I have sixteen stables in my side. It fucking hurts! A nurse cleans the gash on my forehead and the blood from my nose. A mirror sits on the wall directly in front of me. It feels as if I’m watching myself, much like a cat watches his pray. My arms are held up in the air while the doctor pinches the cuts and stitches them up, or staples them. What he wishes to do, I let him. My hand has an IV coming out of it. I have to pee.nextA white bandage is placed over my nose and head. From the mirror, I look like a sick, dying old man. Good. My plan will work. Where’s my goddess? Where’s my Gennie?
The pale blue door just to my right opens as Joey, Gennie… and Wade enter. “Oh my God! JC!” Gennie rushes to me and pulls my head forward, kissing me on the lips. I never move to kiss her back. I feel like I’m kissing Wade. Sick. The doctor swears under his breath and I look down to my left side. A stable just popped out. I’m bleeding again. I look back at Gennie. She tries to smile, “At least you’re okay.”
What? Shouldn’t you be crying and holding Joey saying you lost your baby? My head is light. And I have to pee. My mouth is dry as I try to speak. It hurts to move my mouth, I think I punched it too hard. “Tony…”
Her hand covers her mouth, “What about my baby?”
Lifting an eyebrow, “You don’t know?”
She shakes her head. “No. I was walking to The Venetian when I got a call from Joey saying you were in the hospital.”
I look over at Joey. He looks up, tears in his eyes. He straightens up just a bit and tells me what he knows without me even asking. Smart boy. “I was going back to the room to grab my phone, but there were cops everywhere. That’s when I saw a few guards wheel you out of the room on a stretcher.” He looked down at the ground, “They said someone broke into the room and attacked you.”
My eyelids feel heavy as the nurse hands me a few pills. Pain killers, she mouths and leaves the room. Joey follows her while Wade walks over and shuts the door. I’m now alone in the room and Gennie and Wade. And I still have to fucking pee.
Gennie takes my face into her hands. The left side is starting to bruise. I can feel it. “JC, tell me what happened to my baby.”
I avoid eye contact with her. I stare at myself in the mirror again. There’s dried blood in my hair and on my pants. I can’t help but cry as the tears fall from my eyes. “There was a knock at the door so I went to answer it.” It hurt to talk. It hurt more to tell her that it wasn’t me. “This guy came lunging at me and started hitting me. Beating me up. He dragged me to the bathroom and slammed my head onto the countertop. That’s when I heard Tony. He was crying. The man came into the bathroom and turned on the bathtub.” I couldn’t stop talking. I wanted to stand up from the table and hold her, but I knew I would just fall over. I looked down at the broken hand. It was taped to a wooden plank. Soon it would be in a cast, my fingertips were cold. “I reached up to stop him but he broke my hand. He threw Tony into the tub, drowning him, burning him. I could hear him screaming, the man laughing. I tried to sit up.” I stopped. Wade had his arms placed on Gennie’s shoulders, comforting her. It took a lot in me to continue speaking. I didn’t want him to hold her any more. I wanted her to hold me. I wanted to hold her. No Wade.
My voice cracked, “He stabbed me and lifted me and slammed my head again, but this time into the mirror. I blacked out after that.”
Gennie started crying harder and harder. She spun around in Wade’s arms and cried into his chest. That’s it. I have to pee and I’m not going to just sit around and watch my woman love another guy. I jumped off the table, falling flat on my face. My nose starts bleeding again. Joy. I push up on my arms. Fuck! My hand! My tears are no longer for Gennie, but for my pain. That hurt. I try again to get on at least one hand and crawl to the bathroom but Gennie is at my side helping me back on the table.
No, wrong way. The bathroom is forward, not backwards. She picks up a cotton ball and wipe the fresh blood away. Wade looks uncomfortably at the floor, “I’m going to be outside if you need me.” Gennie nods and he leaves.
Alone at last.
Silence fills the room as she stands in front of me, still wiping away the blood. Only the bleeding had stopped. She wipes anyway. I take hold of her hand, kissing her knuckles. “You ran to him.”
“What?”
“You went to Wade when I told you about Tony. You didn’t run to tell Joey and you sure as hell didn’t come to me.”
A look of a confusion comes across her face. “JC, does it really matter who I--”
“Answer me this. Do you love him more than you love me?” She looks away. She never answers as she walks around the room trying to find a trash can for the cotton ball. “I think I know your answer now.”
“No, JC. You don’t know.” She’s caught my attention. “I love you so much I hate you. Believe it or not, Wade is just a warm body in my bed. He means nothing. You are my world, my everything.”
“Tony…”
“Tony was my life.”
“You ran to Wade.”
Silence on her part again. Step forward. We’re face to face. Her voice drops to a whisper. Her wrist are facing upwards so that I can see them. Scars are over lapped on her arms. “I fucking tried to kill myself when you tried to kill me. When you went to L.A. and Andrea died, I tried to kill myself again. That’s why Joey left me. He knew he could never be you. He knew he will never be mine. Wade understood me for some reason. He‘s only there to help me with the baby.”
I touched the healed scars. “I would fucking die for you. You are the only thing keeping me sane. I hate you. And I love you. And I want you out of my life.” The tears have stopped. I lean forwards to kiss her but she steps back. “Justin told me what you did to him. Just like you did to me.” She reached up and touched the scar I had left on her neck three years ago.
In one quick movement, she turned and walked towards the door. She stopped just shy of the door. Her hand resting on the knob. “Just one more thing.” She faced me with so much hate on her face, “On Tony’s birth certificate, the father’s last name wasn’t Fatone. It was Chasez.” The door opened and she was gone, leaving me sitting on the table staring at the ugly pale blue color of the door. One thing sits on my mind.
I still have to pee.