by C. R. Jane
“It doesn’t matter what you remember or don’t remember,” I told him somberly. My anger was fading, replaced by sadness at how much had changed that night, how much would always be changed by that night. I’d been alone for the past two years, devoid of anyone that I’d loved.
But I guess, so had he.
“I want you to stay away from me. Whatever was between us is broken, and I have no intention of ever repairing it.”
He pulled off his hat and grabbed at his hair, frustrated. “If I don’t remember something, how can I fix it?”
I blinked rapidly at him. “There’s no fixing anything. I don’t want anything to do with you. I don’t want to speak to you. I don’t want to see you. Just stay away from me.”
I took off down the hallway, running as fast as my ruined leg could take me. It seemed to be hurting even more in his presence, a reminder of that night that would never go away.
“I’ll find a way to fix whatever I’ve done,” he called after me.
I shook my head as I slipped into the girls’ bathroom, hot tears of shame, fury, and grief streaming down my face.
I’d never thought he’d wake up. Not once in those two years, when I’d sat in that hospital room and apologized over and over again, did I ever think that it would happen.
I’d thought then that I’d do anything if he would just wake up.
But evidently, I had limits. Because doing anything didn’t include ever letting Caiden Parker back into my life.
I skipped classes for the rest of the day.
CHAPTER FIVE
The campus was abuzz about the twins’ return. Caiden had never been to school here, but he was a legend among the student body, first for his sports’ prowess, then for his coma, and now…for his remarkable recovery.
It had been a week, and I felt like I was going mad. He was everywhere. Walking with Jackson, walking with a group of loyal followers he’d already procured, walking too close to me.
The pain of seeing him with Jackson was sharp and aching. Not because their brotherly bond seemed to have been resurrected in the face of his memory loss, but because there had been a time that I’d been right there with them.
Or at least, that’s what I tried to tell myself.
If I was being honest with myself, then I would admit that the reason it hurt so bad was because Caiden’s presence ensured that Jackson Parker would never be mine again. And even though I’d been the one to push him away…time had been a bitch in reminding me of all his good traits and making me forget why I’d pushed him so far from me that night in the first place.
It also was agonizing because sometimes, I dreamed what it would have been like to have Jackson on my side for the past two years, for him to know what had really happened, and to have been just as hurt and angry on my behalf as he’d been on his brother’s behalf when he’d thought that I’d tricked both of them.
I woke up groggily with a dry mouth and the smell of antiseptic burning my nostrils. All I could hear were loud beeps as I tried to figure out what had happened.
An image of Caiden’s fist flying towards my face had bile rising up somehow from what must have been an empty stomach. I heard his anger reverberating through the Jeep cabin and felt the sharp pain of bones breaking in my body as he took out his pain on me. I remembered him ripping through the streets, the downpour of rain beating on the roof. I remembered the panic and then the crash of metal breaking and bending.
We’d been in an accident. Caiden had beat the shit out of me after finding out about Jackson and I.
I tried to move, and pain sliced through me. Only then did I become truly aware of the situation I was in. Bandages covered my whole body. My leg was in a heavy cast. Wires and tubes extended out of me everywhere.
I began to cry, dry, racking sobs. Was Caiden all right? Did he look like me right now?
And where was Jackson?
I’d been alone plenty in my life. I’d accepted it in fact as a permanent part of my life, even with the presence of the twins. But I’d never felt as alone as I did right now, waking up in this hospital room, with injuries that I knew must be severe, completely and utterly by myself.
I let myself feel the pain for a few minutes, and then I pressed the nurse button on the side of the bed, even that small act sending shockwaves of hurt through my ribs from the movement.
A few seconds passed, and then a plump, sweet looking nurse with grey streaked, chestnut brown hair came barreling into the room. She was slightly out of breath from the effort, and the smile on her face sent me over the edge. I started to cry again, this time, even harder.
“Oh darlin’, let it all out. I know this is difficult, sweetheart. I know. But you’re going to be as right as rain in no time. We’ve been working round the clock to bring you back to the land of the living.”
“How long have I been asleep?” I asked, my words coming out fractured and garbled because of the tubes they’d had in my mouth while I was sleeping.
“Let’s work on getting you some water to help your throat, and then we can talk all about everything,” she told me hurriedly. “Don’t talk anymore until we get that out, okay. I don’t want it to cause any more swelling to your throat.”
I nodded when she gave me an expectant look. My nod launched her into action, and soon there was a whole team of nurses and doctors standing around me, fiddling with tubes in my arms and mercifully removing the feeding tube that had been down my throat. Apparently at one time, I’d been on oxygen due to my collapsed lung, but that had gotten better sometime in the last week.
I’d been asleep for a week.
“Have you talked to my mom? Has she been here?” I asked Cecilia, that first nurse that had come into my room.
Her gaze shifted nervously around the room. “We’ve been in contact with her, keeping her updated every day.”
“She hasn’t been here?” I didn’t know why I sounded so disappointed. In what world had my mother ever cared about me?
“She was here on the first day. I think it was too hard seeing you like that. It was a bit touch and go there for a minute there, baby cakes.” The nurse still didn’t make eye contact with me.
I sighed. “You don’t have to cover for her. I wouldn’t have expected anything different.” Then I remembered something important. “And Caiden? How is he?” I asked, realizing that should have been the first thing I’d asked instead of descending into a pity party that I didn’t deserve.
“His injuries were a lot less than yours,” she said quietly. “But an incident happened, and he’s been in a coma since then.”
“An incident?”
She shook her head somberly. “I’m sorry, I can’t tell you more. We’re all just praying that he wakes up. This has been an enormous tragedy for our town.”
I didn’t say anything to that. If the town was mourning, it definitely wasn’t because of me. If only I had been hurt, there would probably be a parade through the center of town that one less James was alive on this planet.
I needed answers. A coma? An incident? My brain was exhausted, despite the fact that I’d been asleep for the last week. I drifted into dreamland, a land where the burning fumes of the crash and the tortured screams of Caiden were all you could find.
When I woke up, I wasn’t alone. I’d always been able to feel Jackson’s presence. It was impossible to miss, so overwhelming and all-encompassing that I wasn’t sure if I was actually noticed at all by other people if he was in the vicinity.
He was standing there by the door, leaning against the wall as he just watched me.
Jackson.
It was like my soul let out a sigh of relief with his presence.
I wasn’t alone.
He didn’t say anything.
“You’re here,” I finally said.
Still nothing.
“How’s Caiden?” I asked desperately. “The nurses wouldn’t say anything.”
The mention of his twin’s name seemed to spark Jackson to life.
A low bitter laugh sounded out of his beautiful mouth. Sparks flickered down my spine. I should have known that his dark laugh was a warning shot for the destruction he was about to wreak.
Evidently, the twins were both good about destroying fragile, broken things.
I still didn’t see it coming.
“How’s Caiden?” he repeated mockingly. “That’s rich coming from you.”
My cruel, beautiful boy leveled me with a look I’d only seen him give his worst enemies.
“Caiden told me everything,” Jackson said in a low voice etched with arsenic and madness.
I was confused. If Caiden had told him everything, why was he acting like this?
I opened my mouth and then closed it, not sure what to say.
“I have to admit, you’re a better actress than I thought possible, Everly. I mean, you even acted like it hurt when I first pushed in. Just like a fucking virgin would.”
“I was a virgin,” I said slowly, hurt creeping up my veins.
He did that laugh again, the one that made me sore and troubled. The one that spelled trouble for me. “Right. Was it a bet you had with someone, or was it just a game you were playing with yourself? Get both the Parker boys to fuck you and fall in love with you. Did you still have his cum in you as you stood at my door and convinced me to break my brother’s heart?”
I gaped in horror at him. What exactly had Caiden told him?
“Caiden’s lying in a fucking hospital bed, most likely never to wake up again because of you. He tried to kill himself rather than exist in a world with you and I, Everly. How does that make you feel? Do you feel good about yourself? Does that give you the affirmation you need because of what your bastard dad and mom did to you?”
Tears were choking my throat. I didn’t know what to address first. Caiden had tried to kill himself? Why would he do that?
Jackson’s words were a whip that slashed through me over and over again, until I wasn’t sure how I wasn’t bleeding out all over the hospital bed right then.
“They don’t think he’ll wake up?” I finally asked, dazed at everything coming out right now.
“No. And it’s all your fault.”
“Jackson, I never—”
“Save it for someone who doesn’t know you’re a liar, Everly James. It should be you in that coma, not him,” Jackson spat, and then he left the room without a look back. His parting words were like knife wounds to my chest.
I clawed at my skin as my body overheated. I’d been sipping liquids the last two days since I’d woken up, and all of it came wrenching out of my mouth, covering the front of my hospital gown in a pathetic display of a girl who’d lost everything…including possibly her mind.
I let out a high-pitched wail as my blood pressure sensor went off, alerting anyone in the vicinity of my distress.
The same rosy-cheeked nurse came in, took one look at me, and then grabbed a syringe off one of the machines.
“Everything will be better tomorrow, my sweet,” she promised falsely as she injected the syringe into one of my IV lines.
Right away, the world started to get blurry and the pain dulled.
I wish I could sleep forever, I thought.
But I didn’t think forever would be enough to erase the agony of what had just occurred.
I was truly all alone now.
I was brought back to the present by Lane squealing about the new top she’d found for the hockey party on Friday that was going to go great with the pink in her hair. I smiled mechanically, wondering if there was a way that I could get out of it and not hurt Landry’s feelings.
I mean, he was my boyfriend, right? Even if our relationship had consisted of a lot of study sessions and very few make-out sessions. If I didn’t feel like going, it shouldn’t be a big deal, as long as I was at the game cheering him on and wearing his jersey. And I would be. I wasn’t that much of a selfish bastard to disappoint him by getting out of the game, even if I’d heard that the whole football team plus Caiden—because I’d heard he was going to be on the team in the fall—would be at the game, cheering on the hockey team.
“Landry, you’d be okay if I just went back to my room after the game, right?” I tentatively asked, cutting off the conversation that Lane and Landry were having with one another.
“You don’t want to come to the party?” both Lane and he said at almost the same time.
“I’m honestly dreading it. With everything that has happened this semester, I have a crazy amount of anxiety about it.”
Landry’s face tightened. He grabbed at his russet hair, agitated. “Ev, I don’t know what’s going on with you, but I feel like you’re never here with me anymore. I’m honestly not okay with you peacing out on the party,” he spat, throwing my words back in my face. “It’s important to me to have my girlfriend there.”
My heart tightened with his use of the term “girlfriend.”
I just so happened to look up and see Jackson and Caiden laughing with each other and their adoring fans.
I needed to do better. I needed to move on. Landry was offering me that chance, despite how much I put him through. I mean, I’d fucked Jackson in the bathroom on our first date. And still, he was here.
I couldn’t let this slip out of my fingertips by pining away for something I couldn’t have.
CHAPTER SIX
“We Will Rock You” pounded through the speakers of the ice arena. The team was on fire tonight, especially Landry. I was decked for the game in his number twenty-eight jersey, and the sight seemed to have given him an extra push. He already had a hat trick tonight, and the team was up 3-0 because of it.
The song faded away as the whole arena began to chant “Evans” over and over again while Landry lined up to take a penalty shot.
When it went in, the whole place exploded. It was 4-0 now, and assuming our goalie didn’t have a massive record-breaking meltdown in these last three minutes, the championship was ours.
My gaze flicked away from the game to where the football team was sitting across the way.
It was just my luck that two burning gazes were already focused on me. Jackson and Caiden were standing next to some of the offensive linemen, who’d come to the game with giant letters spelling out “Go Team” on their enormous bellies. The fans couldn’t get enough of them, but I could only focus on the two men beside them.
As soon as I saw them looking at me, I pulled my gaze back to the game, my nerves spiking from their attention.
I’d been sneaking looks at them all game. Jackson had looked bored, clearly not caring at all to be there, while Caiden had looked like he was having the time of his life, laughing and cheering it up with his soon to be teammates.
He looked healthier than ever, like coming to school had infused him with the extra energy he needed to make that last step of recovering. I was sure that his muscles were still not even close to recovering after lying dormant for two years, besides the manual ministrations given to him daily by a physical therapist, but here, under the lights of the hockey arena…he sure looked recovered.
I was keeping my eye on the snake in the grass, yes, but most of my attention—when it wasn’t focused on the game and Landry of course—was on Jackson.
And judging by the amount of time he’d spent staring at me during the game, most of his attention was on me as well.
I couldn’t breathe.
“I’m going to get some popcorn. Want anything?” I asked Lane, who was similarly clad in a jersey from another member of the hockey team that she’d been hooking up with over the last month. I’d heard way too many details about the goalie’s dick size and his prowess in the sack to ever be able to look him in the eye again.
“We only have three minutes left… You can’t wait?” she asked, raising her brow quizzically as the crowd cheered a block by her lover.
“Girl’s got to eat,” I lied, and she rolled her eyes, seeing right through me.
I walked out of our aisle at the bottom
of the arena, right by the glass, and walked briskly up the stairs. I hovered in front of the concession stand before deciding that my stomach was in too many knots for me to eat. Hurrying around the corner where there were no people, I leaned against the wall, taking a deep sigh of relief about escaping the constant gazes that seemed to follow me everywhere lately.
I felt him then, and even before I opened my eyes, I knew that Jackson would be standing right in front of me as soon as I did.
Sure enough, as my eyes opened…there he was.
We didn’t say anything, and I took a moment to analyze his features. The way his golden hair whisked across his forehead made me want to brush my fingers across it. His eyes gleamed like cobalt-colored jewels, no sign of the black that haunted my dreams in their depths. He had a five o’clock shadow, making him look edgy and older than his years. I imagined myself dragging my tongue across that plump lower lip and feeling the prickles of the overgrown stubble as I did so.
Jackson’s gaze stayed pinned on mine, and it felt like he could read every one of my lustful thoughts. He called to me, like always. And just like always…I was powerless against his pull.
A tremble ran through me at his intense gaze. It burned over my skin as we looked at each other. His eyes glimmered with intensity, and I licked my lips in response, causing him to jerk at the movement.
He moved towards me then, hauling me towards him with one hand while he cradled my neck with his other large hand. I inhaled and craned my head to the opposite side, offering my sensitive skin for his taking, even if my brain was screaming at me to run away. The move was instinctual. His hand glided down my neck, over my shoulder, as his fingertips trailed featherlight along my arm. Jackson’s eyes were dark and hooded as they zeroed in on my mouth. His pink tongue barely jutted out to wet perfectly plump lips. Goosebumps spread along my arm. His hand stopped at my wrist, and he caressed the pulse point there slowly, almost as if he was tracing letters against my skin. Over and over.