Never Been Loved(29)

Groaning, I open my eyes and try to snag my phone that’s on the ground in one of the pockets of my jeans. I end up falling off the bed, gravity full-tilting me into complete awareness.

Awesome.

I lay there awhile, my muscles feeling like lead, and I’m wondering if I should just lie here forever and grow roots when the silence in the apartment rakes me with claws. No Matty. He’s at Sera’s.

Phone finally in hand, I’m blinded by the light coming from my display and the numbers. It’s five o’clock in the fucking morning.

I don’t care, whatever meagre parenting skills I do have, I need to put them to use. Plus, I told her I would call. I dial Sera’s number from memory.

“Hello?” she says. Fucking Christ, why is she doing this to me? Her voice is all adorable and rough from sleep and shit, I want to hear it from the comfort of my own bed, her lying beside me. Shit.

“Did he wake up at all?” Fucking hell, put me out of my misery. Sera doesn’t deserve this, she took care of Matty for me. Be nice. Even if you don’t remember how. I open my mouth to ask if I woke her up, or at least ask her how she is when she cuts me off.

“I’m fraking great thanks, how are you?”

Yeah, now I’m grinning, and I want to laugh. Shit, man, we’re so screwed. She must look so adorable right now. Hair probably a little mussed from sleep, eyes a little heavy from not being fully awake, lips all puffy and waiting to be kissed.

And now I’m in trouble. There’s no use dreaming about a girl I can never have. Focus. “Did he wake up?” I say it through clenched teeth so I can stop grinning like an idiot.

Five heartbeats and all I get is quiet. “Sera? Hello?”

“How are you, Hunter?”

That weird thing slithers in my chest again and it’s hard to breathe.

Well, my life sucks, I have a four year old, just as sick as I am, who depends on me and I keep letting him down. I didn’t want to be a father, but here I am. And I think I want you in my life. Even only as a friend. I think I could be a good friend to you. If you’d let me.

“I’m tired. I’m tired of all this shit. I’m really fucking tired.” It feels good to say it – to tell someone how bad I feel.

“I hope ‘shit’ doesn’t include Matty.”

Her sarcasm makes me chuckle, and it’s a struggle to choke it down. “Is he awake?”

“Who the frak is awake at five a.m.?” she sputters, and I wonder if she’s rolling her eyes, or waving an arm around, or shaking her head with me on the phone.

“What’s frak mean?” Maybe it’s from one of her mammoth books. Yeah, that would make sense, I can see her doing that.

“Never mind that. We ate supper, I gave him a slice of cake-”

“YOU DID WHAT!?” I’m vertical and I don’t even know how I got there. Blood pumps loudly in my ears, and I’m staring at the ground, wondering how I could’ve been so fucking wrong. I’m out the door and in the hall before I even know what’s happened.

“Open you’re fucking door right now before I break it DOWN!”

We disconnect, and I hear movement behind her door. She opens it, hair perfect, face a little puffy from sleep, eyes bright and glaring at me while she chest-bumps her way into my abs and I’m letting her keep me in the hall and not where Matty is.

I’m shaking, I know. This is my fault. If Matty dies, it’s all my fucking fault. I may as well have gunned him down; the death would’ve been cleaner, quicker.

I pull in air through my nose, enraged and wishing I could bodily move her out of the way so I can check on the only piece of Jules I have left.

Fuck this girl, who the fuck does she think she is?

“Let me see him. Please,” I order, moving forward enough that if I let myself touch her, I’m going to hurt her to get to Matty. I don’t think I want to do that.

“He’s fine. Don’t wake him up, he’s had a long day,” she says, staring up at me with that face, those eyes that are nothing more than another treachery. Nobody cares to understand what happens to Matty and I, nobody cares that we’re broken and can never be fixed.

I narrow my eyes and check the need to drive my fist through the wall about two inches off from where her head is.

“You don’t know fuck all of what’s happening, of what he goes through.” Fuck this, I need to see him. I don’t care about her, I don’t care.

I move closer and her knee connects with my balls. Just as the pain blooms in my lower abdomen, viciously twisting my guts and stomach so hard I gag and find myself horizontal on the hall floor, I can’t help but have a fleeting moment of pride. I think, that’s my girl.