The Mistake
By Zebra 3 and Me
"Here, Starsk, you need to take these."
Hutch was referring to the pain pills he was about to give me, bringing them out of his jacket pocket, uncapping them, and dashing them into my hand. I put them into my mouth like so many other times Hutch had handed them to me since he moved in temporarily to nurse me back to health following the Gunther hit.
After I swallowed them with water, I settled back on the sofa to watch some late news on TV. "Thanks."
"Need anything else?"
"No, you wanna sit for a while? You look beat. What you been up to?"
I didn't have to ask him, but I did just to slow him down a little. Ever since I got home from the hospital, and ever since he moved in to play nursemaid, he'd been running on empty, and running hard—preparing for the Gunther trial, doing work on some other cases, and helping me.
He plopped down in a chair for a second, looking tired but not relaxed. Stressed is more like it.
"Hey," I said in a low voice. "You okay?"
He gave me a smile. It was a real one, but a faint one, like he just didn't have the energy for more.
"Oh sure, breaking heads, cracking cases, busting doors. When you get back on your feet, we'll-"
"No," I said simply, as gently as I could. "We may work together at something, but I know, and you know, if you'd just admit it to yourself, that we can never go back to what we did before, the way we did it. That chapter's over, and it's okay. You need for it to be okay too."
He glanced down at his thumbs, which were slowly twiddling in his lap. "Yeah, I guess. I hate it but…"
"No buts. You can take off with a singing career, or pursue art the way you want to. Teach, or something, or whatever you want to do."
He looked at me as if confused. "Don't you get it, Starsk? It won't mean much without-"
"Who says we won't be The Singing Duo instead of The Dynamic Duo? Who says I can't sculpt or shoot pictures right alongside your painting? Huh? Who says? We're alive. We got another chance, and that's what matters."
He sat and soaked in my words, while my eyelids got heavier and heavier from the medication. Next thing I know I'm out like a light.
::::::::::::::
And the next thing I know, after that, is that I woke up in ICU. Through the observation window I could see Hutch trying to push through a couple of doctors to get to me, and Dobey was there to muscle in with his two cents, and then Huggy was trying to sort them all out. The scene made me flash back to when I woke up from my coma after Gunther had me shot down.
Was I dreaming? What was going on? My head felt like a concrete block, my thoughts slow motion. I tried to stay awake, but a heavy curtain draped down around me, and I was out again.
Why am I in ICU? Oh well. At least Hutch is close by.
::::::::::::::::::
I woke up to bits and pieces of their conversations, or were they memories, or were they dreams?
…incident report…
…bottle of pills in his pocket…
…confiscated from an arrest earlier that day…
…didn't make it to the evidence room…
I tried to say "Hutch?", but I don't think I said it out loud—still groggy, but needing to talk to him. It was beginning to make a little more sense now.
:::::::::::::::
Even before I was allowed visitors, Hutch slipped in and went to a knee next to my hospital bed, squeezing my hand so I'd know he was there. I was still in and out, woozy. I didn't have the strength or sense to speak, but I could hear him, and my heart mourned at the sound of his small voice.
"Starsk, I…I don't know what to say, I…"
It's okay, Hutch. It was a mistake. An accident.
But the words were trapped in the sludge of my mind.
:::::::::::::::::
Hutch was pretty quiet as the doctors discharged me, which was different from the last couple of weeks, when he would go to any lengths to start conversations, keep my mood up, entertain me, etc. But now he seemed numb, almost defeated. And so, like a jillion times before, as our rhythm always seemed to be, when he was weak, I was strong. Or when I was weak, he was strong.
"Okay, so, when we get to my place, you wanna order a seaweed and goat cheese pizza?"
I hoped for a snide remark or a short laugh, but he said nothing, just moved his head no.
:::::::::::::::::
When we got to my place, he helped me up the steps and inside, where we found my younger brother Nick pacing around the living room.
Hutch helped me sit down in a chair, then Nick grabbed his arm and jerked him around to face him.
"How could you do that to my brother? You overdosed him!"
Hutch's head went down and he let Nick unload on him. I guess he felt he deserved it and had it coming.
"Brother?" I asked Nick with as much strength as I could muster. "Where were you, brother, when I was laid up in the hospital with holes like Swiss cheese? Huh? What, were you laid up in jail, or with some hooker, or had blow up your nose-"
Nick punched Hutch instead of me, just as I was tumbling off the couch to intervene. Hutch staggered back into the wall, holding his jaw. I grabbed Nick and shook him the best I could—a familiar gesture that went way back to childhood.
"Cool it!"
Nick shot me a look of disdain, something else I was familiar with since childhood.
"You always pick him," he muttered as he pushed past me to leave, slamming the door and swearing under his breath on the way out.
I put my hand down to Hutch to help him up. Usually he was at the ready with strength and reassurance, but now, he was deflated and lost-looking. He didn't take my hand. I crouched over him, looking at him closely. I could feel the tension, guilt, and agony seeping from him like a bleeding wound.
"He's right, Starsk," came his whisper. "I almost killed you. I'm sorry."
I knelt down in front of him. "You have nothing to be sorry for. It's not your fault. You're exhausted. Now it's my turn to help you."
He looked up at me with tearful eyes, dark circles beneath them. "Huh?"
I pulled him to his feet and nudged him to my bed in the other room, where I pushed him down and covered him.
"Sleep," I told him, and he did.
End
