Page 75 of Breaking Bristol
It had been four days since I woke up, and I was feeling a hundred percent better. I was taken out of the ICU and because Debbie was who she was and everybody loved and respected her, she’d gone wherever I did the moment I rolled out of the OR. Turns out she brought herself in a cot and slept in the corner when she wasn’t on shift because she didn’t trust anyone else to take care of me.
She definitely ruffled some feathers with that call, but that was Debbie. Best nurse I’d ever known, and a friend I didn’t know I had.
It was now just Bristol and me in the room finally. We’d had nonstop visitors, and between my therapies, breathing treatments, blood draws, and vitals, I don’t think we’d been alone more than five minutes.
She was in a pair of black leggings and my old Harvard hoodie, sitting at the end of my bed with her legs crossed between my stretched-out ones, eating my Jell-O. Her hair was in a messy knot on the top of her head, and she didn’t have a lick of makeup on, but she was still the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. “Tell you what?” she asked.
“You know what.”
“What do you remember?”
“Everything until you flew out of the room like you were possessed. Naked.” She held the spoon in her mouth upside down and didn’t answer me. “Sweetheart, I get you might not be ready, and I don’t want to push you, but I need to know. Nobody will tell me anything aside from the fact that he’s in a cell and won’t be getting out for at least fifteen years.”
She rolled her lips, kept them pressed together, then opened them to talk. “I woke up when I heard a vehicle pull up. It sounded like yours, so I assumed it was you.” I felt my jaw clench, and she saw it. “It’s not your fault.”
“I shouldn’t have left you.”
“You couldn’t have known. You came back for me, Matthew. That’s all that matters.” She reached over and set the half-eaten Jell-O on the tray and scooted forward to hold my hands in hers. “I heard the door bust open, and I knew before I saw him. I tried to run, but there was really nowhere to go. He caught me around the waist, pinned me on the bed, and tore my clothes off. I didn’t fight too much because I knew it would be pointless, and I’d need my strength, so I just lay there. And then he told me what he did to you, and I, well, I lost my mind.”
“You lost your mind?”
Her head moved in affirmation. “Apparently, when it comes to someone hurting you, I get kind of crazy.” I couldn’t help my lips quirking. “I took him by surprise. I flew at him and almost choked him out, but he was just too strong. He pushed me around a little, then tied me up. I wouldn’t stop screaming at him so he gagged me and said a bunch of shit I didn’t pay attention to.” She released a quavering breath. “Then you showed up, somehow managed to fight him, and get me free with a laundry list of injuries. When he shot you in the back, I once again thought you were dead.”
“I shouldn’t have turned my back to him. I forgot about the gun. I just wanted to get you untied so you could run, which you didn’t.”
“I felt possessed,” she said softly as something painful washed over her face. “And I suddenly understood what you said you felt about someone hurting me. It… It just took over me.”
I hated that for her. “Sweetheart.”
“I ran at him and went for his eyes. He dropped the gun, then I kneed him in the balls, and he fell over, and I started choking him. But then I felt him start to push my hands away so I grabbed the gun and got to my feet. He taunted me, said I wouldn’t do it, and I didn’t think I could.”
“God, Bristol. You never should have had to make that choice.”
She put her finger over my mouth to shush me. “I just thought about you and how much guilt you carried. I saw that shadow in your eyes, and I didn’t know if I could live with myself. But then I remembered every time he hit me, kicked me, spat on me. I felt him ripping my hair out, squeezing my throat… I felt everything. Especially the pain in my heart from thinking I didn’t have you. That’s what pushed me over the edge. And then I pulled the trigger.”
“Jesus, baby.” I urged her to come closer and held her face in my hand. “We’ll get through all this together, okay?”
She had lowered her lids, and when she opened them, her eyes were glassy. “There were no bullets left.”
“What?”
“I didn’t shoot him. I mean, I did, but I didn’t. When I realized he was moving toward me, I backed up and hit my leg on the end table. I remembered there was some kind of hunting knife left in there. I gripped it tight and had it in the air ready to…” She pulled her head from my hand and shook it. “I didn’t have to, though. Your uncle heard gunshots and called the police. Beau showed up, along with three other officers. Shane must have realized it was over for him because he charged and then Beau tazered him.”
“No shit?”
Her grin was a little evil. “He said it was too dangerous to shoot with me so close. But I still took great pleasure in watching Shane convulse on the floor.”
“I bet you did.” I tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear. “What happened next?”
“The other cops rushed in, and I ran to you. With the knife still in my hand.”
“When did you put clothes on?”
“That’s seriously what you’re thinking after all that?” She scoffed.
I tried to shrug, but it didn’t really work. “Well, yeah.”
“Beau pried the knife out of my hand and wrapped me in a blanket. It was a blur after that. Beau had called my parents, and they came, and I lost it in a whole different way. But when you woke up, I found everything I ever wanted.”