The quiet slapping of rubber against concrete broke the wintry hush around me. Audrey approached in her unseasonal flip-flops and sat beside me on the curb. “Blake, I talked to them. They said—”
“I want you to leave,” I blurted out, hanging my head.
“No, you don’t.”
I sucked in a deep breath that I hoped would bring me clarity, but it didn’t. “Yes,” I nodded, “yes, I do.”
“You’re upset,” she stated.
“No fucking shit, Audrey!”
She laid a hand against my shoulder. “Oh, God, Blake, I’m not attacking you.”
I thrust my hands out against the backdrop of buildings and sky and shouted, “The whole fucking world is attacking me! This entire fucking universe has been attacking me since the day I ruined my brother’s life, and all I’ve ever wanted to do was keep him safe. That’s all I was ever supposed to do. That’s it! And the second I stop to be fucking selfish and live my fucking life for myself, this is what happens.”
“Blake, you have no idea what you’re saying.”
“Jesus fucking Christ, I know exactly what I’m saying!”
“No. You don’t,” she stated firmly, leaving her hand on my arm. “Why don’t we go back inside? I talked to them; they understand. You can come back in and see Jake, but I need you to calm down, okay? Please, just try to calm down.”
I shook my head with such a bitter taste in my mouth, I spat bile onto the sidewalk. The world around me felt weird. Unreal and cruel and nearly post-apocalyptic. I looked at the sky through a bleary haze of existential rage and silently asked what the fuck Jake had ever done to deserve this shitty hand he’d been dealt. What the fuck did he do? What the fuck did he ever do to deserve a brother who stole from him, a mother who denied him normalcy, and a father who had turned a blind eye? What the fuck could he have possibly done?
Audrey stood, wrapped her hands around my arm and tugged. “Come on, Blake. Come with me.”
Slowly, I shook my head, turning from the sky to look at her and catching a glimpse of that goddamn motherfucking tattoo on her chest. And suddenly, it was so clear, so transparent, and I lifted a finger to touch it. The delicate structure of her sternum was ungiving beneath my touch.
“It all started with this,” I said to nobody, then I looked at her. “You never knew how to leave me the fuck alone.”
“Blake, let’s—”
“You could never just leave me the fuck alone! You’ve always been following me, hounding me, refusing to fucking leave, until I finally give in, and what happens? Everything goes completely to hell!”
She finally let go. “What?”
“Just leave me the fuck alone, Audrey!”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because I’m fucking begging you to,” I pleaded through gritted teeth. “I need you to go the fuck away and leave me the fuck alone.”
Swallowing, she slowly nodded. “I’ll leave,” she whispered, cautiously relenting. “But I’m not gone, Blake. Do you understand? I’m not out of your life, I’m just going home.”
Home.
I wanted to be home. I wanted to be in my bed and in her arms. I wanted my shoes and blanket, all my things and my tea. I wanted sleep, and above everything else, I wanted my brother. I wanted his music on my stereo. I wanted his movies playing on the TV, Legos all over the living room floor, and pancakes every fucking night for dinner. I wanted his stupid fucking dog shedding all over my house, drooling on the couch, and getting his food on the kitchen floor. And at the thought of Mickey, my hand drooped to my side, scraping my knuckles against the concrete.
“Where’s Mickey?” I spoke, my voice rough and broken.
Audrey sank to her knees in front of me. “Mickey died, Blake.”
I shook my head furiously. “You don’t know that.”
But she nodded and reached out with a trembling hand. Her palm grazed my cheek, her fingers aimed for my hair. “Your dad told me.”
A sob broke through my lips as I continued to shake my head. “Fuck,” I blubbered. “He loves that fucking dog.”
“I know ... I know,” she whispered, collecting me in her arms.
She stroked her fingers through my hair and listened to me cry and wail. She coddled me, rubbed my back, and rocked with the gentle wind, never mentioning that she was cold and shivering. Never complaining that my fingers were bruising her back. Never letting go until I had settled in an exhausted heap against her shoulder.
Then, she kissed my cheek, my temple, my forehead, my lips, and said, “You’re gonna go inside and see your brother. I’m gonna take your car and go home. Do you have your phone?” I could only nod in reply before she continued, “Okay. Call me when you want me to come get you. Okay?”
I nodded again and her lips touched my forehead once more. “Fight for him, Blake,” she whispered, and left me alone on the sidewalk.
Chapter Thirty-Two
JAKE HAD TAKEN Mickey and his backpack, filled with his Gremlins DVD, iPod, headphones, and stuffed dog—the necessities. Wearing his Mickey Mouse pajamas and a black coat, he’d walked two blocks away from my parents’ residential neighborhood before reaching a main road. Visibility was low and the roads hadn’t been plowed yet. They were slippery from the snow and ice, and by the time the driver saw him and the dog, she couldn’t stop fast enough.
She’d hit Mickey first, and according to her account of the accident, Jake hadn’t reacted. He’d probably been stunned, frozen, completely unsure of what to do, and she hit him with her Jeep.
The time of impact had been 12:22 in the morning.
The driver, a kind woman named Lacey, had escaped with not a scratch on her body, but a gaping gash across her heart. After calling 9-1-1 and the number on Mickey’s collar, Lacey had sat in the snowy road, cradling Jake’s bleeding head in her lap, until the ambulance arrived. My parents came shortly after, and that’s when Dad had called me.
Now, in a curtained area of the hospital’s Intensive Care Unit, I sat with my parents in a foggy silence, caught somewhere between being asleep and awake. I stared forward at my brother’s lifeless body, wrapped in bruises and bandages, and thought, that’s what I’d look like if I was dying. It was so fucked up and morbid, but fuck it. That was the truth. That’s exactly what I’d look like, and God, how I wished it really was me instead of him.
As angry as I’d been, the doctors really had done everything they could. They had repaired his lung, punctured by two fractured ribs. Had sewn up the cut across his forehead and stitched all the minor scratches on his face and hands. They’d also set and casted his broken leg and ankle, with a warning that he’d likely need further surgery if he pulled through.
If he pulled through …
It was the head injury that really had them worried. The swelling and bleeding on his brain had been alleviated as much as the doctors could, but to say they weren’t hopeful for his survival was an understatement. And even if he did make it through the morning, they’d said, there was no guaranteeing that he’d wake up. “If he does get very lucky—and I mean, very lucky,” the doctor had said, “there’s no telling how much damage has been done, especially given the condition of his brain before the accident. Something like this would likely be catastrophic.”
Considering that Jake’s luck hadn’t been all that great since the ripe old age of ten, I wasn’t so confident in his chances now, but I was hoping. I was hoping, and hoping, and if anybody was out there to hear me, I hoped it was paying off.
Dad glanced at me from his chair. “Why don’t you go home and try to sleep?”
Looking from Jake’s body to Dad’s face, I gestured toward the bed. “You’re kidding, right? I can’t sleep right now.”
“I know,” he replied, “but you should try. Call Audrey and have her pick you up. We’ll tell you if anything changes.”
As I looked back to Jake and heard again the whoosh of the machine pushing air in and out of his lungs, my throat tightened and my chest imme
diately felt like it’d burst. Fuck, I didn’t want to cry, not again, but how could I even think of sleeping in my comfortable bed while he was fighting for his life? That’s what I should’ve been doing, that was my job. But what the fuck could I do now?
“I don’t wanna leave him,” I admitted in a broken whisper.
Dad reached out and gripped my arm. “I know, and he knows that, too. But you’re no good to him when you’re so tired.”
“What about you guys?”
“We’ll take shifts,” Mom said softly, meeting my eyes with something close to affection.
So, reluctantly, I nodded and called Audrey. I stayed at Jake’s side as I waited, just in case, hoping he’d wake up or show some sign of life, but there was none. When Audrey texted to let me know she was there, I held his hand, leaned in close to his ear, and whispered through a throat clotted with tears, “You better not die on me, buddy, you got it? I love you. Don’t fucking die.”
I slumped into the car and kept my eyes on the sunny sky. It was uncharacteristically warm on this winter day and all the snow had melted. If this was some kind of a joke, it wasn’t funny.
“How is he?” Audrey asked quietly, turning down the volume of her music. Some country station she insisted on keeping programmed in my car.
“Still alive,” I muttered.
“That’s something,” she assured me, reaching out to rest her hand against my leg.
We drove toward Salem and I began to think about all of Jake’s things. His toys, movies, and puzzles. Mickey’s bowl in the kitchen. I swallowed at another build-up of emotion and said, “I don’t think I can be in that house right now.”
“Okay,” she replied. “We can go to my place. You have clothes there.”
Clothes? I glanced down at my sweatpants, socks, open leather jacket and bare chest beneath. Jesus Christ, I hadn’t noticed I’d been like this since arriving at the hospital nearly five hours ago. I laid a hand over my eyes and shook my head, overwhelmed by her thoughtfulness, patience, and unwavering kindness.
“I don’t deserve you,” I muttered.
“I love you.”
“You shouldn’t,” I insisted. “I’m a fucking wreck.”
“Well, I still love you.”
“I can’t imagine why you’d want a psychopath who can’t keep his crap together,” I said, remembering how I screamed at her outside of the hospital. “I can’t imagine why you’d want a guy who gets so defensive and flips out when shit really hits the fan.”
“But that’s who you are,” she whispered, glancing at me. “You fight hard and love even harder, and that’s what I want. I want you.”
I relented with a silent nod and she drove us the rest of the way to her house. Her mother was surprised to see us pull up to the curb, and upon seeing my disheveled state, asked urgently what had happened. Audrey promised she’d talk to her later, but first, she led me to her bathroom and helped me undress like I couldn’t do it myself. Hell, I wasn’t sure if I could. She ran the shower, took off her clothes, and pulled me under the spray of water to wash my hair and scrub away the morning’s tears and pain. She dried me off, helped me into clean clothes, brought me to her bed and ordered me to lie down. I listened and waited as she made me some toast and tea, with an insistence that I should get something in my stomach. When she returned, I could only stare at her, feeling both bewildered and unworthy.
I hadn’t asked her to do this, none of this, or any of the things she’d done in the months I’d known her. But she did it anyway, and with so much grace and selflessness, that through knowing her, I knew God must exist. Because while someone as fucked-up as me could exist in this world, there was also her, so brilliantly flawless and beautiful, to love me in spite of it all and to balance out every one of my imperfections. And that was perfect, and only a perfect being could make sure of something like that.
“I’m glad you didn’t leave,” I said frankly, as she crawled into bed beside me.
“What do you mean? When?”
“Ever,” I stated, wrapping my arms around her and burrowing my face against her chest.
“I left you today,” she whispered, guilt-ridden and apologetic.
“But you didn’t really. You gave me space. That’s not the same as leaving altogether,” I insisted, allowing her heartbeat to lure me toward sleep. “Don’t ever leave me.”
“I won’t,” she promised, stroking her fingers gently through my hair.
“I fucking love you.”
“I love you, too, Blake.”
***
I woke up disoriented and alone. The room was veiled in darkness and the clock beside the bed read that it was eight at night. How long had I been sleeping? Was it even the same day?
I laid there for a few moments, allowing cognizance to settle in, and when it did, I bolted upright with only one thought on my mind: Jake. Logic told me someone would’ve woken me up if something had happened, so that wasn’t necessarily bad, was it? It meant there hadn’t been any change, which was neither bad nor good. And at least he was still here. If he was here, that meant there was a chance and any chance was better than none.
I left the room to find Audrey and her mother sitting on the couch with plates of pizza in hand. Ann looked at me, laying her plate on the coffee table, before standing to approach me.
“Oh, honey, I don’t know what to say, except that I’m so sorry,” she said, reaching up to wrap her arms around my neck.
Hugging her, I nodded and admitted, “I don’t know what to say either, so … thanks.”
“You let me know if you need anything, okay? Anything at all. You need dinners? I got you covered. Laundry? Cleaning? Just let me know. Please.”
“I will,” I assured her, continuing to nod.
Audrey stood up, empty plate in hand, and asked, “Are you hungry? You wanna eat something?”
“Um,” my stomach grumbled in reply and I nodded, “yeah, I think I could eat.”
She hurried into the kitchen to grab me a slice. Ann released me from her grasp and encouraged me to take a seat. But I’d been laying down for so long, I still wasn’t sure how long I’d been sleeping. I needed to do something proactive, something useful.
“Hey, Audrey, where’s my phone?” I asked, sweeping my gaze over the living room.
“Oh, it’s right here,” she called to me, and a few moments later, she came back into the living room with a slice of pizza and my phone in hand. “I charged it while you were sleeping.”
I thanked her sincerely, kissing her forehead before finally taking a seat. I ate, surprised to find myself so hungry, as I checked my phone for messages. Both of my parents had texted me periodically, giving me the infrequent updates throughout the day.
“How’s he doing?” Audrey asked, sitting beside me.
After reading the last message and breathing a sigh of relief, I told her, “Well, he’s still in the coma, but the swelling on his brain has gone down significantly.”
“That’s good!” Ann chimed in optimistically.
“Yeah,” I nodded, “Dad said that, even though Jake’s definitely not out of the woods, things are looking better than they did before.” I put the phone down and scrubbed a hand over my chin as I went on, “I mean, even if he pulls through and wakes up, there’s no guaranteeing what kind of damage has been done, but—”
“Stop,” Audrey cut in gently, moving closer and propping her chin on my shoulder. “Take the good news and let yourself feel happy about it before you shoot it down.”
“I’m just being realistic,” I replied, touching my head to hers.
“Yeah, honey, I know,” Ann said. “And I know you don’t want to get your hopes all the way up either, but it never hurt to be just a little hopeful.”
They were right, I knew they were, so I allowed myself a moment to read the text from my father again. The one in which he told me the swelling had decreased and things were looking better, complete with a praying hands emoji. Dad never used emojis and I to
ok it as a good sign.
Signs. Souls. Fate. Gifts. God.
Jake’s ability to see auras had been a gift. Audrey said so, and I believed her now. A slew of breadcrumbs—signs—had brought Audrey and me together, and I believed that now, too. I believed that Audrey herself, was a gift to me, the perfect mate to my imperfect soul, and if I believed all of this, then I knew I must also believe in God.
And if I believed in that, then there was a chance that something, whatever it was, was listening. And maybe they—He, Her, It, whatever—would care about what I had to say.
Chapter Thirty-Three
“BLAKE,” Dr. Travetti greeted me, rushing toward me as I walked into her office forty minutes late. She surprised me with a hug. “God, I’m so sorry.”
“Hey, Doc. Doesn’t this violate some kind of doctor-patient code or something?”
She stepped back with a roll of her eyes. “I think we can make an exception this time,” she quipped, attempting a smile I knew she didn’t feel. “I guess it’s a stupid question to ask how you’ve been.”
“Uh, yeah,” I nodded, walking toward the chair I saw as mine. “I’d say that’d be a pretty stupid question.”
“How is Jake? Any improvements since your call last night?”
I shook my head solemnly. “No. He’s still on life support, but he’s alive.”
“Well, that’s a good thing,” she encouraged. “How are you handling everything?”
I pursed my lips and considered the question before replying, “I completely lost my shit initially.”
“Of course.”
“But, I don’t know. I guess I’ve had a little time to process. Or maybe I’m just numb.”
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