Remy.
My beautiful, cocky, playful, blue-eyed boy and my serious, somber man who loves me like nobody in my life has ever loved me.
The urge to protect him from whatever is coming is so overpowering, I approach with slow but determined steps, one hand curled under my cantaloupe-size tummy where our baby is. My whole arm is shaking uncontrollably as I reach out for the large, tanned hand that is strapped down to the table. Strapped. To the table. And my voice cracks like glass as I lightly rub my fingers through his, trying to sound calm and rational while I really feel crazy enough to scream. “Remy, don’t do this. Don’t hurt yourself, please don’t hurt yourself anymore.”
He squeezes my fingers and flicks his eyes away from me. “Pete . . .”
Pete seizes my elbow and tugs me away, and I freak out when I realize Remington really doesn’t want to see me here. He hasn’t looked into my eyes. Why won’t he look into my freaking eyes? I turn to Pete as he pulls me out of the room, my voice a degree below hysterical, “Pete, please don’t let him do this!”
Pete grabs my shoulders and hisses, low, so that we don’t draw attention, “Brooke, this is a common procedure used on people with BP—this is how they pull people from suicide watch! Not everyone finds the right dose of medicine, and the doctors are aware of that. He’ll be sedated through it.”
“But it’s just a fight, Pete,” I argue miserably, pointing into the room. “It’s just a stupid fight and this is him!”
“He’ll pull through. He’s done it before!”
“When?” I cry.
“When you were gone and we had to keep him from slitting his f**king wrists because of you!”
Ohmigod. My heart shatters so hard, I think I hear it, and it’s not just my heart, but my entire body is breaking down on the inside, cracking under the grief of what Pete has just told me. The hurt is so great, I curve myself protectively around my stomach and I frantically try to remember to breathe, if not for me, for this baby. His baby.
“Brooke, this is the shit he’s lived with his whole life. He’s up, he’s down, he’s all over the place. His decisions might hurt but making them gets him through it. This is how he was formed—this is why he’s who he is. He is strong because of this bullshit! You can be pitiful or you can be powerful, but you can’t be both. He is powerful. You have got to be strong with him—he’ll break if he knows this breaks you.”
Even though my fears have completely gnawed away all my confidence and my stomach is about to turn over, I somehow manage to pull myself into some semblance of a person. I manage to straighten my spine and lift my head, and take a small, ragged breath, because I will do this for him. I will do it with him and I will prove to myself, and to him, that I am going to be strong enough to love the hell out of him.
I suck in another breath and wipe the corners of my eyes. “I want to be there.”
Pete signals at the door and gives me an approving nod. “Be my guest.”
My steps are quiet and almost hesitant as I go into the room. He’s big and massive and strong, I know, even if my heart is a rag in my chest and all my blood seems to feel like ice inside me, I am going to prove to him that I am worthy of being his mate and the one who will stand when he can’t. I don’t know how I will prove this, because I am toppling, like a crushed building, as I walk inside. I look all right, but inside of me, in my very soul, I’m disintegrating, nerve by nerve, organ by organ.
He looks at me now—straight into my eyes, and I can see the worry in his dark eyes. Of course he’s afraid I’ll topple. He doesn’t want to see that in my eyes. “Okay?” he asks me in a husky whisper.
I nod and reach for his hand. My reply should be, “More than okay.” Right? But I just can’t get any more words past my closed throat. So I rub his fingers with mine, and when he squeezes me, I remember our flight out of Seattle, this hand, the one I will not let go of, and I squeeze back as hard as I can and smile shakily down at him.
“That’s my girl,” he rasps, brushing his thumb over mine.
He’s strapped and about to receive electroshocks and he asks me about me. Oh god, I love him so much, if he dies I want to die with him and this is no f**king joke. I blink back the tears and squeeze him harder.
“Can I hold his hand?” I ask one of the nurses.
“Sorry, you can’t during the procedure,” she tells me.
Remington cautiously watches me as I force myself to step back and they attach some electrodes to his forehead. A ball of fire is in my throat, in my heart, and in my stomach. I am not even breathing when a nurse asks him, “Are you ready?”
“Hit me,” he answers, his eyes briefly flicking over me to check my reaction before he faces the ceiling again.
They start the IV flow to sedate him.
They begin asking him questions. “Full name?”
“Remington Tate.”
My eyes well up.
“Date of birth?”
“April ten, nineteen eighty-eight.”
“Place of birth?”
“Austin, Texas.”
“Names of your parents.”
“Dora Finlay and Garrison Tate.”
I can barely take the fact that he is strapped, talking about his f**king parents, who made him black like this, his voice deep and strong, answering whatever they ask him.
Then she tells him, “Count from one to a hundred.” And they put a mouthpiece on him.
He starts to count, and I count in my head with him. His eyes shut. Beautiful dark lashes against his strong cheekbones.
My protective instincts rage so loud I want to scream at them to stop, now that he can’t see me and he can’t keep me from stopping this. But I stand here, because he wants to do this. Because he is strong. Stronger than me. He will whip himself into shape just like life has beaten him to it.
Then the shock goes.
His big body seizes and tightens on the table.
My body tightens and begins to implode.
The machine makes a beeping noise.
His toes curl.
I didn’t know if he’d be flailing, breaking things because he’s so strong, but his body remains relatively still as he takes the shock in his brain. Oh my god.
Oh my god.
Oh my f**king god.
I am in love with Remington Tate and he has Bipolar 1, and it crashes down on me like an avalanche.
I don’t think I’ve ever cried this way. Despite putting all my effort into not crying, the tears are literally exploding out of my eyes and my arms are shaking and my body so weak with grief, I edge back to lean against the wall and unsuccessfully try to suck back all my tears.
“Hey, Brooke, hey,” says Pete, kneeling at my side, hugging me.
“It’s so hard,” I say, covering my face and trying to pull away from him because Remy wouldn’t want it. Remy wouldn’t like it. “Don’t touch me, Pete, oh god, this is so f**king hard. So f**king hard!” He grabs me and shakes me a little, his voice comforting, his eyes showing pain.
“He’s not suffering, Brooke. He just wants to get better. Brooke, he is NOT a victim. He makes his choices based on his circumstances. He’ll worry about you. You need to condition yourself like he has—please, I beg you to be strong.”
I nod, while all I can think of is Remy’s beautiful brain, his beautiful body, my church, my sanctuary, enduring this.
“Brooke, it hurts me too. All right? It hurts me too. You can’t let him see that. He’s strong because as far as he’s concerned, this is his reality; he deals with it—he’s never had any different. He doesn’t lament it. Don’t let him see this breaks you or you’re going to break him. You don’t have to save him; just be with him while he saves himself.”