Page 7 of Carver (Satan’s Angels MC #8)

Carver

T here’s nothing like letting someone see you at your very worst to operate as an ironclad trust building exercise.

Dravin was there for me every step of the way. He shot straight when I asked him what my face looked like, and when I wanted to get the bandages off to see, he helped me. We stood in the bathroom of my private room and stared at me in the mirror.

I said it looked worse than ever.

Dravin promised me that you had to look like you went eighty rounds with a set of harrows before anything improved.

I have no idea how he knows what harrows are.

The first week was the worst. My face felt like a balloon and looked pretty much the same from all the swelling. I was bruised like I’d been crushed by a stone for a second time.

Dravin picked me up two days after Bronte came to my place.

I let her believe that the surgery would be further into the future and made sure I left the place exactly as it always was.

I knew that if she stopped in instead of just driving by, she’d realize right away that I was gone, but I figured that after our heated exchange, she’d give me time to cool off.

When I got to Hart, Dravin took me straight to Archer’s.

It’s a smaller clinic, but as nice as anything in a big city, and immaculately clean.

I’m not sure how Archer started working for the club, but Dravin mentioned something about a debt.

Apparently, there’s a secret basement that remains locked and Archer has it set up solely for the club’s use.

Adam Archer is a great doctor. He’s quiet with a shrewd, intelligent, clean cut look. He took x-rays and showed me what he’d already done with his 3D modelling software to reconstruct my face.

He used several implants instead of bone grafts, to reconstruct my jaw and cheekbone. Facial reconstruction isn’t a one and done, no matter what kind of miracle worker your surgeon is. He’s done the initial groundwork, but the scar revision surgery will happen later.

As for the other injuries, Archer wasn’t confident that he could do much for the nerves in my shoulder and arm.

He told me about a few specialists in Seattle he can make calls to, and also gave me a list of excellent physical therapists here in Hart.

The fact that I have started to regain some use over the past few months means that the future isn’t entirely bleak.

But there’s no promises that I’ll ever regain full function. I appreciated his honesty.

Long story short: I’m uglier than I was before, but I hope to be a little bit less so in a few months when all the swelling fades and Archer’s work is revealed. He did caution me that it’s a slow process and full healing might take up to a year.

After day seven, Dravin could tell I was starting to go insane—I’m not the best patient in the world—so finally, Archer agreed to discharge me.

Dravin and his old lady, Kael, are good people.

I’m staying with Dravin in his place above a tattoo shop owned by someone in the club named Crow—a scary motherfucker who dresses in black and has long, jet black hair to match.

Dravin says he’s good shit. I don’t trust many people, but I do trust him.

Dravin promised Archer he’d be responsible for my care.

He’s busy with club duties in the afternoon and well into the night, but Kael was here with me for the first few days.

She’s an artist and works from home so her schedule is flexible.

She’s got a good heart—she reminds me of Bronte in that way.

Which made me feel like an asshole all over again.

This morning, I convinced her I was well enough to be more than bored with all the constant resting . I asked if she could get me some language books. I hate learning from an app or online. I don’t know what it is about my brain, but I like learning from books.

Kael showed me the library’s website here and made a list of the books I wanted. She asked what other books I’d like, and I told her to just surprise me, which nearly made me weep thinking about how Bronte brings me books and records.

I tell Bronte I hate it, but I’m a liar. I look forward to what she’s picked out like a kid on Christmas morning.

I never had a proper Christmas. Not until I met her.

I didn’t know what love was until Bronte and her family.

Fuck me. My eyes are burning and this time, it’s not from surgical weeping or from the pain. I’m just straight up going to start blubbering in this small, clean spare room.

It’s been two weeks since my surgery and sixteen days since I left my place.

Bronte didn’t come to Hart. She didn’t follow me. She hasn’t found me.

I reach up and carefully wipe the slick of cold sweat off my forehead with my left hand. My stomach lurches, but not from pain meds or from forcing myself to suck back nutrients. It hurt to open my mouth even to grunt, but even drinking was excruciating.

I’ve tried to develop scar tissue around my heart, layering it hard and callused as my face, but I’m as ineffective at it as I was at warding off the bruises my dad used to leave all over my body.

I’ve tried to learn how to exist outside of all of it.

I’ve been trying and trying, ever since I was a kid.

I wish that I could create a place that I could crawl inside of where I can’t feel anything. Numbness.

I’ve never been able to shut it off.

Not my body, my head, or my heart.

I didn’t think that Bronte would listen. I knew she wouldn’t.

Did I push her too hard this time? Has she finally listened to me and given up?

She refused to let me face the world alone, until now.

Is it intentional? Is she waiting for me to come home, giving me space and respecting my wishes this time because she thinks it’s actually for the best and not just dumb shit I was spouting off in bitterness?

I tried to get her used to the fact that I wasn’t ever going to be the man she fell in love with.

That there was nothing left. Did she get tired of calling my bullshit?

Has she moved on? Or is she out there, waiting for me?

If she’s gone, there’s zero point in living.

I know how ironic that fucking is.

You can only neglect a plant for so long before it withers and dies. Bronte isn’t the plant, but what existed between us, our life, our hope, our dreams, our love—that’s the plant. Has she reached her limit? Has she been slowly withering on the inside and this was just more than she could take?

I ball my left hand into a fist and ram it into the quilt that I’m lying on top of so that I don’t do something incredibly stupid and launch it right into my own face.

I’ve always had a self-destructive streak a mile fucking wide. I don’t know if I inherited some of my dad’s demons or if he beat them into me, but either way, there’s black shit in my head that I just can’t get out.

Each day I’ve waited for Bronte, sure that she’d do what it took to find me because our bond is something that can’t be severed by either of us. It defies rationale and logic. She used to tell me that we’d lived together in other lifetimes. Her and her books. I’d laugh, but secretly, I liked that.

What if she’s done with me in this life and I have to wait until I have another to find her?

I wanted to die in that hospital when I woke up and saw what had happened to my face.

I wanted to die when I was a kid, and my dad would lay into me so bad and the pain was so wretched that I couldn’t take a breath without suffering.

Thinking about a lifetime without Bronte, I’ve never wished harder not to be in existence at all.

I know if she could hear my thoughts, even if she is done with me, that she’d talk me down.

She always knows just what to say. She’d give me the last of her strength, if I truly needed it, even if her heart was no longer open to me.

She’d bring the sunlight with her and pack it hard into all the dark spots inside of me until I shone bright.

My dad used to put holes in the walls, mostly with his fists.

I’ve never wanted to be like him, but I’m starting to understand the appeal.

It’s hard, being here, feeling so much pain and being unable to get it out.

I need to sculpt. It’s crawling up my throat, choking me.

Sculpting is my lifeline. It’s the one thing that’s kept me from going insane.

When I’ve wanted to float away, it’s kept me grounded.

I know I’m not ready to go back home yet, at least physically, but my mind is going to break being here.

I feel trapped. Lost. Wounded.

That’s why I had Kael get the language books for me. It’s something I’ve loved since high school, when I found I was good at it.

Kael just left half an hour ago, so when I hear the door open, I figure it’s either Crow coming to check on me because he does that throughout the day, letting himself in from downstairs, or it’s Dravin back early.

Some afternoons, he’s been able to be here for an hour or two before having to head back to the clubhouse.

The light rap of his knuckles on the door is familiar. “Dominic?”

I get up, walking slowly, to open it.

Bad idea.

When I see who’s on the other side, I nearly fall right onto my ass.

Bronte .

Like all my dark, brooding thoughts and my splintered heart have summoned her.

All the internal bullshit from the past year and a half, the way I’ve tunneled into myself, wrapped myself in thick armor, erected the tallest walls, dug myself into the deepest, darkest hole to hide away from the sun—all of it is just… gone. Vanished, like it never was.

I can’t pretend that I don’t want this. Her. The life together we promised each other. The memories. I have zero strength left for the person I tried to force myself to be. I’m not that man who is strong enough to let Bronte go. I’m not that caricature I made for myself of a man I don’t recognize.

I’m just Dom, the boy who fell in love with Bronte, the one who grew up with her, who grew into loving her and never, ever wanted to stop.