Page 82 of Say it Ain’t So

“What’s this?” I asked, pulling my attention from the papers to where Rylan was sitting on the bed.

“Discharge papers,” he muttered, and it sounded like his teeth were clenched.

I held up the page I’d landed on, pointing at the highlighted words in the middle of the page. “This says you were supposed to call a physical therapist over a week ago.”

“Yeah, so?”

“Rylan, you didn’t tell me! You haven’t said anything about physical therapy. This says you’re supposed⁠—”

“I know what it says!” He grabbed the papers out of my hand, rolled them up and shoved them under his leg.

I shook my head as tears welled in my eyes. Dragging my gaze to the ceiling, I blinked rapidly, trying to stem the tears. I was so tired of crying. “I thought… Why didn’t…”

“I don’t want to talk about it, okay?” Rylan fell back onto the bed, then rolled onto his side and curled in on himself as much as he could with his brace.

Tentatively, I sat down beside him. I reached for him, brushed his hair from his face. His hand snapped to mine, snagging it away only to pull it to his chest.

“I’m sorry I’m such a fuck up.”

“You’re not,” I told him, just a whisper pushed through my too-tight throat. “There’s nothing to forgive, you just need some help.”

We’d had this discussion multiple times, and it was getting harder and harder to keep the bitterness out of my voice. Each time he apologized, he’d promise me he’d do better. And each time I’d forgive him, because that’s what I’d learned to do long ago.

“All you do is help,” he said, his face half-pressed into the mattress. “I bet you’re getting tired of me.”

“Of course, I’m not,” I told him, though I wasn’t sure I believed that myself. Because I was tired of his anger. Tired of his refusal to get out of bed and take care of himself.

If it wasn’t for me, he’d have died of starvation a week ago. They would have found him in the same clothes he came home from the hospital in, lying right here in the middle of his bed where his pity party began and ended.

I had to feed him. Bathe him. Help him go to the bathroom, then help him back to bed. The only reason he left his bedroom was because I insisted that he eat at the table. I kept the blinds wide open to let the sun in, hoping it would do him some good.

It didn’t do any good.

None of it did.

It never worked with Peter, either.

Rylan lifted his head, shifted forward, and laid it down in my lap while he curled his arm around my back. His breath shuddered out of him, and my heart ached.

Peter never did this. He never turned to me for comfort, he only caused me pain.

“Rylan, babe, let’s get you out of bed. Are you hungry?”

He nodded, though he didn’t let go of me.

“There’re donuts out there. Or I can make you something else.”

“Can you make grilled cheese and tomato soup?” he mumbled against me.

“Of course, I can. Anything else?”

He shook his head, hugged me tighter and squeezed my hand. I ran my free hand through his hair, pushing it off his forehead. He peered up at me, his eyes full of the pain that’d been present since he came home.

“Love you, Joss.”

My heart clenched. I bent and pressed a kiss to his lips. “I love you too, Rylan.”

When he unwrapped himself from around me, I went to the kitchen and pulled out a pot for the soup and a pan for the grilled cheese. It wasn’t much, and I hated that I didn’t have the ingredients to make the soup from scratch, that the only cheese he had was the cheap processed slices that was all we had when I was a kid.