When I'm Gone

by Jaxson Kidman

  “Secrets are dangerous,” she said. “But I survived.”

  “Okay then. You survived. And you’re going to survive tonight. No need to be messing around on the edge of the roof like that. You’re too pretty to risk falling.”

  She laughed. Her eyes opened wide and were completely spaced out. “You’re sexy. You know that? You keep asking my name, but you’re the sexy one.”

  “Okay. Thank you.”

  “Kace,” she said. “Kace. Your name rhymes with… face. Kace face.”

  I laughed as I walked across the roof with the woman in my arms. There were a million ways that I could think of about meeting a woman, and this was not one.

  “You broke my friend’s boombox,” she said.

  “I did, didn’t I?” I asked. “If you tell me your name, I’ll get you a new one.”

  I heard the sound of a siren in the near distance. I rushed to the rooftop exit door and tried pulling on it. Of course it was locked. Which meant that I only had one choice. To stand there and wait for help to show up. In the meantime, I kept walking with her in my arms.

  “So tell me about your night,” I said.

  “There was sauce everywhere.”

  “Sauce?”

  “I lost… I quit. That’s right. I quit. And then the calendar. Oh, crap.”

  She let out a groan and slowly slipped her hands around my neck.

  My hands spread wider as I cradled her.

  Her eyes opened again and she stared at me.

  She slowly smiled. “Hey.”

  “Hey,” I said.

  “What are you doing up here?”

  “Making sure you don’t fall. Like last week.”

  “We have to stop meeting like this,” she said.

  I laughed.

  Maybe not the best time to laugh, but whatever.

  The rooftop exit door finally opened. Out poured the medical team ready to tend to the woman. I gently placed her down and told them everything I knew. I tried my best to sugarcoat it, but the facts were still the same. She took some pills to calm herself down and probably took one too many. And she fell and hit her head on one of the air conditioning units.

  They asked her questions, but her responses were short, and all she did was complain about being tired.

  “And who are you to her?” one of the medics asked me.

  I opened my mouth. “I… uh… she was up here and I came up to check on her. I didn’t know she was like this.”

  “Has she ever done this before?”

  I looked down at her and then back at the medic. “Not that I know of. I tried to get her to sit down and she fell back and hit her head. That’s my fault.”

  “We’ll take care of her. The police are going to want to talk to you. And her.”

  “Police…”

  “Yeah,” the medic said. “The call came in that a woman was threatening to jump off a building.”

  “Jump?” I asked. I shook my head. “No. She…”

  I looked at her again. Her eyes slowly opened.

  It was like someone had reached into my chest and squeezed my heart into sad submission.

  Her left hand reached for me. “Don’t leave me.”

  “I won’t,” I said.

  “I’m scared. I didn’t mean for this to happen. I messed up…”

  “It’s okay, darlin’,” I said. “I’ll come with you.”

  “Sir, I don’t…”

  I looked at the medic and showed my teeth. “She’s alone. She’s scared. She messed up. She’s not going to the hospital alone. I can talk to the police later. I don’t give a shit. I’m going with you.”

  “Okay,” the medic said.

  He started to talk to the others.

  I took her hand and squeezed a little.

  I watched as they stabilized her neck and put her on a gurney. We all stood up as they lifted the gurney up onto its wheels. She looked at me and her lips started to move. I couldn’t hear what she was saying though.

  I leaned down close enough to hear her.

  “What is it?” I asked. “I promise, I’ll go with you. Just relax.”

  “Sienna.”

  “What?”

  “My name. It’s Sienna.”

  I pulled back a little and looked into her eyes again. Those hazel colored eyes. It was like time froze for a few seconds. That we weren’t on the roof of a building. That she hadn’t taken a few pills to relax her and made her do this. That we weren’t actually meeting for a second time like this.

  I was supposed to be walking Kylie back to my truck, working my tough guy charm, making comments about working with my hands to create beauty, then turn that into a cheap move to touch her waist, pin her against my truck, kiss her, and keep our first date going strong. But Kylie was somewhere down on the ground and I was holding hands with…

  “Sienna,” I whispered. “That’s a really pretty name, darlin’.”

  Her eyes slowly started to shut again.

  And she smiled.

  She was going to be fine.

  A mild concussion, if that, and just lots of sleep thanks to the anxiety medicine that she took. The dosage was very low, so taking a few of the pills wasn’t going to hurt her. Of course, me having one of the fucking pills only got raised eyebrows and judgmental eyes. I bit my tongue, not wanting to lash out at the nurses and doctors who had worked to make sure that Sienna was okay and now comfortable in the hospital bed.

  It was right around midnight when I sat down in an uncomfortable chair in the hospital room and stared at her.

  Honestly, I had no fucking idea what I was doing.

  And the strangest part was that I didn’t feel bad for bailing on Kylie. It was a first date. She was funny and pretty, but what were we going to do? Just talk about painting the entire time? Talk about restoring old things as new? That’s not what I wanted. Sure, the build up to getting to my apartment and my bed was the payoff, but here I was, sitting in a hospital room with a woman who was really just a stranger.

  The door opened and an officer approached with caution. He looked right at me with slightly tired eyes and motioned for me to come to him. I pushed up from the chair and walked around the bed. I couldn’t take my eyes off Sienna.

  So much I wanted to know. So much wasn’t my damn business. But it mattered to me. Whatever she was feeling or thinking…

  “Can we step outside?” the officer asked.

  “You’re the one with the badge,” I said.

  “Step outside with me.”

  We exited the hospital room and the officer stood there with his hands at his belt. “What happened tonight?”

  “I’ve explained it ten times now.”

  “You were in possession of-”

  “She handed it to me,” I said. “If you want to search me? Do it. You want the keys to my truck? My apartment? You can dig through my entire life. I don’t mess with that stuff. I promise you.”

  “You know how many times a day I hear that?”

  “And I just gave you permission to search my entire life. I don’t know why Sienna got like that tonight. She said that she messed up and took one too many.”

  “Does she have a prescription?”

  “I can’t answer that.”

  “You can’t, won’t, or you don’t know?”

  I shook my head. “Look. I got to her and made her sit down. Now she’s here. I’ve got nothing to hide in this. I was trying to help out a friend.”

  “Friend, huh?”

  “Yeah. A friend.”

  “She’s lucky you were there. The call that came in…”

  “What? That she was going to jump? Come on, that’s bogus.”

  “Is it?” the officer asked. “She took pills that weren’t hers. Wandered up to a rooftop and walked along the edge. People on the ground heard her saying that she was going to step off and fall.”

  I felt like someone had punched me in the gut. “Christ. I don’t think she…”

  “Well, I can tell you
this. Just a word of warning, since you’re her friend. She’s going to be monitored for the concussion. Then she’s going to be questioned to see what her mental state is.”

  “What?”

  “Looks like she was trying to hurt herself.”

  “Seriously?”

  “That’s the call that came through. We have protocols to follow and so does the hospital. For her safety.”

  “You’re telling me this to see if I get nervous, right? In case I did have something to do with it.”

  “Are you nervous?”

  “Nope.”

  “I might be in touch again.”

  “You know where to find me.”

  “I do?”

  “Right here,” I said and nodded to the door. “I’m not leaving her side.”

  “You must be one hell of a friend.”

  I didn’t respond.

  I had no idea what I was. Some fool that almost followed Sienna off the edge of a roof. And if what they all thought was true, she couldn’t be left alone. Not for her safety, but for her care. If she really felt that alone in life that she considered not living anymore, I didn’t want her to wake up alone.

  Why did it matter?

  I had no fucking clue.

  I put my hand to the door and went back into the hospital room. I walked to the bed and stared down at Sienna. Gently, I touched her hand and nodded.

  Not sure if this qualified as a first date, but if so, it was the most interesting one I’d ever had in my life.

  “Get some rest, darlin’,” I whispered. “Sienna.”

  I plopped down in the chair next to the bed and let out a long breath. I looked through the narrow slits of the blinds and saw a few lights that were off in the distance.

  I couldn’t relax or even attempt to fall asleep for a good reason.

  I was a liar.

  I knew exactly what I was doing there. And I knew exactly why I had gone up on the roof after Sienna. No matter how hard I tried to force it down into the pit of my stomach, I knew the truth.

  I was trying to make up for the one I couldn’t save last time.

  Chapter Four

  The Place You Call Home

  Sienna

  He was the absolute last person I thought I’d see when I opened my eyes. First off, I had to deal with the fact that I was in a hospital bed. Which only brought back the memories of the night before. The stupid decisions. The truths that tried to push themselves forward, and what the end of the night could have brought me.

  I felt tired, groggy, and had a bad headache, but not from drinking. The night slowly came back to me, including hitting my head. I quickly shut my eyes and wanted to sink into the bed. Embarrassment started to set in and it wasn’t a good feeling. But one feeling that didn’t hit me? Guilt. I didn’t feel guilty about the night before. Maybe that should have bothered me more than it did, but whatever.

  Kace slept sitting in a chair, his head to the side. He had his jacket balled up and jammed against his neck as some sort of pillow. There was no way in hell he was comfortable. I didn’t understand why he was with me. Or why he showed up and saved me. Or how he even knew that I was on the roof of that building. Just like the week before, he showed up out of nowhere to stop me from hurting myself.

  Hurting myself.

  My face burned hot as I swallowed hard. I rolled my eyes back and fought away the tears. I wasn’t going to wake up in a hospital and start to cry. I wanted to talk to a doctor or a nurse and I wanted to go home.

  Kace’s head popped up and his eyes opened. He looked at me and slammed his hands on the arms of the chair and pushed forward. He pulled the chair across the floor, letting it scrape and scratch.

  “Hey,” he said in a sleepy voice. “Darlin’. How’d you sleep?”

  “Seriously? That’s how you’re starting this conversation?”

  “What?”

  “What are you doing here, Kace?”

  He blinked a few times and reached for the bed. “I didn’t want to leave you alone.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you were feeling lonely, Sienna.”

  Shit. He knows my name. I told him my name. Shit.

  Worse than that, my name sounded good coming from his lips.

  “Oh.”

  That was the only word I could come up with.

  “Hey, listen. I don’t know what happened last night. But the cops questioned me a bunch of times.”

  “Why?”

  “Those pills, darlin’. You took a few and you gave me one to hold. I gave it to the medics so they knew what you took.”

  “Shit. They think you had them?”

  “Maybe. I’m not sure. I’m not worried about it. I have nothing to hide.”

  “I stole them. From someone at work.”

  “Really?”

  “I swear. I found a bottle in his bag. I took a few. I was going to go home and sleep the night away. But then…”

  I looked down.

  “Then what, Sienna? Because there’s some serious shit floating around right now.”

  “Like what?”

  “You’re not here because you bumped your head, okay? You took pills that weren’t yours to take. I don’t know if there’s any legal stuff coming your way for that.”

  “Great.”

  “Besides that… they’re going to talk to you.”

  “They? Talk?”

  “Doctors. About your, uh…” Kace pointed to his head.

  “What?”

  “I don’t know how to say it.”

  “Then just say it, Kace.”

  “Whether you tried to hurt yourself or not.”

  “Hurt myself…”

  “You took some pills and you were standing on the edge of a roof, Sienna. You were saying some stuff and that’s why someone called the police.”

  “You didn’t call the police?”

  “No. I was… walking. I saw some people and I saw you. I climbed the fire escape to get to you.”

  “Really? You did that to get to me?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “I didn’t want you to fall. Or jump.”

  Or jump.

  Hearing those two words broke my heart. Everything Kace was saying was right. And everything that was going to happen, I deserved.

  “You don’t need to be here,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Kace, I appreciate what you did. Last night. Spending the night. But you don’t need to be here right now.”

  “I’m not leaving, Sienna. I don’t want you to be alone.”

  I looked at him. I blinked, slowly beginning to lose the battle to tears. “Why? You don’t know a thing about me.”

  “Maybe I don’t need to know a thing about you,” he said. “Maybe I can see something in your eyes. Maybe nobody ever gave a damn for more than ten seconds.”

  “If this is your attempt to get into my pants, that’s a lot of work, Kace. I really doubt I’m that good in bed.”

  Kace grinned. “You’re not wearing pants, darlin’. Half the work is already done.”

  “Jerk,” I whispered and swallowed the massive lump in my throat.

  I felt a stray tear escape my eye.

  Kace made a move and reached for me. He pulled me close for a hug and sat on the edge of the bed. I buried my head into his chest and felt myself let go. We were strangers to each other, and yet in some weird way, Kace understood me. He hadn’t said anything stupid and cliché yet. And he hugged me without saying a word. Because sometimes you just needed a hug. No words. Just a good hug.

  It also didn’t hurt that he was built with a lot of muscle and he smelled really good.

  “I’m so sorry, Sienna,” he whispered.

  I broke away and looked up at him. “Sorry? For what?”

  “For whatever you’re going through right now. It can’t be easy to feel the way you do at the moment. I’m sorry you felt the need to make the decisions you did last night.”

  I reached up with my right hand and tou
ched his face. “Are you real?”

  “I’m real, darlin’.”

  “Who the hell are you?”

  “You might not want the answer to that.”

  I blinked and felt this burning moment between us. I studied his eyes and his face. I thought about the night before and everything I did. I knew exactly what I was doing and why I was doing it. The end result wasn’t supposed to be me in a hospital bed staring at this gorgeous man.

  “Can I ask you something, Sienna?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “You don’t have to answer me, but I just…”

  “Just ask me.”

  “Were you trying to hurt yourself last night?”

  I let a few seconds pass by.

  I didn’t look away from him when I gave my answer.

  I told him the truth.

  One word.

  “Yes.”

  I stepped out of the hospital room wearing actual clothes instead of a gown, and I saw him sitting in a chair. There was something about him. The way he sat on the edge of the chair, elbows on his knees. Staring at the floor. Like he had some kind of interest in me. To him, I was a stranger. Just some drunk and high chick he found on the roof of a building. The only reason he helped me the second time was because of what happened the first. I left him hanging in suspense and captured his attention. Now, was that worth putting your own ass on the line? To me, it wasn’t.

  But there sat Kace.

  The second he saw me, he jumped up.

  “Sienna.”

  “Kace.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’m free to go,” I said, showing my wrists.

  I had this image of doctors shackling me to the bed, but it wasn’t anything like that. I had to speak with a couple of doctors and explain what had happened that night. They cleared me of the concussion, but it was the other thing that they were more worried about. I clearly explained what had happened. I did not use anyone’s name or anything like that. It was simple. I’d had a bad night at work and decided to quit. I found someone’s medication and took a couple because the label said that it was for anxiety. I made some bad decisions and ended up in the hospital because I bumped my head.

  Truthfully, the one thing that helped me in all of this was Kace.