Fraternizing (53 page)

The x-rays came
back and confirmed the doctor’s suspicions. They wrapped my hand in a splint,
sternly instructing me not to use it so that it would heal with time. I nodded,
wanting to hurry out of there and get in the room to see Cassie. When the
doctor gave me the all clear, the nurse escorted me down to her room. I looked
into the door window, finding her asleep.

“Try not to wake
her. She’s been through a lot,” the nurse said, finally curving her lips into
something that resembled a smile.

I nodded, then
pushed open the door and softly strode in, taking a seat in the chair next to
her bedside. I stared at her, seeing the wrap around her tiny wrists, the bandages
on her face, the IV needle in her arm. All of it stunned me. I had never seen
anything short of a beautifully, robust woman whenever I looked at her. She was
still all of that, only broken. I held her hand in mine, resting back in the
chair and watching her breathe peacefully as she slept. There was nothing
better than this at the moment.

She stirred, her
eyes blinking furiously as they tried to adjust to the light. I sat up, eager
to talk to her…to hear her voice…to apologize to her.

“Hey, Blondie,” I
lightly greeted, smiling as she tried to focus on me. Even with her marks, she
was still the most beautiful girl that I had
ever fucking
laid eyes on.

She smiled,
then
swallowed, the painful wince as she did so surprising
me.

“How are you
feeling?”

“I’ve been
better,” she answered, finally curving her lips into a smile.

There was a pink
bucket full of ice water so I filled a cup with water and helped her drink from
it. She took small sips, easing it down her throat. I couldn’t help but smile
at her as I realized that I was so close to losing her, losing the one thing
that mattered most to me. I took her hand again, bringing it to my lips, and
kissing the top ever so gently.

“I can’t even
begin to apologize enough to you, Blondie. I can’t seem to stop fucking up.”

Her eyebrows
scrunched. “What do you mean?”

“I was wallowing
in my own selfish bullshit, and that’s why you were left alone. I should have
sucked it up. I should have had you with me, and that fucking—“ my anger
was beginning to flair again, “—that fucking animal would have never
gotten to you.” I could feel my body temperature rising, but I tried hard to
control it, not wanting to upset her.

“Shhhh…” she
said, closing her eyes then reopening them. “I don’t want you blaming yourself
for this. Allen is responsible for his own actions.”

“I know,
but...fuck! If I’d had you with me—“

She stopped me
again.

“Alex, there is
no point in that. Allen did what he did, and none of us could have predicted
it.”

She wasn’t going
to let my guilt swallow me, and the sweet, yet exhausted look plastered on her
face made me realize even more why I had fallen in love with her in the first
place.

“Do you even
realize what he did to you?”

She blew out a
breath and closed her eyes. The thought was probably painful for her, but I had
to know. It was killing me inside to know if she was fully aware of what that
fucking rabid dog had done to her.

“Yes. I’m hurting
all over. I’m well aware.”

She adjusted
again in the bed, this time shifting her legs with great care. The move brought
back the image of Allen, half naked on the ground—his shit hanging out as
Cassie sat scrunched on the floor, half naked as well. Sharp knifes jabbed at
my mind as I tried hard to erase the painful and traumatizing image from my
head, but I couldn’t.

And the more I
saw it, the more enraged I became.

“I need you to
tell me something, Cassie.” I swallowed hard as I internally debated whether I
truly wanted to know the answer to my question. The deep need to know won out,
giving me the courage to continue on. “I need to know what the fuck Allen did
to you down there because if that motherfucker stuck his filthy fucking dick
inside of you I’m going to finish him off, and I won’t have any remorse for
it.”

I sat dying a
slow death as I awaited her answer, the slow swallows she took acting like
nails in my fucking coffin. I was prepared to hear it, but I wasn’t exactly
sure what my reaction would be when I did, and that was what scared me most.

“He didn’t stick
his cock into me.”

I exhaled loudly,
throwing my head back in the chair. Relief had never felt so good.

“But, he was
going to, and I was terrified that he was about to, when whoever that guy was
came in and pulled him off of me.” She was starting to cry again which was the
last thing I wanted. I scooted the chair closer to her, taking her hand to my
lips,
then
resting it up against my cheek. “He fucking
rammed his fingers inside of me. It hurt so badly, Alex. It hurt.”

Her fucking tears
were streaming down her face, like water from a faucet. My stomach twisted
again as she recalled what had happened, and I all of a sudden felt
vomit-inducing sick again. I wanted to beat Riley’s ass for pulling me away
from him because this recent news gutted me, ripped me from the core and poked
holes through my psyche, making rational thought unrecognizable. She couldn’t
stop crying, and I couldn’t find the right thing to do to make her feel any
better. I felt helpless, powerless, and defeated. Her tears were there because
I wasn’t around to protect her.

No ifs, ands, or
buts about it.

I climbed into
the bed, wrapping my arm around her while gently massaging her head. She rested
her head on my shoulder, allowing her tears to flow,
then
gradually subside as I hummed our song,
Fall
For You,
over and over again until she fell back asleep.

Chapter 32

Cassie

Sunlight
beamed into the room early the next morning, waking me from what felt like a
lifetime worth of sleep. I remembered falling asleep in Alex’s arms, but when I
woke up he was gone, and I was more than a little sad about it. I looked
around, realizing that I was still in the hospital. The night before felt like
a horrendous dream, but moving around in the bed, my sore body, and my aching
bones, reminded me that it was real.

It was so real.

Flashes of the
night, Allen attacking me, the firewatch throwing himself into the mix, Alex
coming in and damn near killing Allen...all of it replayed in my mind, making
me wince. I wanted to forget about it, but I couldn’t. It was embedded in my
head, now and forever a part of me.

The aftermath of it all...Alex holding me, the exit from the
hospital...all of that came back as well.
My breath caught as I realized
that Alex had acted like a protective boyfriend and not like the concerned
instructor that he should have. I lay stoic in the bed, thinking about what
would become of that if anything at all.

“Good morning, Pfc. Bennett,” my nurse said, cheerfully strolling
into the room with a cup in her hands.
“Here are you meds. Have you had
a chance to order breakfast?”

I took the meds
and swallowed them down.

“No, I haven’t. I
just woke up.”

“No problem. Here
is your breakfast menu. Go ahead and call in whatever you want.”

She began
changing out machines all around me,
then
took my
vitals before jotting everything down on the chart.

“Um—there
was a guy here with me last night. Do you know where he went?”

She smirked at
me, moving her eyebrows up and down.

“That handsome
specimen that was here with you this morning? He stepped out with another guy,
but said he’d be back.”

I nodded my head,
relieved that nothing horrible had happened and that he was okay.

“Go ahead and
order your breakfast. I’ll be back periodically to check on you.”

The room was
quiet. Much too quiet for comfort, so I leaned over and pressed the button to
raise the back of the bed up, putting me in an upright position to call in my
food order and turn on the TV. Leaning over to grab the phone, my head throbbed
with intense
pain
as I grew dizzy. I sat back, hoping
the feeling would subside, when a knock sounded on the door, and the nurse
walked in.

“You have good
looking men all over the place.” She winked and led Dalton in.

I smiled, so glad
to see him as he strolled in, looking fresh and rejuvenated in the early
mornings like he always did.

“Well, if you
wanted people to come wait on you hand and foot, you could have chosen a less
dramatic way of doing it,” he joked, placing a vase of flowers down near me,
then leaning over to hug me, kissing the top of my head.

“Yeah, I like
getting destroyed by the living Hulk. It was an amazing experience.”

His smiled faded
as he looked at me. I could tell sadness and regret were running through him. I
had seen the same look the night before flash through Alex’s eyes. “I’m fine
though. What’s going on?”

“Not much. I just
had to see you. I felt so bad when I found out. I should have walked you to
your room.”

“Stop. You sound
like Alex. Neither of you could have known.”

He sat quiet for
a minute, looking around the room.

“He was pretty
broken when they were taking you out. I didn’t recognize him.”

I quickly
remembered seeing Alex cry the night before. It didn’t strike me as weird
because I was in such an emotional state that his tears seemed appropriate to
me. The complexity of the situation that he must have found himself in had to
have been difficult for him. He chose to be Alex and not Sergeant Cruz.

He had made that
choice for me.

“Anyway, what did
the doctors say? Will you be able to participate in graduation?”

“Yeah. I will
probably be out of here by Monday. They said I got a slight concussion, so they
just want to make sure everything is okay before releasing me.”

“So what exactly
happened? If you don’t me asking.”

I wasn’t sure if
I minded or not. The idea of rehashing the most traumatic thing that had ever
happened to me didn’t make me feel warm and fuzzy inside. In fact, it felt like
tiny pieces of me were shriveling up and dying, but I went ahead and told
Dalton anyway. His face went from calm and complacent, to horrified, then
disgust. The story was heinous, raw, and emotional.

“Did he—“

“No,” I
affirmatively cut him off. “The firewatch got there just in time.”

He breathed a
sigh of relief.

“I’m so sorry,
Cassie. I really should have been there. None of this would have happened to
you.”

“I said the same
thing,” Alex said, walking in with bags of what smelled like breakfast in his
hands. He was freshly showered, wearing shorts, a black Marine Corps t-shirt,
and sandals. His hand was bandaged, which I didn’t remember seeing before. But
overall, he was the same, delectable and delicious Alex. “I felt the same way,
Dalton. And now, we work on healing her. That’s all we can do.”

Dalton looked
almost stunned to see Alex in a military environment, yet so casual. He scooted
his chair, making room for Alex to sit down. He took out a couple of bowls of
oatmeal, scrambled eggs, and bacon. I was starving. I couldn’t recall eating
the night before. Alex offered Dalton some, but he declined. We ate and made
small talk, trying to avoid speaking anymore about the massive elephant in the
room. After a while, the conversation shifted to Third L.A.R. and how exciting
that would be for Dalton. He went on and on about what he was expecting, and
what he was looking forward to. The reality of my North Carolina orders pinged
in my head, bringing a melancholy sadness over me. Alex noticed my silence and
took my hand, kissing the top while sympathy poured from his golden irises.

There was a knock
on the door again, the nurse strolling in once again.

“More handsome
men here to see you. Your life is amazing.”

I looked behind
her and watched as Riley walked in, flowers in his hand as well.

“How you feeling,
tiger?”

He was so casual,
so welcoming, so loving. I hadn’t spent a great deal of time with him, but he
was so much more than just an instructor. He felt like a friend.

“I’ve been
better, but I’m okay,” I answered, trying my best not to sound down. If people
were here to see me, I wanted them to see me being strong and vigilant, not as
the broken and battered victim that sat before them.

“Well, that’s
good to hear because there’s someone here to see you. And I wanted you to be
okay before I just marched someone else in here.”

Riley turned for
the door and opened it, leading the way for Angelica, who walked in, looking
nervous.

“She was down in
the lobby, so I brought her up here.”

Alex sat back in
his seat, carefully watching her with low, hooded eyes as she walked in and
placed a small bouquet of flowers on the swivel table next to me.

“I hope it’s okay
that I came by. I wanted to see how you were doing.”

“It’s fine.” She
looked as if there was so much more that she wanted to say. I squeezed Alex’s
hand and quietly asked, “Will you give us some privacy?”

He looked at me,
making sure that I was okay with this, then leaned over and softly kissed my
lips, erasing any doubt that there was much more to us, and cementing it for
everyone in the room. He gathered up Dalton and Riley, and the three of them
walked out of the room.

Angelica wearily
moved closer into the room, sitting down in a chair and smiling awkwardly at
me.

“Thanks for
coming to see me.” I had to break the awkward silence filling the air.

“I—I just
felt awful after what happened last night. We haven’t seen eye to eye all of
this time, and I’ll be honest, it was because I was a little jealous of you.” My
eyes widened as she confirmed what I had been feeling all along. “I don’t like
being second best—in anything. I was a bitch to you, and I was wrong. When
I saw what went on last night, it put everything in perspective for me.”