Picking Up The Pieces Read online

Chapter Two

  Pain. There was a fuck-ton of pain.

  I remember blacking out and coming to in the midst of being beaten, multiple times. There were holes in my memory. I remember trying to keep myself from crying. Whenever I opened my eyes, I could only see that giant man with his fists slamming straight into my body, over and over. Every time, it was like another snapshot into agony. A new angle of fist smacking into skin, a new searing pain that coursed through my body. A kick to my stomach. A hoisting and throwing of my body into something wet and dirty on the concrete ground. Ew. I don’t know how long I was toppled over in a gutter, but I knew I was—and I hated the word—moist. Not with rain, or with gutter-water, but with blood.

  That couldn’t have been good for my wounds. It didn’t even feel like a moment later when I passed out.

  It was so comfortable in the darkness. It wrapped around me like a blanket, just asking me to stay in its tender, all-consuming embrace. There was no time, no purpose, only this strangely pleasant nothingness that welcomed me home. I was safe. I was content…until I wasn’t.

  I finally came to when I felt something warm bask over me, like a light that was much too intense to ignore. I wanted to cry out in pain. When I opened my eyes, there were doctors in surgical gowns moving all around me, asking me to follow their fingers and shining bright lights right into my eyes. Someone called for a crash cart, and I could hear a machine beeping angrily in the distance. The darkness was pulling me back. It was like I was a rope in a tug of war, pulled by a comfortable nothing and the inconvenience of being conscious.

  “Stay with me,” someone said. “You’ll be just fine.”

  There were people—some of them were probably nurses—all rushing around. It was like a regular medical soap opera.

  “Pulse is a little weak, but stable. His breathing is shallow. We’re gonna need to give him more oxygen.”

  A jolt of lightning or electricity suddenly surged through my body, pulling me out of unconsciousness with a loud gasp. I was equal parts irritated and in pain, because suddenly, everything came crashing back. It came back in the way that solid fist felt like a boulder smashing into my solar plexus, knocking the wind out of me. It was in the throb of bruises that racked my entire body, in the way my chest heaved every time I tried to breathe, and in my blurry vision.

  When the pain returned in full force, I cried out. The doctors scrambled and, after a moment, jabbed something pointy and sharp right into my arm. It didn’t take long at all for whatever was in it to take effect, because the pain ebbed away quicker than it came. Everything was slowing down, but this time the people around me seemed confident in the way they moved and maneuvered.

  And suddenly everything went black again.

  I dreamed in the darkness. My mind wasn’t completely shut off. The world around me had come to a halt, and all I could think about was my body, lying on the pavement, the blood seeping out of me.

  I dreamed about the man who had fucked me before I stepped out of the club. I saw the bouncer’s face. There was a familiar pit in my stomach that grew larger and larger throughout the day until every cell in my body was pushing me to find a playmate at the club, and then I saw a face. A fist. The gutter.

  My dreams went back further than that, too. Snapshots from my childhood—wanting to wear makeup and being told that cosmetics were for girls. Dressing in drag for Halloween because it was the only appropriate time to do it, and even then, seeing the looks on peoples’ faces when I ended up being fiercer, prettier, and maybe even sluttier than the girls in my class. The look of disapproval on the faces of nearly every adult in my family when I came out, because God only knew why my mother had to tell our entire extended family that I was “an abomination.”

  Sometimes, the dreams were pleasant. I dreamed about my first boyfriend, and the happiness I felt that someone could see me the way he did. I saw and felt the way I did when we met, and when we had our first date. I remembered the sparkle in his eyes and the way he told me he loved me. I found value in myself because he found it for me. He was my sun—my raison d’être—and when the universe took him away from me, the pain was more raw than I ever could have imagined.

  I couldn’t even remember his voice perfectly anymore. The only thing left in my memory was his smile, and the glimmer of his eyes when he looked at me. It had seemed like there was a promise of a future there, warm and hopeful.

  Suddenly, all those happy memories turned into a deep, choking blackness that threatened to consume me, drawing me deeper into a spiral.

  I didn’t want to remember any more than that.

  The aftermath of that relationship was me slowly becoming who I am now. The hollowness I felt continued to grow, until I was barely a functioning human being. I was just a marionette going through the motions, pulled this way and that by whatever whim had become my puppet master of the moment.

  “Noah?”

  I stirred. I was slowly being pulled from the darkness. It was interesting, because the pain was a dull throb, and I didn’t feel my own emptiness threatening to consume me. Maybe it was the medication.

  “Noah, can you hear me?”

  My eyes were slowly fluttering open. Everything was still blurry, but I was adjusting.

  “He’s waking up.”

  “Mister Linkletter? Can you hear me?”

  It’s Noah. Mister Linkletter is my father.

  A deep, soothing voice called out to me, so I started to come to. My mouth felt dry. I tried to swallow but it was difficult, like I had swallowed a pile of pebbles. I turned away from the lights overhead, well aware they were probably already dimmed but still too bright for me. Warm sunlight filtered through the window screen. I looked around and saw a couple of people. One of them was clearly a nurse in her scrubs, adjusting something on the machine that was hooked up to me. There were a pair of doctors there. One of them was older, more wizened-looking, and had a kindly smile on his face. His beard was speckled with gray. It contrasted nicely with the deep, mahogany hue of his skin.

  Surprise, surprise, no one in my family was around. My room was sparse, with no signs of anyone else having been here to visit. Maybe everyone was just busy.

  Maybe they didn’t care at all.

  That sent a little pang of pain through my heart.

  “Water,” I said. My throat was raw and dry. My voice was cracked. It felt like I had swallowed glass.

  The nurse looked at the doctor, and the doctor gave a little nod. The nurse offered a slight smile and whispered a soft, “I’ll be right back,” before walking out of the door.

  I peeked at the people who had stayed in the room after the nurse left. The other doctor was much younger. Based on some of the medical dramas I’d watched, I figured she might be a resident or an intern. She had her hair in a haphazard bun and glasses were perched on top of her nose. She was pale, with black hair that gave her a kind of Snow White, Disney Princess sort of appeal. But she was tall, like a supermodel.

  “Hi. I’m Doctor Cecilia Savard and this is Doctor Kingston Lear,” the woman said in a dry, monotone voice. “We were just doing our rounds.”

  I tried to clear my throat, and I scrunched up my face. It felt heavy and numb.

  “Mister Linkletter, do you remember what happened to you?” the older doctor asked.

  I nodded. “Got attacked outside of a club. Woman and her brother.”

  Doctor Lear nodded, looking at me with an expression that could only be described as grim. “I see,” he replied. “The police are asking to talk to you as soon as you can.”

  I nodded. “Just need that water, doc,” I said, my voice still rough and ragged.

  “We’ll get you that as soon possible so you can answer a few questions. It’ll help us see whether there’s any damage to your brain or not,” the younger doctor, Doctor Savard, said while adjusting something on the machine at my side, and I felt some of the pain dull through my body.

  There was a silence as the older doctor looked at the younger one with a frown. Maybe she wasn’t supposed to tell me that?

  Oops.

  Not that I really cared at the moment, because the medicine was working. I felt a little more lightheaded, but I wasn’t about to go to sleep just yet. I’d had enough of being unconscious.

  Honestly, I didn’t even notice the nurse from earlier come in to help me sit up a bit. The cup had a small straw in it, and I sipped just enough to wet my throat.

  “Do you know where you are?”

  I nodded. “Hospital,” I clarified. I took another sip of the water.

  Doctor Savard seemed to note something on her tablet. “Name?”

  “Noah Linkletter,” I croaked out.

  “Age?”

  “Twenty-five.”

  She nodded and tapped something on her tablet once more.

  “Do you remember the date when you were attacked?” she asked.

  “The eighth of November, I think?”

  “Correct. You were brought to our emergency room at two in the morning today, on the ninth. It’s been twelve hours.”

  I was feeling a lot more relaxed than I was earlier, but the questions from the doctors were a bit of a blur. I vaguely remember the two of them talking about the damage done to my body, and how it wasn’t too severe.

  I had bruises and a couple of bone fractures—one that would require a cast on my forearm—but I only needed a few weeks to rest and I would be okay. Because I had lost consciousness and had a concussion, that was what they were most worried about. They wanted to keep me under observation for at least a couple of days to make sure that my brain was okay. They also stitched up some of my wounds, so all in all I was looking at maybe two months of recovery time, but it was all very light.

  “Although I wouldn’t consider bein
g physically assaulted in the street lucky, I do have to say that at the very least, you didn’t suffer more severe head injuries,” the older doctor said. “We have to count at least some blessings, right?”

  I snorted, and tried to smile. I knew he was trying to tell me that the damage could’ve been a whole lot worse, but even I knew that. If I had hit my head on the pavement first, I could’ve cracked my skull or something.

  Small victories, I guess. I was alive, and that mattered.

  I didn’t know why I was downplaying what had happened to me, though. In the end, I was beaten up—for being the third party in a relationship where the man was clearly willing to cheat on his girlfriend. Did I think I deserved to be beaten like that for being loose about my body and my sexuality?

  I didn’t know. But I knew that I didn’t really care.

  For the most part, I was physically fine. There was that moment in the emergency room when they thought the damage had been too severe because my pulse was a little weak and thready, and my breathing was shallow. Honestly, if I hadn’t made it, I would have been okay with that. But all things considered, I was fine. Or I would be, anyway.

  Mentally, well…that was a different story altogether, wasn’t it?

  “We’ll keep you here for about twenty-four to forty-eight hours for observation. In the meantime, please rest and we’ll update you if anything changes about your situation. A police officer is waiting outside to take your statement, and you had visitors, but they’re currently at the cafeteria. They should be back shortly,” the elder doctor said. “We found your emergency information on your phone. I’m glad you filled it out. We called your contact.”

  I nodded.

  And with that, the pair of them nodded back at me and left.

  A little part of me felt like I could breathe easier knowing someone was there. Not just someone, but a group of someones actually cared enough to take a moment from their day to see me and cared about me enough to find out if I’d survived. A weight lifted from my shoulders. It even made the corners of my lips quirk up into a smile.

  That moment of happiness quickly melted away when I saw a man in uniform walk into the room. The police officer had a sour expression on his face, lacking any form of empathy in the way he moved. He stood rigid and straight, walking with a confident gait that told me he went through life unfettered, without having to hide who he was in the shadows.

  “Noah Linkletter?” His voice was gruff and monotone.

  I nodded in response, feeling myself grow stiff—and not in a good way. I shifted in my bed.

  “I wanted to ask you a couple of questions about the incident,” the officer asked.

  “The incident,” I repeated, the bitterness coming out of my lips even though the corners of my lips had quirked into a smile once more. “I was attacked, officer. You’re making it sound as though it were just some kind of event.”

  The officer let loose a breath and shook his head once as he flipped open a notepad and began to scribble on it. There was a quality of exasperation in the way he moved which told me he really didn’t want to be here. “Yes, well, for the sake of simplicity we’ll call it ‘the incident,’” he replied matter-of-factly.

  Automatically, I could feel my walls begin to close around me. There was no way I was going to trust this man. Even in this day and age, there were still people with absolutely no empathy…and they were among the people who were supposed to serve and protect us.

  I couldn’t help but feel the irony deep in my bones.

  “Do you know what caused the incident?” he asked.

  “A girl got her brother to beat the shit out of me because she thinks I slept with her boyfriend,” I replied coolly.

  The policeman was scribbling something down on his notepad for a moment before he looked me straight in the eye and raised an eyebrow. “And did you?”

  “Does that matter? They beat me within an inch of my life and gave me a concussion,” I answered back. “I haven’t even seen myself in the mirror and I’m sure I have stitches in places that didn’t have them before.”

  “Relax. I’m just trying to establish motive,” the officer said. I could’ve sworn I saw him roll his eyes as he wrote something.

  “Even if I did do it, I certainly don’t deserve to be tossed around like some kind of piece of trash,” I said. I felt my hackles rise.

  The policeman kept his cool and said nothing. His expression was carefully passive, but I knew he was judging me. I knew from the way he moved his gaze over my body, scanning me in this cold, analytical way, that he saw me as trouble. Maybe that I even deserved what had happened to me.

  It irritated me, made me feel like I was worthless, but I said nothing. I didn’t want to cause a scene in front of a police officer. Unfortunately, in this situation, he was still the one who held the power.

  But then again, I also could have been projecting my own hatred and insecurities onto this one person who didn’t really have a choice but be here.

  Maybe.

  I was still the victim here, though, and I didn’t appreciate his tone.

  “Did you maybe see anything identifiable on them that might help us with the investigation?” the officer asked, his voice breaking through my musings.

  “I remember them both having black hair. The girl had heavy makeup on her face, and the man was wearing a denim jacket,” I replied.

  The police officer stared at me for a moment, but then scribbled down what I said. “Any other, more distinguishing marks you noticed? Like a tattoo, or a birthmark of some sort?”

  I shook my head. “It was dark.”

  “Okay. If there’s anything more, we’ll contact you, Mister Linkletter.”

  The police officer took his leave, and I honestly didn’t have any faith in this investigation going further.

  Cases like mine went dead much more easily nowadays. I didn’t have any powerful friends in the media, and I didn’t want to make a big deal out of this.

  Hell, I still didn’t know if I fully believed that I didn’t deserve it.

  I lay back against the pillow and felt heat behind my eyes. The emotions were coming back quickly, and I fought back tears.

  Of course, that had to be the moment my guests showed up.

  “Noah, thank God you’re all right!”

  Chapter Three

  “Noah, are you okay? What happened?”

  I fought back the tears in my eyes and quickly wiped them away as best as I could to look at my boss—and one of my closest friends—Daniel Aria, in front of me.

  There he stood, beside a much taller man who I couldn’t quite see, because the light behind him was obscuring his features. And Dan, well… I could tell his presence and voice anywhere.

  Dan was one of the nicest people I’d ever had the honor of meeting. He was often closed off to people and had this kind of remoteness to him that made him seem aloof, but that’s honestly only because he was guarded.

  Perhaps not as guarded as I was, but it showed more on his face. He never betrayed his emotions, but he was one of the kindest people I knew. I suppose he just courted heartbreak and disappointment in a different way than I did.

  He had an ease, that kind of sexy Brazilian way of being that I honestly can’t describe except that it permeated him and every little move he made, and he knew it. He was physically attractive, and he owned it in a way I probably couldn’t even come close to. But he was never truly interested in most people—men or women—and seemed to keep his private life very private. I was just lucky enough to be one of the few he chose to be part of his inner circle, I guess.

  “Seriously, what the fuck happened?” Dan asked. He took a few easy steps forward, taking the cup of water on the table in front of me and lifting it closer to my lips so I could take a long sip. He adjusted the thick-framed glasses on his face, and that usually calm, collected façade broke into one of worry.

  In that moment, though, my gaze found its way to the man standing by the doorway. Dan followed my eyes and nodded. “Right. Farid, this is Noah Linkletter, my employee and dear friend.” Dan gestured to me, and then looked back up at him. “Noah, this is Farid Hassan. We were in a meeting when we found out that you were in the hospital, and he insisted on driving me here. His company invests in our app.”