had to live with it.

  I gave up the lease on my apartment, and I moved in with them. It was the freedom I had been craving. No paparazzi. No press. Just us.

  I slowly got used to living again. I could leave the house without having a panic attack. I ate without being reminded to. I showered every day. I didn’t shy away from looking in the mirror. I closed my heart to the sound of him playing guitar in the living room.

  I got rid of the reminders of my old life and tried to think ahead.

  Chapter Four

  “Sometimes bravery is as simple as following your gut.”

  – Taylor Swift

  Callum

  “So, what happened?” I asked, taking another sip of my beer while Jack just stared at his.

  Barney’s was getting busy, but at our usual table in the corner we were tucked away from the masses. It had been two weeks since that night at dinner, and so far I’d managed to keep the situation under control by feeding them both a crock about being under pressure at work.

  It wasn’t total bullshit, because work was a pain in the ass lately. We’d lost a mechanic six months ago, and Bill hadn’t found a replacement yet, which made things worse. It also didn’t help that Bill was bugging me about coming into work hung-over, but I never mentioned that part. It was enough to get them off my case, at least for the moment, and it wasn’t a lie. It wasn’t the whole truth, but I could live with it. I found I could live with a lot of things lately.

  Sitting across from me, Jack didn’t look like a man who was overjoyed to find out he was probably going to be a father soon. In fact, he looked like they’d just been given the worst possible news. Two specialists in two months. Ally was determined, as usual. She only had two speeds – all or nothing.

  Patience wasn’t one of my virtues. I kicked him under the table, like I used to when we were kids.

  “Hey – you hear me? What happened today?”

  That seemed to do it. He frowned over the table at me, then took a sip of beer. Quickly putting all the variables together in my head, I came up with the worst case scenario and tried to prepare myself to offer some sort of moral support.

  When he set his beer back on the table between us, his hand was trembling. The odds were stacking up. He sat back against the booth and exhaled like it was his final breath.

  “He said pretty much the same thing as the other guy. There’s no reason she can’t get pregnant, carry to full-term and deliver a baby by c-section. Apparently, women with her
level of injury do it all the time.”

  I stared at him, trying to associate the positive words coming out of his mouth with the look of pure desolation plastered all over his face.

  “I’m no expert, but isn’t that good news?”

  I was obviously missing something here, something big.

  “Oh yeah,” he continued. ”And he also mentioned autonomic dysreflexia, high blood pressure, mobility problems, deep vein thrombosis, urinary tract infections and about a million other things that scare the living shit out of me but don’t seem to bother her at all.”

  He sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly, shaking his head.

  “She’s dreaming if she thinks any of that is worth it – or that I’m going to just stand by and let her do it.”

  Shit.

  “Have you told her that?”

  “Not yet.”

  I saw his dilemma. The risks were obviously real, but so was her desire to have a baby. Rock, meet hard place.

  She’d subjected herself to two appointments with two specialists in as many months. She hated being prodded and poked. This wasn’t just a passing whim, and she wasn’t going to roll over and surrender. She was a fighter. Six years ago, I’d sat beside her hospital bed after the accident and told her that the doctors said she’d never walk again. A little over a year ago, I’d helped her walk down the aisle, wearing braces beneath her wedding dress. Giving in wasn’t an option, and Jack had to know that even better than I did. They were as stubborn as each other, but I couldn’t see any middle ground here. Judging by the look on Jack’s face, I was willing to bet he couldn’t either.

  “You said women with her level of injury do it all the time, right?” I said.

  His frown deepened. I got it. He wasn’t going to risk losing her again. But would she see it that way?

  “How long have you known her?” I said, leaning forward. “Don’t you think she would’ve known exactly what the risks were, before she even made the appointments with the specialists? She’s probably been researching this for the past few months. Hell, she probably has fact sheets printed out, for God’s sake. The specialists appointments weren’t for her dude, they were for you.”

  “Your point?” he snapped.

  I held my hands out, palms up, in a gesture of surrender.

  “I’m just saying she’s stubborn, not crazy. She’s going into this with her eyes wide open. She knows the risks, but she also knows they can be managed. She knew you’d be scared, that’s why she arranged the appointments. She wanted to reassure you.”

  “Reassure me?” he spluttered. “How about terrify me! This whole… thing… it’s not worth it, not to me. I don’t care if we don’t have kids – we can adopt, or do whatever it is people do in our situation. What’s the point of trying for a family if I lose her in the process? She’s my family, and if she… “

  He hung his head and ran a trembling hand through his short, dark hair. His frustration hit me like a punch in the gut, leaving me speechless for a few moments. He was right, but so was she. For once, I was happy not to be in his shoes.

  “Have you thought about the message you’re sending if you tell her you don’t want this?” I asked carefully.

  He frowned, obviously not following my train of thought.

  “You’re saying this is something she can’t do because of her injury,” I clarified. “You’ll be the one pulling the rug out from under her, not the doctors.”

  He groaned, leaning his head back against the booth and squeezing his eyes shut, as if trying to magic the problem away.

  “This is a freakin’ nightmare,” he mumbled, opening his eyes again and staring blankly over my shoulder.

  I was right, and we both knew it. Ally wouldn’t understand that his love for her was the reason he didn’t want to go through with this. She’d only see her failure. She’d think she was less than whole, less than capable. After everything she’d fought to regain, he couldn’t take this away from her. It would devastate her.

  “Look, I know you’re scared – “

  “You’re kidding, right?” he shot back, his green eyes burning into me. “Scared doesn’t even begin to cover it. I’m in an impossible situation here. We either do this and I risk losing her, or I tell her I don’t think it’s worth it and she thinks I’m some kind of monster. Damn right I’m scared – wouldn’t you be?”

  “Absolutely.” I nodded slowly, trying to be the voice of reason.

  It felt strange. He was the reasonable one, I was the impulsive one, and that had always been the way it was with us. But someone had to calm him down and get him to think this through, and I didn’t see anyone else here to do it.

  “This is just another stepping stone, another obstacle to conquer – one of the many. You need to put her first here, because you owe her that. Stop conjuring up worst case scenarios. You know this isn’t gonna be easy, for either of you, but take a step back for a minute. In a year from now, you’ll be a family.”

  Family.

  The word rang in my ears. Jesus, did he even know how lucky he was? My Mom was off making a new life for herself – which she richly deserved, after all the shit she put up with from my Dad. Dad was God only knew where, not that it mattered anyway. Jack and Ally were more than just my friends, they were like family to me, and I was lying to them.

  The idea of fatherhood was as foreign to me as actually giving birth myself. At least he had a great role model, some idea of what a father was and how he should act. Fatherhood had to be in the genes, and unlike Jack, my genes were less than exemplary.

  Unconsciously proving my point, I took another gulp of beer. Jack followed suit a moment later. Seeing him put his empty bottle back on the table brought on a rare and unexpected flashback of my Dad doing exactly the same thing. It sent a shudder through my bones that took me right out of Barney’s bar and straight back to my childhood. I tried to shake it off as I watched him play with the empty bottle, rolling it between his palms, staring at it absentmindedly as if he couldn’t remember what it was doing there. I had the distinct impression he had more to say. I waited a few moments, and sure enough, he came out with it.

  “Whether this is gonna be easy or not, I’m not even sure I want a baby.”

  There it was. I wondered if that might’ve been part of the problem. I couldn’t say I blamed him.

  “Honestly,” he continued, “the thought of a baby scares the shit out of me. What the hell do I know about babies? I’ve never even held one before – I still feel like a kid myself half the time. What if I can’t do it? What if I’m a crappy father – not everyone’s cut out for it.”

  That was true. My Dad wasn’t. I didn’t think I was either. People like us shouldn’t have kids. But Jack wasn’t like us.

  “I don’t think anyone’s really ready for something like this, are they? It just kinda… happens. But what do I know? One thing for sure, though – seems like Ally’s pretty confident you’d make a decent job of it, or we wouldn’t even be sitting here talking about this.”

  “Jesus,” he sighed, standing up. “Time for another round.”

  “Good idea. This is more like a three-beer problem.”

  “Feels more like a fifty-beer problem,” he quipped, gathering up our empties and heading for the bar.

  “Is that a challenge?”

  “It’s just a fact,” he called over his shoulder.

  I watched him walking towards the bar like a man walking towards his execution. Did Ally know about this reluctance? Probably. She wasn’t stupid. I got that familiar hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach, the one that reminded me that this wasn’t my problem. I didn’t need to get involved. They were married now, they had to deal with this shit together. It didn’t mean it didn’t hurt, though.

  I slumped against the back of the booth, my gaze wandering. Harry was serving a couple at the bar. I only saw them from behind, but they didn’t look familiar. He was being unusually chatty, though, which drew my attention.

&n
bsp; Harry was kind of an enigma. In his late fifties with military-short, wiry brown hair, he had a permanent five-o’clock shadow. He was built like a boxer and around six feet tall, although he gave the impression of being much taller. He rarely smiled, had fingers the size of sausages and a brusque manner that sometimes put people off. He didn’t say much, and he was the kind of guy who didn’t encourage casual chit-chat. When faced with a lack of information like that, people did what they usually do in small towns – they made up their own stories about him. Rumours buzzed around him like fireflies.

  He was ex-military.

  He’d run guns for a Mexican cartel.

  He had an ex-wife who was batshit-crazy and was locked up in a loony bin somewhere down south.

  He was a bounty-hunter.

  He’s in the FBI’s Witness Protection programme.

  You name it, he’d been accused of it. Whatever the real story was, he’d owned Barneys since before I was old enough to drink, and he was still here. I was in awe of him, to be honest. Everyone around here knew me, knew my family, knew my story, yet he had somehow managed to live among us all this time and keep his past private. I was jealous. I’d have given anything to wipe my slate clean.

  While Harry had a low tolerance for bullshit, he’d shown me more patience than I deserved over the years, especially lately. I owed him, big time. I’d been getting into fights at Barney’s since I was old enough to drink. While he rarely stepped in when things got out of control, usually all he had to do was threaten to, and that was enough. I respected him, and I wasn’t the only one.

  Although I was as curious as the next person, I had a feeling that although his past was probably interesting, I couldn’t see him running guns for a cartel. Military man, though? I could believe that. From what I knew of him, he certainly seemed to live by some kind of code.