Backstage by Mandy Bee (guided reading books TXT) 📕

will heal, but if John would have taken him from me, my wounds would have never healed.

The EMT’s make Rachael and I leave while they put Justin on the stretcher. Mike rode with them in the ambulance, while we all followed in the car. The next few hours were hard on all of us. The doctors wouldn’t give us hardly any information and would only let Mike and Rachael go back. Finally around midnight we got an update.

John had broken Justin nose, cheek bone, and knocked three teeth out. He bruised his vocal cords with the beating to the throat, which is, I’m guessing, what he wanted to do. Five cracked ribs, a fracture in his right wrist, and over twenty cuts on his legs. The police came and talked to the doctors after that and then to us. They said that John must have cut his legs after the beating because someone would have heard Justin scream if he wasn’t knocked out. They still don’t know where John is but said they would keep a police car on our house for the next few days. The kid that delivered the picture was taken to the police station after we all ran out of the house. He confirmed that John was the one who paid him to deliver it to us.

Justin had to have four surgeries. Two to fix his teeth, one to fix his nose, and another for his vocal cords. He didn’t get to come home until the second week in December. Mike had to leave the same day Justin came home because of work, but Rachael stayed with us. Scot decided to stay to help out, and Dave asked if he could come stay with us too, of course we said yes. Justin needs his whole family with him.

Tammy has been a godsend. After work and school she comes over and cooks dinner for us, and has every night since this all started. If we do eat lunch we order out, I haven’t felt like cooking. The most I will make is oatmeal for breakfast. Chris and the boys have been great about keeping the house clean, and not getting too loud when they play their games. I love having everyone here, but I hate the reason we are all here.

They set Justin up in my room, I had Chris go buy an air mattress so that I can sleep on the floor. I won’t sleep with him because he is in too much pain, but I’ll be damned if I’m leaving him alone at night. The first night he got home he was out of it. I didn’t sleep at all, I just kept watching him. The swelling in his face has gone down but he is still badly bruised. There are bandages on his nose and a few on his face and neck. The cuts on his legs weren’t as bad as we thought. The doctors were able to use skin glue on all of them.

We had strict orders to not let him talk for one week. This is so his vocal cords could heal. His doctor agreed to come to the house and check on him so Justin didn’t have to go through the pain of traveling to his office. One full week of keeping Justin from talking, is like asking us to stop him from breathing. Every time we turned around someone was telling him to shut up. I finally told him that if he didn’t shut up I would put duck tap over his mouth. We gave him his computer and cell phone, so he could type stuff out to us or text us what he needed.

As I was helping Justin to the bathroom, after he had been home for about three days, Rachael came in and yelled for me to stop. We both looked at her and didn’t know what to think. She said I couldn’t help him use the bathroom. I asked her why not and she said that would be awkward for him for me to see his ‘male parts’. I laughed and let her take him but after he was back in bed I decided to tell Rachael that I have seen those ‘male parts’ before.

We sat on the bed, me on one side of Justin her on the other. “Rachael I need to talk to you about something.” I take Justin hand in mine. “We have seen each others ‘parts’ already and if you don’t mind I can help him to the bathroom without the awkwardness you were worried about.”

She looks from him to me a few times then asks “So you two have already had sex?”

“Yes, we have. Are you mad?” Luckily for us Justin isn’t trying to talk, even if he could I don’t think he would want too.

“No, I just didn’t think you two had taken things that far yet.” She looks at him and then smiles up at me. “I’m very happy for you both. But if you two are sleeping together, then why are you sleeping on an air mattress?”

“Because he is still healing and I don’t want to hurt him.” I feel him squeeze my hand.

After having to tell my boyfriends mother that we have had sex, and that I have no problem taking him to that bathroom, it’s safe to say the rest of the week was a piece of cake. Nothing could have topped that conversation.

The doctor came one week later to check Justin’s vocal cords. He said that they looked good and that he could slowly start to talk again. He had him say a few simple sentences but his voice was horse and grainy. It didn’t even sound like him. Rachael and I held hands and tried not to cry.

It is now two days before Christmas. Justin is healing nicely and the only thing we have to worry about now is him over using his voice. His fractures will heal themselves, and everything else is better. The