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After wrenching the pieces of metal out of his body came, of course, the hospital. Even as they stitched up his wounds, fixed the injuries he had, John Kramer didn’t really pay attention to the chatter of the surgeons. The reminder that he was lucky to be alive.
John already knew he was lucky to be alive. He didn’t need to be told twice. There had been a moment before the impact of the car hitting where it went, when he wondered already what he was thinking. Jill needed him. As much as he mourned what could have been with Gideon Kramer, John would never ever blame Jill for what happened.
It was tempting to hate Cecil, and that woman who accompanied him. But as angry as John was with him, he could also pity Cecil. Addiction was a disease whether you liked it or not. As much as John would never condone Gideon’s death, the pain of Jill’s miscarriage, he could acknowledge that.
It seemed that his life right now was just a series of misfortunes, one after another. Jill’s too. The death of their nephew in a motorcycle accident. The tumor that spread to John’s brain that couldn’t be operated on. The death of their unborn child. In other religions, things such as the book of Job, such amounts of misery would be a way to test your faith in a higher power. A test. But that would mean that Jill had done something to deserve it, and she didn’t. It meant his nephew’s family did something to deserve it, and they didn’t.
Admitting otherwise, though, would just be admitting that some things just happened without justification, that “it all happens for a reason” was a lie at worst and a flimsy explanation at best. It would mean that it simply…happened, and that John could never accept.
What he could accept, at least, was the idea that his body had been too weak to kill cancer cells, and yet had sustained such massive injuries and…he lived. The human body was not a machine, and John had always been good with machines, better with them than flesh, but it was just so remarkable. It was so rare, so beautiful, to even be alive.
***
He was put on suicide watch. Of course he was. Even as he listened to the list of things that could be used to take your own life, John was already baffled by the idea of you-can-use-that-to-kill-yourself. Far too baffled. The human race seemed to be inventive, too inventive for their own good, regarding ways to take their own lives if not another’s. They had everything: a comfortable, privileged life, a family who loved them and gave a fuck about them, and yet it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough to keep them alive. And then there were people who just seemed content to spread misery just because. The chain of harm. At the bottom of the chain was someone stepping on an ant. Unless the ant decided to lash out itself at God-knew-what.
“You scared me.” Jill sat by his side — of course she did. "When I got that phonecall, I actually thought you’d died. That I lost you along with Gideon…"
"I’m sorry.”
“I guess I just wonder if you ever think…less of me?”
”Never. It was Cecil. He was responsible for this.”
Jill nodded. “I can pity him. It’s like…you see someone at their worst and it’s like they can’t even fathom existing without their addiction. So…I can’t forgive Cecil. But I don’t hate him.”
”It’s what you do." John should have known this was coming, at least. Jill Tuck-Kramer, who never came from anger, hatred or vengeance, but only wanted the best for everyone. To help people.
Jill sighed. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think somebody up in the clouds wanted to get back at us really badly…"
”Then they’d be unworthy of that power, wouldn’t they?"
"You’ve never been the religious type, have you, John?”
Silence. Then, “Spirituality can be a gift, at least. It can give you hope. Even something like the Chinese Zodiac."
Jill didn’t need to say anything. Her hands gently touched his, and it struck John how truly fortunate he really was. To think he could choose to die when Jill needed him. Maybe suicide would have been quicker; her having to know the timer was about to go off regarding his cancer, that he was about to die…it felt more sadistic.
What was worse?
***
”You aren’t in too much pain, are you?” Jill said.
”Given the circumstances, I don’t know if you mean the tumor or having to yank metal out of my body.”
Jill looked like she was about to laugh, but stopped herself in time. “Both,” she said. "Says…volumes about how wrong everything went."
Could it possibly go right, though? John thought. They had to simply continue from here, right? Nowhere to go but up.
John smiled faintly. "Given the circumstances, I’d say, ‘Never better.’”
Jill did laugh, just then, and it struck John how much he’d missed her smile, her laugh. To think she was here, laughing at one of his ridiculous attempts at wry commentary. That was enough.
Then she faltered. “I don’t think less of you, John,” she said. "The scars, the cancer…they’re just things that happened to you. They’re not who you are. They don’t take away from the man I married."
”Just as I don’t think less of you.” The miscarriage was just an unfortunate thing that had happened to Jill, a thing she didn’t deserve, a thing that had no more reflection on her character than, say, being hit by a car. If anything, it only reflected more on Cecil. John would feel more sympathy for him if Cecil didn’t have such a blatant disregard for human life, seeing everything around him as just existing to feed his addiction. If Cecil hadn’t reacted to Jill’s compassion so poorly. Like the scorpion and the frog, but at least the scorpion had it as a reflex to sting. Cecil…addiction had eaten him up inside. But that knowledge didn’t change the outcome.
It didn’t change Jill, obviously. He still loved her, it being too easy to love her.
“Together then?” John said.
Jill nodded. “Together."
It was a brief moment of respite, at least, before John slept — before his consciousness was all but consumed by nightmares about Cecil trapped in a face cage of knives, and the worst part was the idea of what-if-it-worked?