“Do you want to go back inside?” he asked me. He didn’t seem to know how to handle my crying, insect-ridden self.
I shook my head. “I’d rather be eaten by these bloodsuckers out here than those bloodsuckers in there.”
Ian laughed and it made my heart thump loudly enough that I worried he could hear it. His laugh could do that to me. Never before had I ever found a man’s laugh so ridiculously erotic. Ian cast a spell on me with his laughter, and it seemed to be totally unbreakable. I just never could seem to get enough of the sound of making him happy.
“The bloodsuckers inside won’t give you Zika,” he offered.
I rolled my eyes at him. “I don’t want herpes either,” I replied.
“Herpes? You might get something much worse than that in there.”
I cocked an eyebrow. “Oh? And what’s that? Air kisses?”
“Attention.” He smiled and it made my heart race. “You’re the most sought-after filmmaker in town. You should be reveling in your newfound fame.”
“I’m too busy wallowing in my misery.” I sniffled.
He sighed and dragged a hand through his hair. He’d gotten it cut in the past week, but it was somehow still disheveled. I had come to realize that it was just going to be constantly, adorably a little bit messy. Just like him.
“Yeah, I know the feeling,” he told me.
“Misery loves company.”
“Why did you think I came out here to hang out with you?”
Even in our highly dysfunctional, broken-up state, Ian got me. He was right on my sarcastic, snarky wavelength.
“Ian,” I told him, “I don’t want you to feel bad. I’m going to be okay. And I am happy for you. Really.”
He shook his head at me and, although I was staring resolutely at my feet, I could see it out of the corner of my eye. “If you had let me finish last night, I would have told you that I’m considering not going on tour.”
I turned to look at him, suddenly feeling scared and miserable instead of just miserable. “You don’t mean that. This is your dream.”
Ian frowned. “I used to think that was true, but that was before I met you.”
My heart wanted to believe him, but it couldn’t. “Please don’t say that.”
He laughed a little bit, but it wasn’t a real laugh. It was a bitter-sounding one. “Why not? It’s true.”
“Because I don’t want to be the reason your dream gets destroyed,” I told him. “You told me that you’ve been waiting for this for years. Now that you’ve got it, you shouldn’t throw it away.”
“Not even for something I want more?”
“But you wanted this tour more than anything.”
“And now I want you more than anything.”
He was telling me exactly what my greedy heart wanted to hear, but my cynical little brain couldn’t accept it. Like a computer that can’t get past an error, I just kept glitching out when I tried to process the information.
“You’ll regret this,” I told him. “You might think right now that you want to stay here, with me, but what if it doesn’t work out in three months?”
Ian shrugged. “I honestly think that I can deal with that possibility. Also, I don’t think that’s going to happen.”
He seemed so sure. I sighed and looked back down at my feet. “Maybe you can live with it, but I can’t. I really don’t want to be the reason that you choose to abandon something you’ve worked so hard to get back.”
“Vanessa, look at me,” Ian told me. Reluctantly, I peeked up to see that his expression had shifted into something I barely recognized. “I love you.”
My lips parted in surprise and my brain realigned itself, finally resolving the error and going from the mental equivalent of the blue screen of death to something that considered possibilities.
I took a deep breath. “I love you too, Ian,” I told him. “But I can’t take the risk of you not going on this tour and resenting me forever.” I swallowed. “Maybe… maybe there’s a compromise. Maybe we can make it a few months long-distance.”
He blinked. “You love me back?”
I nodded. “Yes, of course I love—”
My answer was cut off by him kissing me. The dam in me broke in an instant, and I was kissing him back for all he was worth. Which was a lot. He was worth everything. In that second, I knew that I’d move heaven and earth to make it work between us.
“Let’s get out of here,” Ian told me. “We’ve made our appearance. Let’s go somewhere and figure things out.”
We slipped out around the side yard hand in hand, avoiding the people we knew to escape a party that held nothing for either of us. Inside Ian’s Tesla, I already felt better. The crowds had seriously been getting to me. I took a deep breath as we pulled out, finally feeling like I could breathe. Ian drove us back to town, through the rolling hills to the west of the city.
“That party was just about killing me,” I told Ian. “There were way too many people in too small of a space.”
“I know what you mean—” Ian replied, and just as he did, I saw the headlights of a car barreling straight for us on the driver’s side.
It all moved in slow motion, but I didn’t have a chance to scream. I saw it coming, but it was too late. There was nothing I could do to stop it, and even if I could have, I was frozen. My body tensed. The impact came before the sound.
In a handful of silent, endless few seconds, we were wrenched powerfully to the right in a high-speed T-bone collision with a pickup truck. My head connected with the window in a way that made my neck turn in a way it shouldn’t, and my body flopped like a ragdoll against the force and the recoil. My vision went down to a long and slender tunnel, and then it zeroed down to a point. My world went totally dark. I wasn’t sure if I was unconscious or just in shock.
The sound arrived when I was already swimming in the inky darkness. A massive, sternum shaking bass note and then the treble of screaming tires and breaking glass. The sound of rocks and the crackle of something burning.
I heard the sound of metal being twisted and crushed and then the long, deafening sound of a horn. I thought I heard other sounds, distant ones and closer-in ones. I thought that I heard someone, maybe Ian, saying my name over and over again. I think it was Ian. I couldn’t say anything, but at least I wasn’t hurting. Then I heard sirens.
I became aware, eventually, that I couldn’t move, and that worried me. I was starting to become cold and scared, but it didn’t last, because the sirens were really loud by then. Eventually, right as I was really starting to become concerned that I couldn’t see anything and couldn’t move, I passed out.
47
Ian
The last time I’d been in a serious car accident, I’d been so incredibly drunk that I retained no memory of it whatsoever. In fact, I didn’t even remember getting in the car that evening after a night of heavy drinking. I didn’t even remember the party where I did the drinking. I did remember waking up in the hospital a few days later, surrounded by unfamiliar smells, wires, and beeping things.
My mom and dad had been there sitting next to me. I knew from the look on their faces, and the fact that they were there together, that the situation was not good. At the time, I couldn’t have conceived of precisely how bad. I quickly learned.
I’d nearly killed myself and my little brother. That was horrible. But it was nothing compared to learning that I had killed his girlfriend, my friend and Axial Tilt’s bassist, Jen. She’d been thrown from the car, straight out the front windshield. At least it had been quick, but if she’d been wearing her seatbelt, she probably would have survived. As it was, she had to have a closed casket funeral because there had been nothing they could do to put her back together.
I couldn’t be put back together again either, at least emotionally. Physically, I mended relatively quickly. But the damage was done.
From the moment I woke up and learned what had happened to Jen, what I’d done to her through my terrible, stupid actions,
I started down a slow, downward spiral. Well, not that slow. I started drinking as soon as I possibly could and just kept myself consistently anesthetized for nearly the next decade.
Somehow, I was never charged over her death. It was ruled a terrible, tragic accident. But we knew. We all knew.
They should have just sent me to jail. But they didn’t, so I put myself in hell. And I stayed there, year after year, until I’d driven off nearly everyone who loved me except my immediate family. I would have eventually succeeded in driving them off, too. I’d characterize it as a dark period, except I did my best not to be present enough to be able to characterize it at all. Maybe limbo would be a more appropriate description than hell, but suffice to say, it was a bad place to be. So bad that when I hit the bottom and had a chance to look up to see how far I’d fallen, I swore I’d never let myself get to that point again, no matter what.
I convinced myself that I was alive for a reason, and that I owed it to Jen to try and live. Just existing was an insult to her memory. I managed to scrape myself up, relapse my way less and less frequently until I hit a decent recovery, and stay there. It took one hundred percent of my willpower to get where I was, finally become halfway worthy of a halfway normal life, and then, in an instant, I was right back where I started.
So, when I saw the headlights coming at us, even though I suspected that I might be about to die, I almost laughed.
I deserved this.
I’d always deserved this.
It was only about ten years too late, but the universe always gets what it’s owed eventually.
In the instant before the crash, I looked at Vanessa and I wished I could tell her I was sorry and that I could make her understand how much she had meant to me. Then it was too late.
48
Vanessa
“She’s waking up.” The voice was familiar, but I couldn’t place it.
“I’ll go get Brandon.” The second voice was familiar too, but my mind felt fuzzy and slow. “He’s going to want to evaluate her.”
I heard some rustling to my left and cracked my eyelids open. It took far more effort than I was accustomed to. Morning light streamed through a window to my right. It was incredibly bright and I winced. A very blurry-looking Faith was standing next to my bed, wearing scrubs. She looked worried, but typically angelic.
“Good morning,” she told me, using her most soothing nurse voice. She checked my pupils with a penlight. “It’s all alright, Vanessa. Don’t panic.”
She might as well have asked me to fly and shoot lasers out my butt. I panicked. I sat up gasping, going from totally asleep to totally awake in one horrible jarring second. The heartbeat monitor beeped angrily to my right as I attempted to scramble out of the bed. At least all my limbs were attached to my body this time around. The thought was cold comfort.
Where was Ian?
“Vanessa,” Faith said, putting a hand against my shoulder and pressing me back into the bed. “It’s okay. Calm down. You were in a car accident. No one was seriously injured in either vehicle. Everything is fine.”
I was pulling at the IV in my arm in a blind panic. The last time I’d been here, I’d lost everything. This felt like déjà vu of the worst type possible. I needed to know what was going on, and I needed it now.
“Ian,” I tried to say, but nothing came out of my throat. “Where’s Ian?” I tried to yell, but all that came out was a raspy vowel noise. I pawed at my neck and stared at Faith, who was already reaching for a glass of water with a straw.
“You’re just thirsty,” she told me. “You’re okay. It’s all okay. There’s nothing wrong.”
I grabbed the cup from her and sucked down a mouthful of water. I’d never tasted anything as good as that water. I gripped the little cup with both hands and downed the entire thing in less than ten seconds. The burning in my throat subsided.
“Ian,” I demanded when I swallowed the last of it. “Where’s Ian?” I could hear my voice trembling. I could feel tears threatening to spill down at the slightest provocation. He had to be unhurt. He just had to be.
“Ian’s here,” Faith told me, still pressing me back into the bed and keeping me stationary. She was a tiny little thing, but she knew what she was doing when it came to keeping patients still. “His room is just down the hall. It’s all okay. He’s been in here to see you already. He freaked out just like you did when he woke up.”
“Is he hurt?”
Her expression shifted. “Not badly,” she said cautiously, “but I think he’s in surgery right now.”
I froze. I swallowed hard and resisted the urge to smack Faith’s hands aside and lurch out of bed.
Ian was okay?
But people who are okay don’t need surgery.
“Surgery for what?” I asked.
“For a small procedure,” a voice at the door said. There was an unfamiliar doctor standing there. Beyond him was, Eric, Faith’s husband. Everyone was staring at me, but I was too upset to care. “Do you remember me?” the unfamiliar doctor asked.
I shook my head at him, confused. Should I remember him? Was this a test? Had I actually forgotten him?
“I don’t know who you are,” I told him warily. “I want to see Ian.” Being polite wasn’t really on my to-do list at the moment. I didn’t care who this guy was. I needed to see Ian. Immediately.
“You’ll see him soon, but I need to check a few things first.” He got out his stethoscope.
Oh hell, no.
No exams.
I didn’t have time for that.
“I need to see Ian right now.” My voice was more impressively firm than I would have guessed after God knows how long unconscious. I stared down my nose at the doctor with my most imperious look.
He was utterly unintimidated. “Then I suggest cooperating with me since that will make this easier for both of us,” he said. The doctor was young, good-looking, and had that awful, cocky, know-it-all attitude that I absolutely hated in ER doctors when I was an EMT. I wanted to punch him.
I winced away when he reached for my arm to look at it, and he raised an eyebrow. “I’d give you a sedative, but you suffered a concussion, so I really need you alert,” he told me. “I’m still going to need you to cooperate with me.”
I pouted and said nothing. I wanted to see Ian.
“Vanessa, please just let him do his job,” Faith pleaded.
“You look a lot better this time,” the doctor continued. “I was the one who was on duty the night your ambulance crashed,” he said amiably as he examined a few scratches on my arms that I hadn’t noticed. “I’m not surprised you don’t remember me. You were unconscious most of the time. I’m Dr. Koels.”
I squinted at him. Memories of past conversations with Faith came back to me. Dr. Koels? Faith’s boss’ name was Dr. Koels. He was the Chief Medical Officer of the hospital, and also her stepfather. (Faith’s widowed mother had fallen in love with Faith’s boss.) According to Faith, Dr. Koels had a son with whom he was estranged. Brandon. A real black sheep type who ran off and joined the military rather than following in his father’s ivory tower footprints. This doctor had an obvious ex-military look about him. Pieces started to fit together in my brain. “Wait… hold on… you’re Faith’s, um, new stepbrother?” I asked.
Faith and Brandon exchanged a glance that indicated neither one was particularly comfortable with that appellation. Eric, Faith’s husband, who was also a doctor at the same hospital, stood off to the side and looked vaguely awkward himself. I could only assume that all three of them were having to adjust to their ‘new normal.’ Not that I had time for any of their boring hospital/family drama. I needed to see Ian.
“I guess technically, yes, I am,” he said. “And Faith called me when you were brought in, so I’m treating you as a favor,” he added. “Your boyfriend is going to be fine by the way. I just finished checking on him. He needs a minor procedure done surgically, but he’s alright. So maybe let me do my examination really quick and then you can see
him?”
I sighed. There was nothing to do but submit to a neurological examination. If I’d been concussed, that meant at least a Glasgow Coma Scale evaluation. I’d administered GCS tests on people plenty of times myself after minor head injuries. It assessed whether or not a person was fully conscious and it wasn’t super long. At least I’d already passed the verbal response section, and my eyes were so wide open that I couldn’t very well be comatose. I only had the physical sections left to complete, and if this cocky doctor would let me get out of bed, I’d prove that I was fully ambulatory. Still, if this was the doctor that stabilized me when I came in and, since Faith and Eric both swore the guy was some kind of genius, I supposed it wouldn’t hurt to let him do his thing.
“Fine,” I told Brandon (Dr. Koels, whatever). I tapped my nails irritably on the rails of the bed. My personality was returning at an alarmingly quick pace, and with it, my typically difficult attitude. “Okay. But please, do it quickly. I want to watch the Clinton-Bush debate this afternoon.”
Brandon glanced over at Faith, who shrugged. “I did warn you she’d be difficult,” she said. He gave her a ‘no-shit’ expression in return.
“That just earned you an MRI,” he told me.
Shit.
49
Ian
“You look like you got in a fight with Mike Tyson and lost spectacularly,” Jason told me. Tom and Jack nodded sagely and I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. It made my head hurt to do so and increased the throbbing of my black eye.
“You know we had your blood alcohol level tested,” he added. “Totally sober.”
“Thanks,” I told them. My mouth felt like it was packed full of gauze, but it was just swollen. “I could have told you that. Your concern for me is overwhelming.”
This One’s For You Page 19