everafter

by Nell Stark; Trinity Tam

  “She’s asking for you. Room 803,” was all my mother said before hanging up the phone. She rose from the chair and smoothed

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  everafter

  her suit regally. “I’ll be back tomorrow,” she said, not quite meeting my gaze.

  “Fine.” I was too angry to trust myself with more than a monosyllable. Once she had gone, I stayed focused on the door, fractals of anticipation blooming in my stomach. A bank of windows stretched out horizontally to the left of the door, but the blinds were pulled. I cursed at them under my breath as the seconds stretched out interminably.

  The faint sounds of a commotion trickled under the door. “Hey, slow down!” someone called. I smiled. That, at least, didn’t hurt. And then the door crashed open, and Alexa was standing in the threshold, fists clenched at her sides. In three days, she had noticeably lost weight. Shadows partially encircled her wild eyes, and when she saw me, she gasped.

  “Alexa.” I meant for those three, perfect syllables to tell her what my appearance obviously didn’t—that I was going to be fine. But my voice broke in the middle, and the next thing I knew, she was next to the bed and her arms were awkwardly wrapped around me and she was kissing my forehead, my cheeks, my lips.

  “Val Val oh sweetheart thank God I was so scared…”

  I breathed in as deeply as I dared. Her familiar, beloved scent eased the ache in my head and the dryness of my throat. I ran my fingers through her silky hair, savoring her nearness. Alexa, my touchstone. As long as she was with me, I could get through anything. Even this.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “So, so sorry.”

  “Shh, love,” she said, resting her head next to mine on the pillow and lightly caressing my cheek with one finger. “It’s not your fault.”

  I leaned forward slightly to touch her lips to mine. “No, I mean, I’m sorry about my mother. I wish to God that I’d thought about power of attor—”

  The sound of someone clearing his throat made me pause. I looked past Alexa’s shoulder at a pale, slender man wearing a white coat and khaki pants and holding my chart. A pair of tinted, horn-rimmed glasses partially obscured his eyes. He was staring at me with an unnerving intensity.

  “I apologize for the interruption,” he said. His voice was accented lightly—French, I thought. “I’m Harold Clavier, Valentine, the doctor who has been monitoring your progress. How are you feeling?”

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  Nell Stark and Trinity Tam

  Alexa raised her head and turned toward the doctor, but continued to crouch next to me, my hand enfolded in hers. I was thankful—I needed to be touching her.

  “I’m not really sure,” I told him. “My head hurts. I’m thirsty. What else…what else is wrong with me?”

  “How much do you remember?” he countered.

  Fear must have shown in my face, because Alexa leaned over to press a gentle kiss to my temple. Her tenderness made me want to cry with relief. “Nothing,” I whispered.

  He cocked his head slightly, like a bird. “Nothing?”

  “If she says nothing, then she means nothing,” Alexa snapped.

  “Now what did he do to her?”

  I brought our joined hands up so that I could stroke my cheek against her knuckles in a paltry attempt to soothe her. Alexa was fire, through and through. Even so, she usually did a better job of reining in her temper—in front of complete strangers, anyway. She was at the end of her rope right now. Because of me.

  “You have two cracked ribs and a serious concussion,” Dr. Clavier said. Despite Alexa’s outburst, he looked unruffled. “You were also stabbed twice, once in the leg and once in the shoulder. You lost a great deal of blood, and required two transfusions, but you’ll fully recover from both injuries with a little physical therapy.”

  Stabbed. Again, I shied away from the word. How, how could I have been attacked without remembering it? My brain knew the answer, of course—head trauma compounded by post-traumatic stress disorder. I wasn’t sure what frightened me more: the thought that I might never remember, or the prospect that I would start experiencing flashbacks.

  “When can she go home?” said Alexa.

  “Probably in a few days. Maybe a week.” Dr. Clavier was staring at me again in that unnerving way. Expectantly. “Because of your head injury, I want to be more cautious than I otherwise might.”

  “How long before my memory comes back?” I had my own guesses, but I wanted to hear his.

  “Impossible to say. Perhaps within the next few days. Perhaps not for months.” He replaced the chart on its hook near the foot of my bed.

  “I can recommend some excellent therapists, if you’d like.”

  “Okay.” Alexa squeezed my hand, and I squeezed back. A knock at the door made me look up quickly, only to be dazzled by a flash of

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  everafter

  searing pain behind my eyes. Blinking against the sensation, I focused on the newcomer.

  She was a striking woman—almost as tall as I was, and a little stockier. Jet-black hair fell to her shoulders. She wore a dark pantsuit, and a gold shield was clipped to her belt. When she turned to face Clavier, I could make out the slight bulge of her shoulder holster beneath the jacket. The detective, obviously. She carried herself like a soldier. A thin man with short, sandy-colored hair followed behind her. He wore his badge prominently on the lapel of his sport coat.

  “I’ll be back tomorrow,” said Dr. Clavier as the detectives approached my bedside. The woman glanced curiously at Alexa, but held out her hand to me.

  “Detective Devon Foster.” Her grip was firm but not painful. “And my partner, Detective Jared Wilson. Your mother called me a short time ago to let me know that you were awake. How are you feeling?”

  “Lucky to be alive,” I said.

  “She’s in a lot of pain,” said Alexa simultaneously.

  “And you are?” There was no meanness in Foster’s voice—only curiosity.

  “Alexa Newland. My girlfriend.”

  “It’s a pleasure,” Foster said, shaking her hand, too. “I can only imagine how awful you’re feeling right now, Valentine, so I won’t take long.”

  “Do you have any idea who did this?” Alexa asked. Her tone was beseeching.

  “No, ma’am. Not yet. But we’re working on it.” Foster regarded me intently. “Can you tell me what happened?”

  “I wish.” I swallowed again in an effort to draw some moisture into my parched throat. “I can’t remember anything about Tuesday. Nothing at all.”

  The detective nodded. “You were found on Canal Street, near the Manhattan Bridge. Any idea why you might have been down there?”

  “No. I can’t think of any reason.”

  When she sighed in clear frustration, my hands clenched into fists. I wanted to help, damn it. How did she think I felt, unable to put the pieces of my own life together?

  “When you go out, what do you usually take with you?”

  I frowned at the change in approach. “Wallet, keys, and cell.”

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  Nell Stark and Trinity Tam

  “It seems likely that this was a mugging, then. We didn’t find anything on you.”

  “I already canceled your cards, sweetheart,” Alexa reassured me, reaching over to hold my hand again.

  “There’s been a rash of very violent muggings over the past six months.” Detective Wilson spoke up for the first time, his voice a smooth baritone. “The other victims…haven’t pulled through.”

  A sudden wave of exhaustion blindsided me, threatening to pull me under. The adrenaline was fading. My eyes closed involuntarily.

  “I want to remember. Just…can’t.”

  “I understand,” Foster said.

  It felt so good to hide from the light. My head hurt less. Her voice sounded far away, as though I were underwater.

  “Please give me a call if you think of anything, remember anything.”

  I tried to open my eyes, b
ut couldn’t. “I’ll be sure that she does that, Detective,” I heard Alexa say. Then, footsteps. A door closing. Quiet.

  “Tired,” I mumbled. “Alexa.”

  “I’m right here, love,” she said. She squeezed my hand again. She was so warm. “I’m not going anywhere. You sleep.”

  The darkness behind my eyes was tinted with streaks of red. I knew they were the lamps in my room, filtering through the thin skin of my eyelids. They didn’t look like lights, though. They looked like blood.

  Thirsty.

  • 30 •

  everafter

  Chapter three

  Does it hurt, love?” Alexa asked from behind me as I limped slowly up the stairs toward our apartment. Despite the help of a cane on loan from the hospital, I had to momentarily put weight on my bad leg each time I ascended another step. Whenever I did, it felt like someone was twisting a jagged screw under my skin. I was already nauseous and sweating, and I had half the stairway left to go.

  “It’s not too bad,” I said.

  “Just take it slow.”

  I fought back a retort about how I couldn’t exactly do much else. Alexa had barely left my side for the past five days. She had braved hospital food, sleeping in a chair, and my mother’s nastiness to be there for me. She didn’t need me snapping at her. So I ascended slowly, painfully, focusing on how good it would feel to be home. When I finally reached the landing, I was shaking. Sweat was dripping into my eyes and off my chin. Alexa carefully reached around me to unlock the door and push it open, and I gratefully stepped inside.

  A brittle cracking sound stopped me in my tracks. Puzzled, I looked down. They littered the floor, shriveled and deep, deep red—

  almost black. Rose petals.

  I remembered.

  I remembered kissing Alexa good-bye as we parted ways that morning. I remembered hurrying out of my Anatomy class and immediately heading uptown, toward Tiffany’s. I remembered holding the ring in the palm of my hand and watching its diamonds glitter. I remembered blasting my cheesy 80s music playlist while making

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  Nell Stark and Trinity Tam

  fettuccini. I remembered realizing, early in the evening, that I had neglected to get champagne. I remembered descending the stairs, walking out into the crisp night, shoving my hands into the deep pockets of my leather jacket…but afterward, nothing. Nothing—like a light switching off in a windowless room.

  “Oh, no,” said Alexa. She moved past me and dropped her duffel bag next to the coffee table. Her voice was saturated with contrition.

  “Oh God, Val, I’m so sorry. I didn’t think—I should have come home to clean this up.”

  Grief knocked the wind from my lungs as I imagined Alexa walking into the apartment a week ago, the scent of roses rising beneath her feet. I could see her standing exactly where she was now, surveying the elegantly set table for two—only in my mind’s eye, she was smiling. Had she called my name? The smile would have dissolved into a frown when I hadn’t answered. Had she thought that my absence was part of the surprise? Or had she phoned my cell right away? How long had it taken for her to become frantic?

  I took a deep, shuddering breath. It must have sounded like a sob, because she turned toward me, pain and worry shadowing her eyes. I don’t know what she saw, but she was at my side in a second. Her arms were wrapped around me, holding me up.

  “What is it? Are you in pain? Val? You’re trembling—”

  “I can remember,” I whispered. She tightened her grip on me. My ribs hurt, but it would have been worse if she had let go.

  “What, sweetheart?” she said in a too-measured voice. That meant that she was freaking out, but trying to keep it from me. Which never worked. “What do you remember?”

  “Tuesday. The day.” Despite the throbbing of my leg, I turned awkwardly in the circle of her arms so that our bodies fit together. “I wanted us to have champagne. I ran out just before you got home…”

  “What then?” Against her will, fear leaked into her words. But I still couldn’t see anything else. Trying made my head hurt, and I leaned down just enough to rest my cheek on her shoulder.

  “Nothing.”

  She didn’t say anything for several minutes—just stroked my back very gently until I finally stopped shaking. I wasn’t going to tell her about the ring. It was gone anyway—stolen by the mugger, along with my wallet and cell. I couldn’t have cared less about the credit

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  cards, and my phone was easily replaced, but when I thought about his bloodstained fingers touching Alexa’s ring—God, I wanted to fucking kill him. I trembled again, this time out of rage.

  “You’re chilled,” Alexa murmured. “We should get you into bed.”

  Her hand crept up to play with the short, fuzzy hairs on the back of my neck. “But first, we should call the detective.”

  “I still don’t remember something that will actually help.”

  Alexa tugged gently on my hair, urging my head up so that she could meet my gaze. “She told us to call if you thought of anything,”

  she reminded me. “Let her decide what’s useful and what isn’t.”

  When I nodded, she leaned in and pressed her lips to mine. I wrapped my good arm around her waist and lost myself in the tenderness of her mouth. The soft strokes of her tongue against mine melted away the pain, the fear, the frustration. There was nothing more powerful than this—than us. Suddenly desperate for the feel of her skin, I slipped my hand under her sweater to rest my palm in the warm hollow of her lower back. The tenor of the kiss changed immediately—she groaned into my mouth and used her hand at the back of my neck to urge me closer. This moment wasn’t about desire, or even love. It was need that drove us, need that inspired the insistent thrusts of her tongue and the hard clutch of my fingertips against her muscles. We might never have stopped if I hadn’t felt the drop of moisture on my cheek. Not mine—hers. I tried to pull back, but at first she wouldn’t let me. My shoulder protested as I raised my left hand to cup her face, but I ignored the flash of pain. I held her gently but firmly, lifting my head just enough to take in her frightened expression and the tears that streamed from her eyes. She wouldn’t look at me. I thought about what I would feel like if our places were reversed, and even the hypothetical terror was enough to steal the breath from my lungs again.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered. She was staring hard at the splash marks on the floor where her tears had landed. “I know this isn’t what you need from me right now. I’m sorry.”

  She was wrong. I was next to helpless—bruised and broken, haunted and scared. There wasn’t much I could do except hold her, but I could do that. I wanted to be strong, and in this one small way, I could be.

  “Don’t you dare apologize,” I breathed into her hair and let the words bubble up from the well of emotion that she had opened inside

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  Nell Stark and Trinity Tam

  my soul, only ten short months ago. “I need you to need me. When I imagine how you must have felt…God, baby, it would have destroyed me. You’ve been a rock. But you can’t be one all the time. It’s okay. I love you. It’s going to be okay.”

  Gradually, her quick, hitching breaths became slow and deep, and her body softened against mine. After a few minutes, she raised her head. Her eyes were red-rimmed but clear. Back in control of herself, she regarded me steadily.

  “I know you’re exhausted. Why don’t you rest on the couch until the detective gets here? I’ll call her right now.”

  “Okay.” I leaned forward to lightly kiss her cheek, determined to be an obedient patient. Still, when she handed me the gray, foamhandled cane, I couldn’t help but grimace. Before last week, I had been able to run a mile in under seven minutes without even pushing. Now I could barely walk.

  Sighing, I hobbled around the table toward my side of the couch. As I passed the opening to the kitchen, my nose wrinkled. The skillet of vodka sauce was exactly
where I had left it, covered on the front left burner. On the counter nearby was a plate piled high with homemade noodles. I limped close enough to the sink to witness the green and purple mold that had wrapped itself around the thick strands of fettuccini. The sauce probably looked even worse. The sharp odor of decay was a far cry from the aroma of basil and shallots that had filled the air when I’d last stood here.

  “…appreciate it, Detective,” Alexa was saying. She snapped her phone shut as she came up behind me and rested one hand on my waist.

  “What are you—oh. That is gross.”

  “Looks like somebody’s science experiment,” I said around the lump in my throat.

  Alexa moved, placing herself directly in my line of sight to the stove. She kissed me again, smoothing one thumb over the dark circles under my right eye. “Whatever you had planned for that night—thank you. It was…it was going to be beautiful.”

  She had no idea. Forcing myself to smile a little, I let her lead me over to the couch. When she asked if I needed anything, I asked for some water. Incessant thirst had been plaguing me since I’d woken up—no matter how much I drank, my throat was always parched. After draining the glass, I leaned my head back against the cushions. The

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  everafter

  sounds of Alexa cleaning up the kitchen were soothing. As my eyes drifted shut, I wondered how long it would take me to get back to normal. And how I was ever going to make up all the work I had missed from my classes. And whether I would ever be able to banish the fear that some kind of awful memory would resurface.

  Mercifully, a knock interrupted my thoughts. I watched enviously as Alexa jogged to open the door. Running was one of our favorite things to do together. I wouldn’t be able to join her for months now.

  “Please come in, Detective.”

  Foster was dressed more casually today, in khakis and a blazer. I had the chance to watch her unobserved for a few seconds as the two of them chatted briefly, and was surprised to find that she pinged my gaydar. It wasn’t that she looked queer per se, but that the way she looked at Alexa was…appreciative. Then again, Alexa routinely turned the heads of straight women.