Surviving Broken(30)
Her heart swelled with thankfulness. She cleared the sentiment from her throat, whispering, “I love my family.”
Tess stood beside her. “Richard and Thomas did most of it.”
JC smiled with gratitude, clasping her mom’s fingers. “Morning, Momma. Thank you. I love it. What are you cooking? Smells delicious.”
“Christmas dinner. Plus bacon and eggs. Are you hungry?” Tess led her toward the kitchen table.
“Starving.”
One by one, the rest of the household joined them in the kitchen for breakfast. A slight air of tension filled the table, but they drank coffee, ate, talked and laughed, keeping up the façade of a regular Christmas morning. Thomas and Richard checked out her face, going on and on about her fendi-bendi and how she should be more careful. That led into a conversation about how their dad yells at cars and calls them bad words, which made everyone laugh.
JC swallowed down another pain pill during breakfast and her eyelids began to droop during the easy conversation. She stood with a wobble, stating groggily, “I gotta go back to bed.”
John rose from his chair, offering his assistance. She rested her forearm in the palm of his hand and he carefully laid his other hand on her shoulder, close to the nape of her neck.
“Ow! Don’t touch me!” JC yelped, swatting at his hand.
John, and everyone else, stared at her in amazement. Mortified and shaking, she reached for him, clinging to his strong frame for support. “I’m sorry, pl—please don’t touch me...on my neck. Okay?”
“You don’t need to be sorry.” John grumbled choice words through clenched teeth.
Shayla rubbed his shoulders affectionately, soothing the strained muscles flexing across his back.
JC staggered to her room, wondering if she’d ever be normal again. She dozed off, but woke up drenched in a cold sweat screaming, huffing and kicking wildly as she relived her beating.
Tess flew through her door first, followed by Tom and John.
JC chucked her bottle of Vicodin across the room. “I’m done taking those stupid pills. They’re giving me nightmares.”
John sat next to her on the bed, cautiously clasping her hand in his. “It’s okay. Calm down. Just take a deep breath.”
He gave a quick nod to Tess and Tom, a silent I got this gesture.
She pulled a deep inhale through her nose, and then another, forcing the air to fully expand her lungs. The tranquil surroundings of her bedroom gradually replaced the horror of her nightmare.
JC’s brows furrowed and she cringed, gazing into his jade green eyes that mimicked her own as well as their father’s. “I need to tell you something, John. I forgot Dad’s bat in Luca’s apartment. I didn’t mean to. I…I tried to use it on him, but I couldn’t reach it. I’m so sorry. I knocked it over. It must’ve rolled under the bed when—”
John closed his eyes for a moment before looking her in the eye. “It’s okay, JC. I’m just sorry you didn’t reach it. You could have hit your own home run. It’s only a bat. It’s not a big deal.”
“You’re just saying that!” she sobbed, knowing it was so much more. “Dad gave it to you and I lost it. Now it’s gone. I’m a complete failure. I can’t protect myself let alone remember to pack the most important thing I own when I’m leaving the bastard who beat me.”
When their dad was in high school, he hit a grand slam with the infamous wooden bat. He signed it as a joke and passed it down to John as a family souvenir. Miraculously enough, John also hit a grand slam using his father’s bat during a winter wooden bat league in high school.
JC was John’s biggest cheerleader. From the time she was in diapers, she attended all his baseball games. She wore t-shirts with his number printed beneath Mathews’ little sis. She painted banners, and yelled and screamed his name every time he came up to bat. When she got old enough to read the pitches, she’d inform him that he should’ve swung, and on occasion argued with the blue over bad calls.
Right after John hit the game winning grand slam, JC bolted past the gate and into the dugout, tackling him with the rest of his team. She embarrassed her brother, but instead of getting mad at her, he signed the bat and handed it to her in front of his entire team.
After their Dad died, she offered to give it back to John, but he told her to keep it and take good care of it. The bat was the most important thing she owned. Not that she hung it on a wall, or displayed it properly, it was simply one of her most significant possessions.
“It’s okay. Really, JC.” John scrubbed his face with his palms. “I don’t know if you’ll wake up before we leave, but I want to say a few things. If you want to talk, you can always call me. And if you’d like to come to Vegas, you’re more than welcome to stay at the house as long as you’d—”