by C. C. Hunter
One deep gulp of air in, one tight blast out, and I force myself to knock.
Swearing I hear him say “come in,” I push open the door.
The second I walk in, I see him rising off the bed. He stands on his own for a couple beats of silence, then he takes a step. And he starts to fall.
Without thought, I rush forward and grab him. But instead of preventing his fall, I go down, too. I land first. He lands on top of me. His warmth. His weight. His chest. Our legs all tangled up. I feel it all.
“Shit!” He lifts up on his elbow, but his chest is still against mine. “You okay?”
I manage to nod. His mouth is so close that I can smell the mint of his toothpaste on his breath. If I lift up an inch, I could press my lips to his. To see if his kiss in the flesh is as good as it was in spirit. His eyes meet mine, and I can’t look away. Blue on blue.
Tell me you remember me? Tell me. Tell me, please. I wait for him to say something, anything.
He continues to stare. I continue to explore the sweetness. We’ve been like this before. Our bodies lined up. Our gazes caught. But this…this is real. This is better.
He blinks but doesn’t pull away. I swear I see recognition in his gaze. Any second, he’s going to lower his mouth, and I’m going to get my first real kiss from Hayden.
I swipe my tongue across my bottom lip, wanting, waiting, willing him to do it because my gumption’s gone.
He blinks again. His dark lashes—so close I can count them—lower, then lift. And the moment that felt familiar, the look I thought was recognition, the certainty of the kiss is gone. So gone.
Then flashing in my mind and bouncing off my sore heart is the memory of him kissing Brandy.
“Can you get off me?” Disappointment sounds in my tone.
“Sorry. I…” He rolls off. I get up. He doesn’t.
He looks away from me, but I see from his expression that he’s upset. Or maybe embarrassed. I regret being short with him. Part of me wants to drop back onto the floor and hug him, hug him for more than twenty seconds and tell him how happy I am he’s alive. Even if he and I are nothing, even if I lose him to Brandy, I’m still happy he’s alive.
I just don’t want a front-row seat to watch their romance. I shouldn’t have come.
I hold out my hand. “Here, let me help you.”
His expression tightens. “Hand me my walker. I’ll pull myself up.”
I roll the walker from the other side of the room closer. Right then, a nurse walks in. “What happened?”
“I fell,” he says.
“Are you hurt?” She kneels down beside him.
“No.” He reaches for the walker.
She moves in. “Let me help.”
“I can do it,” he snaps.
But he’s wrong. It takes both of us to get him back in bed. The nurse walks out. He lifts his face but doesn’t meet my eyes. “Can you come back later?”
I almost turn for the door, but he looks so alone, hopeless. He’s hurting. I feel his pain, his embarrassment, his fear that he’ll never walk.
“It’s just going to take time,” I say. “Give your muscles time to get stronger. This is normal. With physical therapy, you should be up and walking soon. Sometimes it happens quickly, sometimes it might take a little longer. You can’t lose hope.”
He lifts his eyes. “So you’ve been in a coma before, huh?” Frustration bounces around the white room that suddenly feels empty and cold.
“I…researched it. All coma patients go to therapy. You just need to—”
“Why?” The one-word question sounds like an accusation.
“Why what?”
“Why did you research it? Why are you even here?”
Because I love being rejected. My chest walls tighten. I take a step back. “Your mom said that you…you asked if I’d help out. But I guess that was a… I’m sorry I came!” I turn to leave.
“Wait!” His plea reaches my ears just as my hand reaches the door. The angst in his voice is heavy.
I count to three and swallow the lump of emotion before I turn around.
He’s frowning, his gaze hooded. I know that look. He’s about to apologize. He does that a lot. Not in an annoying, insincere kind of way, but with genuineness. Like me, he dislikes hurting people. He’s kind, he cares. Hell, he was willing to die so Annie could live.
“I’m sorry.” The earnestness in his tone doubles the lump in my throat. “This is so hard.”
Tell me about it.
He continues, “But I shouldn’t take it out on you. Please stay.”
I stand there. The colorless room suddenly seems too quiet, almost as if it’s listening to every word, every sound we make. I want to say so much, like how much I miss him, like how I know he’s a fighter and he can beat this. I want to tell him I know him, that I know all his secrets. But I can’t say it.
He folds his hands together. “I did ask my mom to see if you’d help out.” He motions to the chair beside his bed. “Have a seat.” When I don’t move, he smirks. “You standing there on your own two feet feels like you’re showing off.” There’s a note of teasing in his voice.
I move to the chair and drop. “Why me? Why didn’t you ask for Jacob or…Brandy?”
He hesitates as if he’s trying to formulate his answer. “Mom told me how you helped her by being here. That your visits were comforting. She’s still trying to cope with this and…other crap. I thought you being around might help her.”
He wants me here for his mom, not him. Just what a girl wants to hear. I stare away from him.
“And I guess I’m curious.”
My eyes lift. “About what?”
“About why someone would come to the hospital to see a comatose guy they barely knew five years ago. Are you just some kind of do-gooder?” He blinks. “I don’t mean that to sound insulting. I’m grateful you were here for my mom. I just don’t get it.”
I feel small under his scrutiny. I dig deep for a believable lie. “Everybody was talking about you. Jacob especially. They were worried and saying how nice a guy you were. Then I saw your picture and recognized you. I guess because I’m new in town and didn’t really know anyone else, our camp connection felt more relevant.”
He nods as if he believes me. He bends one knee up. “My best friend has a thing for you.” He says it as if it needs announcing.
“Jacob and I are just friends.”
“I’m betting it wouldn’t be that way if Jacob had anything to do with it.” He lifts a brow.
I don’t answer.
“He’s a good guy.” He drops his knee down. “I’ll vouch for him.”
“We’re just friends,” I repeat.
He reaches to the bedside table and picks something up. He turns it around so I can see it. It’s the picture I gave his mom of him and a couple of other campers. “I…asked Mom to bring my old photos of camp. I’m hoping I’ll find a picture of you.”
Freaking great. If he finds one, he might realize I’m not the girl he danced with at camp. When he was in spirit form, he found out we’d both gone to the same camp and he asked me if I was the girl he tripped while dancing and made such a big scene. I told him I wasn’t, but I’d wished I was. When his mom discovered I hadn’t known Hayden from school, she got suspicious about why I was visiting her son. I told her we’d gone to camp together. When that connection didn’t feel like enough, I told her I was the girl he danced with.
Now it’s just another lie I’m caught up in.
He runs his finger under his bottom lip. “I remember dancing with you and how I ended up knocking you on your ass, but I…” He pauses. “You look different than I remember.”
I rub my damp palms over my jean-covered thighs. “I grew up.”
“Yeah.” He looks back at the photograph, then to me. “So you’ll do it.”
“Do what?”
“Take me to therapy. Mom said you only agreed to think about it. She said she’d pay you.”
I need to
say no. Just bow out now. Get out while the getting is good.
“Please,” he adds.
“I…I just think if Jacob and Brandy could pitch in, she wouldn’t have to pay anyone. If they couldn’t do it one day, I could do it, but…”
“Jacob is always doing some sports thing or working on his car. And I don’t want my girlfriend taking me to therapy. I don’t want her to see me as weak. It’d be embarrassing.”
Riiiiight. He doesn’t care to impress me. “But since she’s your girlfriend, maybe she’d care enough to want to do it. You know, support you and all.”
A frown pulls at his lips, pulls at his eyes, then pulls at me. “I want you,” he says.
For your mom.
“We can tell old camp stories. It’d be fun.”
Say no. Say no. Just. Say. No!
“I promise not to be a pain in the ass.” His smile is crooked and sweet. It’s the most genuine one I’ve seen from him since he woke up. He tilts his head to the side, his eyelids lower, and he looks at me through his long lashes. I’m so taken by his boy charm, I melt a little into the chair cushion.
I brush my palms down the sides of my jeans again. “I’m not sure that’s a promise you can keep.”
I’m completely serious, but he laughs. It’s masculine, soul-spinning, it’s the launching pad for the butterflies in my stomach.
And that seals the deal. I’m sunk. I’m in. I’m his therapy chauffeur.
A tap comes at his door.
He almost frowns as if he didn’t want us to be interrupted. I know exactly how he feels.
“Come in,” he says.
The door opens, and when I see who’s standing there, I instinctively stiffen. This could be bad.
Annie and her adoptive mom, who were involved in my last ghost case, are perched in the doorway. Hayden, in spirit form, helped with that case, and since Annie could see him… Yup. This could go badly.
“Hi!” Annie, who looks wonderful, belts out.
“I’m sorry to interrupt,” her mom says. “She saw you come in here, and we’re leaving, so she wanted to say goodbye.”
I glance at Hayden. He’s staring at Annie with the same weird almost-recognition he looked at me with earlier. Does he remember her? Does he remember he was willing to die so she would live?
I force myself to speak. “You’re going home, huh? You look great.”
“Thanks to you.” Her smile is so bright, and her eyes aren’t yellow anymore. Annie focuses on Hayden. “I’m glad you woke up.”
“Yeah.” His tone is hesitant.
“And thank you for playing tic-tac-toe and hangman with me. Maybe you can come over to my house with Riley and we can play some more.”
Hayden’s brow creases. “I…”
“Come on, Annie,” her mom says. “Your dad’s bringing the car around.” Her mom looks at me. “I have your number. I hope it’s okay if I call sometime.”
“Sure.” I push the word off my lips.
Annie releases her mom’s hand and runs to Hayden’s bed and crooks her finger forward. “I want to tell you a secret.”
No. No. Nooooooo.
Hayden leans down.
Annie lifts up on her tiptoes and whispers something close to his ear.
Hayden’s eyes widen. “You know Brandy?”
Annie makes a face. “No. Riley. She’s the angel, and you love each other.”
Oh shiiiit!
Hayden’s gaze darts to me, and his expression is one big question. One that I can’t answer.
“Okay,” he says, but it doesn’t sound like an honest okay. It sounds like an okay that someone is going to have to explain. And I’m afraid he expects that someone to be me.
A quick wave and they walk out.
The door swishes closed, and the whooshing sound is almost too loud. Don’t let him ask. Please don’t let him ask.
He clears his throat. “Why would… I never played tic-tac-toe with her.”
“Kids.” My voice is a couple octaves too high.
He runs his palm over his face. “Wait. Is she…the girl who needed a liver?”
My intake of air is a little fast. He remembers Annie?
I bob my head up and down. “How do you…know that?”
“I saw it on the news this morning. Just now, she looked familiar, and that has to be why, but I still don’t get… How do you know them?”
Her dead father requested my help. I’m running through the maze of my mind, searching crevices and brain wrinkles to find a believable answer. But my crevices and wrinkles offer nothing up.
Hayden does another swipe of his hand over his face. “Why does she think—?”
My phone dings with a text. The old cliché, saved by the bell, has never felt so appropriate or been so appreciated. I pull my phone out. It’s from Kelsey, and it reads, Need you. Now!
Crap. Was there a complication with her mom?
I look up and meet Hayden’s eyes. “I’m sorry, but…I have to go. Kelsey’s mom is in the hospital. She’s having surgery, and Kelsey says she needs… Something must be wrong.” I leave him, his questions, and the colorless room, and rush to the elevator.
In the elevator, I text Kelsey. On my way. Where R U?
A text dings back. In ER lobby.
I rush out of the elevator and head for the ER.
As I cut the last corner, I see Kelsey standing there. Hugging herself. My own issues take a back seat.
I rush over. “What’s wrong?”
“I was having it out with Mom. She’s so freaking stupid, saying she doesn’t want me to call the police.”
“She needs to get a restraining order,” I say.
“That’s exactly what I told her. But that’s not why I texted you.” She inhales. “While arguing with her, it got cold in the room. Like nipple-cracking cold. I think my grandmother’s here. Or was? Can you see her?”
I peruse the room. The naked cone guy stands on the other side of the room, his cone still strategically positioned, but I don’t see Bessie, Kelsey’s grandmother.
I glance back at Kelsey. “She’s not here right now. You think she’s still with your mom? Maybe we should go—”
“They took her to surgery. But I could swear it was her. I even smelled her. She always smelled like herbs.”
I remember that being Bessie’s scent. “Well, if it’s her, she’ll probably come back.” No sooner do those words fall from my lips than Bessie appears.
Her cold washes over me. I shiver. “Why don’t we take a walk outside?”
Nodding, Kelsey hugs herself tighter, then asks in a low whisper, “She’s here now, isn’t she?”
I nod, and we exit through the hospital doors. Bessie follows.
Sprays of afternoon sunshine spill onto us, but with Bessie in our wake, the cold chases away the warmth. I see a bench and start that way.
“She’s hurting so bad,” Bessie says as Kelsey and I sit down.
“I know,” I say.
Kelsey looks at me. “Did she say something?”
“She says you’re hurting.”
“You finally told her the truth, huh?” Bessie asks. “You know she…senses me.”
I nod.
Kelsey bites down on her lip. “Ask her what I can do to shake some sense into Mom. She’s making the same mistake with Charles as she did with Johnny.”
Bessie’s expression softens with affection. “Oh, hon, I know this looks bad, but your mom is actually trying now. Unlike before, she’s not wanting to protect Charles. She’s scared he might hurt you or the baby. Not that she’s right about not telling the police, but her heart’s in the right place.”
I repeat what Bessie says and see a teary sheen appear in Kelsey’s green eyes. “Then what do I do?”
“I think I’ve got an idea,” Bessie says. “First, I need to confirm something. Give me a few days to figure it out.”
I repeat that to Kelsey.
“I miss you,” Kelsey says.
“I miss yo
u, too.” Bessie’s gaze shifts to me, and longing moves to concern. “Now, about your problem.”
“Which one?” Sarcasm leaks into my voice.
She offers me a sad smile. “Your bride spirit.”
Yup, that’s definitely one of my problems. “What about her?”
“You need to be careful. She’s got anger issues.”
“I noticed.”
Bessie’s expression tightens. “Not all of them are her fault, but…”
“But what?” I ask.
“What?” Kelsey asks.
“It’s about the bride,” I say to appease Kelsey, never taking my eyes off Bessie.
Bessie looks hesitant to spill, but she finally starts talking. “The spirit claims to know things about your mom. I don’t think she’s lying.”
My spine tightens. Mentally, I shove some other bad news to the side so I can fit more. “What does she know? How could she know anything?”
“She wouldn’t tell me. But she also said that the person who killed her is trying to do it to someone else.”
Lovely.
Worry tightens her dark brown eyes. “Find a way to turn it over to the police.”
Good plan, but a hell of a lot tougher than it sounds.
Bessie continues, “Don’t try to do this alone like the other time. And keep your guard up with the bride. I don’t think she wants to hurt you, but she’s in a bad place, and…” Bessie looks off in the distance as if something caught her attention.
The afternoon light gives her dark skin a glow. But it’s more than just the lighting. She has an aura around her. The same kind of luminosity I had in the picture Kelsey took, the same that Mom had in her picture.
“I need to go,” Bessie says. “I’ll be back with a plan on how to deal with Charles.” She glances at Kelsey with love. “Thank you for watching out for her.” She’s still smiling when she fades into the sunshine. As the chill follows her, I feel a sense of peace that seems to come from her.
I wish I could hold on to that sensation. But like her image, it’s gone, and I’m left with my mother mystery, an alcoholic dad, a boy I love who forgot me, and my latest and greatest issue: Figuring out who killed the bride and getting that information to the police before he kills again.