Page 37 of The Tex Hex (Bitches With Stitches #3)

MANDY

The place hasn’t changed much. Same cracked sidewalk out front, same scuffed linoleum in the hallway. The same muted colors that were supposed to be calming, but always felt a little sad. Instead of knocking, I just open the door like it’s still mine, because in a way, it always will be.

Someone new lies in the bed now. A young man, maybe thirty.

Breathing through his mouth, IV in his arm, curled on his side like the pain’s still fresh.

I linger in the doorway, watching the rise and fall of his chest, and for a moment, I see myself there.

Burned and broken. Drugged up and barely hanging on.

I remember the hum of the machines, the way the sheets scratched my healing skin, how the nights stretched forever.

I want to tell him it gets easier. That one day, the pain won’t be the only thing he knows. But the words don’t come. So I do the only thing I can, I gently tug the blanket higher over his feet, just as George used to do for me.

This place has a way of freezing time. The world outside these walls ceases to exist or matter when you stare at the same four walls day in and day out.

Life boils down to medications and side effects, physical therapy, and worrying about your next surgery.

I used to dream about going home and fear it in the same breath.

How do you just pick up where you left off? After losing everything?

BALLS saved me, Riggs saved me, and then West and the rest of the Bitches. I shudder to think of the man I’d be now without them.

Without Tex .

I’m flat on my back, skin aching, wrapped up in bandages and despair. George sits by the window with a deck of cards, shuffling slowly, like the movement calms him. The TV’s on, some black-and-white documentary about WWII, the sound too low to hear.

“You ever wonder what it’s all for?” I rasp.

George doesn’t look away from the window. “Every damn day.”

We sit in silence for a while. Then he gets up, brings the deck over, and deals a hand. “Cards don’t fix much,” he says. “But they pass the time. So do war stories. You talk, I’ll listen.”

I don’t talk much that day. But I don’t feel alone, either.

It went like that most days. Me lying in bed wishing for death or oblivion, anything to escape the pain, and George doing his level-best to distract me. With one final look at the man lying in the bed, I close the door quietly and head two rooms down.

Down the hall, the same old janitor hums off-key as he pushes his mop bucket past the nurses' station. He used to nod at me when I limped past him with a walker. Today, he does the same, but this time, I nod back. On my own two feet. No bandages. No painkillers.

George Piatt’s name isn’t on the door anymore.

I hesitate before stepping in. The room is empty now, bed stripped, walls bare. No pictures. No war medals. No dusty flags. Just space where a man once lived. The nurse passing by catches my eye.

“George passed last week,” she says gently. “It was peaceful,” she adds, knowing that matters to me. “One of us was with him.”

I nod and walk in anyway. The tears come instantly, flooding my eyes but refusing to fall. My throat swells with memories and emotions I usually keep buried.

The air is still, stale. I remember his laugh, raspy and low from years of smoking.

The way he used to shuffle the cards, like he was in a saloon.

He told stories that made my hair stand on end and others that made me laugh until it hurt.

Vietnam stole things from him, too. Things that never came back.

His buddies. His wife. His dog. His sanity and his youth and his innocence.

I stand at the foot of the empty bed.

“Hope it didn’t hurt,” I murmur. “Hope you weren’t scared.”

The tears track down my cheeks, and I try to swallow past the knot blocking my voice.

I lift my hand in a sharp salute. “Rest easy, George.”

I leave the room slower than I entered, heart heavy but not collapsing under the weight. I walk the hallway like I used to, but this time, I don’t feel like I’m stuck in it. I know what it took to crawl out of this place, not just physically, but mentally. And I know I’m not done.

There’s more healing to do. My scars don’t hurt the way they used to, but some nights, I still wake up gasping, convinced I’m burning.

I flinch at shadows sometimes. I brace for looks I no longer get.

And when I do get them, I try to let them pass through me without anchoring. But it’s work. All of it.

Seeing that bed empty made something settle in me. Something old and aching and stubborn. I can’t let myself stall out. Not when I’ve come this far. Not when I have someone waiting for me at home who looks at me like I’m whole.

I stop outside my old room again, lean against the wall, and pull out my phone. Brewer’s number is in my recent calls. My thumb hovers for a second before I hit dial.

“Brewer,” he answers. “You alright?”

“Yeah,” I say. “I just... I think I need to come in. Not because I’m falling apart, but because I don’t want to.”

“We’ll get you on the calendar.”

It’s been weeks since I saw Brewer. Since I needed to. But now I need to talk. I want to keep putting myself together. I want to keep showing up, for me and for Tex. As I pass the nurse’s station, a woman in blue scrubs stops me. “Hey, Cahill. We need a bingo caller. You interested?”

I stop and turn with a smile. “Yeah,” I say. “One more game. For George.”

Later that night, I stand in front of the bathroom mirror. God, I used to hate mirrors, still do. The sticky residue remains where I’d taped a poster of The Smashing Pumpkins over it when I moved in. I took it down last year, but it took me weeks to actually face my reflection.

I peel off my shirt and don’t flinch this time. The scars are still there. They’ll always be there. But I don’t look away, and I don’t turn off the light.

Tex walks in behind me. He doesn’t say a word. Just wraps his arms around my waist and presses a kiss between my shoulder blades. His eyes meet mine in the mirror.

“Better?” he asks.

“Getting there.”

Healing never stops. But now, I don’t have to do it alone.

“I’m heading out soon. Gotta catch up on laundry and my chores. It’s my turn to clean the kitchen.”

A sinking feeling pools in my gut. Loneliness, like my heart is splitting in two, and the other half is walking out the door. Again.

I turn to face him, letting him see all of it. The pocked skin. The strange shapes the fire left behind. The fear I still carry. Tex doesn’t turn away or make a face. He meets my eyes like he’s been waiting for me to look.

“Stay,” I say.

He nods and laces our fingers together in front of the mirror.

As we stand there, reflected together in the glass, I don’t see a broken man beside a whole one.

I see two survivors. Two people learning how to live again.

I think about what Brewer said once, early on: “Recovery isn’t a finish line. It’s a direction.”

I’m walking in that direction now. Some days, I sprint. Others, I crawl. But tonight, I stand.

Tex presses our joined hands to his chest, over his heartbeat. “You’re not alone,” he says. “Not ever again.”

Later, we settle on the couch, his legs draped over mine, the TV playing something we’re not really watching. Tex scrolls through his phone, then nudges me.

“Look at this.”

It’s a picture from months ago. One I didn’t know he took of me on the deck at West and Brandt’s, hoodie pushed up to my elbows, sun catching the edge of a smile I didn’t realize I’d let show.

“You looked peaceful,” he says, his smile reaching his eyes. “I wanted to remember it.”

I study the photo. I remember that day. The scent of charcoal and sunscreen. My buddies laughing and razzing each other. That day, I didn’t hate my body. Didn’t hate myself. I was just a guy at a barbecue, flirting with the really hot guy he’d been crushing on and trying not to lose at dominoes.

“Keep it,” I tell him.

Tex sticks out his tongue at me like a toddler. “I was going to anyway.”

I rest my head on his shoulder and let my eyes close.

I’m still healing. Still afraid sometimes. But tonight, I feel something new. Something small and steady growing in my chest. A belief I didn’t have before.

Maybe I’m not just surviving anymore.

Maybe… I’m living.

“Stay,” I say again, watching him with my heart in my throat.

“I am. I did.” Tex laughs, looking confused.

“No, stay. Forever.” I have to swallow hard past the fear of his rejection to get the rest of the words out. “Move in with me. Make a home here with me.”

The words hang between us, quieter than the hum of the fridge, louder than my heartbeat.

Tex stares for a second. Then two. And just when my stomach starts to twist, he exhales like he’s been holding it in for years.

“Okay,” he says, barely above a whisper. “Yeah. Okay.”

His arms tighten around me, and he buries his face in my neck like he’s anchoring himself.

“You sure?” I murmur.

He pulls back just far enough to look at me, eyes glassy, smile crooked.

“I’ve never been more sure of anything. You’re my home, Mandy.”

His voice cracks with emotion, which makes me grin with relief.

He wants this. He wants me .