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Eddie doesn’t know if he can take her hand. He loves her. That he knows. It was never the most passionate love between them, nor love at first sight. It was the kind of love that felt safe and comfortable. He will love her in a way he can’t describe. She’s his family, the mother of his child. She’s practically the only woman he ever loved and for what he knows, he’s the very first and only man she’s been with.
They were pretty young when they met, but she was definitely older than all of her friends when she dated for the first time. So when she met Eddie, she felt like maybe she could be like the other girls, that she could love a man too. And she felt something she described as love. This had to be the precious feeling everyone talked about.
Then she got pregnant early in their relationship and their life changed for the better. They got married a few months after finding out they were expecting. Both their families attended the wedding even though the Diazs had disapproving looks written all over their faces. His Abuela was practically the only one welcoming Shannon with arms wide open. She could see that her grandson was marrying a sweet girl and it was enough for her to be happy with it. The pregnancy was not planned, but Shannon was thrilled about it. She loved that kid from the second she heard his heartbeat in the ultrasound. Her son, their son.
The perfect relationship she thought she would have, took a different turn when her husband enlisted before she gave birth to their baby boy. She was left alone, with her baby and Eddie will always blame himself for it. They are both full of regret. For the two of them, the regret started the moment they filled their bags and left. He left twice, she left once. And when she saw the car racing toward her, she thought she would leave him again. But she didn’t. She remembered seeing Eddie’s face before giving up to the darkness, she thought she would never open her eyes again. But she did. She’s opening them slowly.
Eddie’s hand is in hers. At some point, he hesitantly decided to take her hand. He’s asleep now, and Shannon can see that he’s uncomfortable. She doesn’t know if it’s from the plastic chair digging in his back or from the situation. His eyes are so puffy that she knows without a doubt that he cried. She gives his hand a light squeeze to let him know she’s awake, alive.
He practically jumps out of his chair when he sees her looking at him. He’s letting go of her hand like he has no right to even touch her. The word divorce is still echoing in his head. She doesn’t want him anymore. But she’s reaching to grab his hand back and he can’t deny her that.
“How long was I out?” she asks, her voice low and raspy.
“A couple of days,” Eddie answers looking at the clock. He stared at this damn clock for so long when she was unconscious that he can barely stand the look of it right now.
“Chris,” she said tiredly, Eddie guesses it’s meant to be a question, but she’s still too sleepy to form a sentence.
“He’s fine,” he says immediately to reassure her. “I told him you had an accident and he insisted that I stayed with his mommy” he adds with a tired smile. He’s so focused on her eyes being open that he has not looked at the rest of her injuries since she woke up, but now that they mentioned their son, all he can think about is how scary this is going to be for a 7-year-old. “He’s staying at Buck’s,” he adds looking at her face again. “He took the next few shifts off so Chris and he can have a proper sleepover. I would not be surprised if the whole loft is covered in pillow forts when I’ll pick Chris up. When we’ll pick Chris up, together” he corrects himself.
“Eddie, I,” she starts and he nervously interrupts her.
“Are you in any pain? Do you want me to get the doctors?” he asks. “I should probably let them know you’re awake”. And he goes doing it, without waiting for her to respond. He can’t have this conversation again, he can’t talk about it here or ever again. He can’t get a divorce. She doesn’t want him anymore, doesn’t love him. No one will ever love him. He always knew he wasn’t enough, knew he didn’t deserve her love. She’s leaving him. He knows it. But as long as she can’t say it out loud again, he will refuse to believe it.
He comes back with a couple of nurses and doctors that check Shannon for a while before leaving the room again. It didn’t look like it, but she was quite lucky. The damages to her spine were reversible and the doctors could fix it. She would still have to go through some PT for a while due to her severe injuries and her broken leg. “She won’t be alone,” he just told the doctor before she left.
“Eddie,” she says again, locking her gaze into him so he can’t run away again. He wants to. He wants to escape the situation.
“You should rest, we can talk later,” he cuts.
“Eddie, I know I’m lucky enough to even have a later, but-.”
“Exactly,” he says a little more sharply than he expected. “I thought-” he bites the inside of his mouth and twists his lips, trying to brush up his emotions as his father told him too when he was crying. “I thought you were dead, Shannon”, he bites his lower lip again and he’s pretty sure he’s bleeding a little, given the iron taste on his tongue. “I saw you on the floor, and I thought it was it. The stupid car almost took away from me, from Chris.”
“It didn’t take me away,” she says while trying to sit up enough to reach up for his hand but he’s quickly shoving them in his pocket to hide how shaky they are. “I’m still here. I’m not gonna let a stupid car steal me away from my son.”
“But not me, though,” he says slowly, he feels so vulnerable and he hates it. “What changed for you to stop loving me?” his voice is so broken that he knows he sounds desperate, but it’s just the two of them now. She’s the one who picked him up off the floor when he was sobbing so much after his first tour, the one who calmed him back to sleep the nights he was waking up from a nightmare, screaming so hard he woke up their baby too. Shannon was the one who fed him when he was in so much pain after his last tour that he couldn’t move his arms. And even when she was about to lose her mom, the only family she had apart from them, she was here for him when he was digging his nails in his own hands until it almost bled, before walking painfully on stage to accept a medal he never wanted. She had seen him at his worst. So letting his voice crack in front of his wife is not something he’s proud of, but it’s definitely not the first time. “Am I not enough anymore?” he poses and the tears slide on his face before he can finish “was I ever enough?”.
“It’s not about you, Eddie,” she says reassuringly.
“Then when is this about?” he shouts louder than he expected to. “Because I already forgave you for everything. I let you into our life like you wanted to”.
“Is that what you wanted?” she asks a question she swore to herself she wouldn’t ask. She needed to hear it anyway.
“I-” he starts, not knowing how to continue this sentence. “We’re a family Shannon,” he finally says. “You, me, and Christopher. The three of us are together for the first time in a long time and the last few months have been good.” It doesn’t answer her question but this is the best he can think about.
“It has been good. And we are and will always be a family. No paper can ever change that.”
“But you still want to fill out a paper to tell the whole world you don’t love me anymore?”
“It’s not that I don’t love you anymore Eddie. But the last 8 years of our lives have been about waiting for the other to come back, to be here. It was about forgiving the other and trying so hard to do the right thing. We were not ready to get married. I was not ready to be a wife or a mom and you were not ready to be a husband or a dad. You did everything you could and you were more than enough for us.”
“I didn’t do enough apparently.” He’s blaming himself again. He had to do something wrong for her to leave him twice.
“Being a family should not be that hard, Eddie. We both tried so hard to get what we had that we forgot what we had was never perfect”.
“So, that’s it?” he says, his voice barely above a whisper. “Is this really the end for us?”
“It’s the end of our marriage Eddie, not the end of us.” Shannon rectifies.