by Jordan Dane
“Had a concussion. What? You got over it? How does that happen?” I wasn’t angry. I wanted to know if he just played me, or not.
“And what? You couldn’t send a get-well card? Why did you make a big deal about seeing me in ICU, Abbey? I mean, we don’t even really know each other.”
Okay, I deserved that. Thanks to my inner smart-ass, I trod on dangerous ground now.
“You’re right. I’m sorry. The last thing you need is crap from me. It’s just that I know what it’s like to be in here, when you’re hurting…and your mind is trippin’. It’s not fun. So what are the doctors saying?”
He shrugged.
“Doctors call it a miracle, but…” His voice sounded distant and sad, especially when he said, “I just want my life back.”
I remembered what that felt like—to want something that would never happen. Before I knew it, I reached through the bed rail and grabbed his hand. I could tell by the look on his face that I surprised him, but he didn’t pull away.
“Five years ago, I was in a really bad car accident. Things happened. Stuff I still don’t remember.” I wanted to look at him, but I couldn’t. Everything I wanted to say felt too personal. “Being a survivor, your mind will play tricks on you. It’ll take time to sort it out, but you’re a strong guy. You’ll get through it.”
I told Nate about the car wreck that nearly killed me. Of course, I left out the part about me actually dying…and that Death knew me by my first name now, but it felt natural to share my experience with him. I finally had his full attention. When he squeezed my hand back, I knew we’d connected in a way that may never happen again.
“I guess what I’m saying is, surviving something really bad can change you. The person you were…well, he’s done now, you know?” I looked him square in the eye. “But you don’t have to let what happened take over your life. You can start fresh. Not many people get a second chance to get it right, you know?”
Nate stared at me. He didn’t nod or make a big deal about what I’d said, but I could tell he really heard me. I didn’t have the heart to say that the life he’d get back wouldn’t be the same life, but he’d realize that soon enough. After he got stronger, he could deal with it.
Okay, I had to admit. It shocked me that I’d given him advice. I considered myself the poster child for dysfunctional. Damn.
I resisted the urge to ask him about our kiss. That kiss hadn’t actually been with him. I’d kissed a dark angel, a beautiful blue-eyed boy made of clouds and sky who only wanted to know what it felt like to love and be loved, to feel something beyond a forever of nothing. Death had come to me because of my mother’s love—a force within him that he couldn’t refuse—that fed his need to feel human. But my mom had something to do with that, too. She came to my rescue, knowing I had to deal with what happened or else I wouldn’t have a life at all. And irony of ironies, Death had been her messenger.
But none of that had anything to do with Nate. I knew that now.
My fantasies about him had come from my own needs, but my feelings for Nate had always been made-up and one-sided. What I really wanted was someone to love the real me—the good, the bad and the ugly me—a real boy that didn’t have to pretend to be perfect around me, either.
I had that right under my nose—with Tanner.
Now, as I stared at Nate, his blue eyes still got to me, but they looked different now. He’d always be beautiful, but underneath the surface of who he was, I saw a shadow—the glimmer of another boy who carried the soul of my mother in his arms. I’d never see the real Nate the same way again and I was okay with that.
“You look a million miles away. What are you thinking?” he asked.
“Nothing.” I shook my head. “It’s not…important.”
Time flew by after that. Although we talked about a lot of stuff—his love for climbing, his friendship with Josh and the love he had for his little sister—his brush with death and my car accident didn’t come up again. When time got short, I made my excuses and stood to leave. I knew we’d have to hit the road soon to see Tanner before he headed home. I’d left him asleep at the cabin, after we’d pulled an all-nighter.
But before I left his hospital room, Nate had something more to say.
“I’m not sure why, but I have a strong urge to…thank you, Abbey.”
I grinned as I stared at the boy who had filled my fantasies with so many sweet memories, but inside I felt the bittersweet ache of letting those memories go. Maybe I should have thanked him, for very different reasons.
“You don’t owe me anything. Seeing you breathing, that works for me.”
I walked out, pretending to be a woman of mystery as I headed for the waiting room where my dad waited. I should have corrected Nate. I was the last person he needed to thank. I only fixed what I’d screwed up.
I wasn’t fooling myself that the next time I saw Nate Holden that he’d actually acknowledge knowing me. Guess that was my way of preparing for the worst. If Nate was really a good guy, he could surprise me, but I wasn’t counting on us being BFFs. We both had things we’d rather forget and seeing me would only remind him of what almost happened.
Neither of us needed that.
Two hours later
After the hospital moved him to a private room on another floor, Nate felt relieved the room had real walls and no glass. With the door closed, he didn’t have the unwanted attention he’d gotten in ICU being miracle boy.
“You up for visitors?” His mother’s voice followed a soft knock, but when Nate saw Zoey poke her head into his room, he grinned for real.
“Heck, yeah.”
His mother held his face in both her hands and kissed him until his cheeks burned with embarrassment. After she gave him messages from his father who stayed at the motel to sleep, she stood by his bed, finger combing his hair.
“If I can find a vending machine, you want a soda?” His mom grinned, but she looked tired. “I know how you crave stuff after you come off a mountain.”
“Yeah, I’d kill for a Pepsi,” he said.
“Me, too.” Zoey squirmed by a visitor’s chair and pulled it closer to his bed.
After his mother left them alone, Zoey crawled onto the chair and used it to climb into his bed. Having Zoey close, Nate breathed in the familiar scent of her hair that smelled of vanilla and flowers, and it made him feel that getting back to normal might be possible.
Most days, Zoey was a real chatterbox, but not today. She kept her eyes on him as if he could disappear and she had to touch him.
“Did Mommy tell you?” Zoey’s face turned serious. When she got this way, a little dimple over one eyebrow appeared.
“Tell me what?”
“I saw you. You were supposed to be on that mountain, but you weren’t. You came home. I saw you on the driveway outside my window.” She touched his chin with a small finger. “Mommy said I dreamed it, but you were real, Nate. I swear.”
His mom had already talked to him about what Zoey saw. She’d asked him about it, as if he could fill in the gaps of what really happened. With his mom, he only shrugged and refused to say much, like his sister had imagined the whole thing. That seemed to make his mom relax. Maybe one day he’d tell her the truth, but now didn’t feel like the right time. His mom needed the wound to heal before she could put everything into perspective.
With Zoey, it would be different.
The truth was that he remembered doing it. At the time it felt cruel, but he couldn’t help it. He thought about her and the next thing he knew, he stood on the driveway outside his house, looking up at her. He’d thought of his mom, too, but he figured Zoey was the only one who saw him and believed.
Telling his sister that she’d only imagined him felt like a betrayal, not after he’d looked her in the eye that night to s
ay goodbye. With her trusting face staring at him now, it changed everything. Lying would have been simpler, but something about that little dimple over her eye felt like a truth serum.
“Were you there, Nate?”
“Yeah, I think I was.” He brushed back a strand of her hair and tucked it behind her ear. “After I fell, I hurt my head. I can’t remember everything, but, yeah. I saw you, Zoey. Can this be our secret…just you and me?”
“Yeah, okay.” She smiled and snuggled closer. “You were crying when I saw you. Were you sad?”
“I thought I might not see you again. Yeah, I was sad.”
She looked up and stared into his eyes. “Daddy said they found you because of my bracelet…the one I made for you.”
Nate grinned. “Yeah, I heard that. Guess you were my lucky charm. My guardian angel.”
When he pulled Zoey into a hug and shut his eyes tight, for the first time since he’d been rescued, Nate cried. He’d come close to losing everything, but Abbey Chandler had been right. He had a second chance.
Despite what happened, maybe he’d been a lucky guy after all.
“I love you, Zoey.”
Chapter 19
Near Healy, Alaska
By the time my dad drove me back to the cabin, I had an hour with Tanner before his parents arrived. With my father working outside, getting the cabin in shape for our departure tomorrow, he’d left us alone. Maybe he’d done that on purpose. I wanted to think that Dad had changed and suddenly turned chill overnight, but maybe I was the one who’d changed.
A scary thought.
As we ate cereal together, Tanner got real quiet. He probably thought that if he asked about Nate, it would send the message that he felt jealous. But subtle wasn’t a word I would ever associate with Tanner.
Nope, that word didn’t fit my boy. Or me, either.
“Just so you know, Nate didn’t say much,” I said. “I figured he either didn’t actually remember or he didn’t want to talk about it.”
“Well, which is it?” Tanner shoved away his empty cereal bowl across the kitchen table.
I shrugged and said, “I wouldn’t want to talk about it, would you?”
“Hell, no.” He shook his head. “But if an angel highjacked my body, he’d be really disappointed.”
I tried not to laugh, but totally blew it. It felt good to let go with Tanner, until I shifted my gaze around the cabin and thought of my mom and dad.
“It feels like this trip has lasted a lifetime, you know?” I sighed. “But being here hasn’t exactly been terrible with my dad. And I really connected with my mother…this time. I still can’t believe I got to see her.”
Understatement of the century. I felt a lump in my throat when I thought of Death letting me see my mom one last time. He’d given me a gift, for no reason other than he wanted to. I didn’t bother to hide the tears welling in my eyes.
I didn’t have to hide anything from Tanner, not anymore.
“I can feel her in this place now, but not in a creepy way, like she’s haunting me,” I said, staring at the collection of photos Dad had on the walls of our cabin. “And not because of these photos.”
“Maybe it’s you, Abbey. You found a place for her…in you.” Tanner talked with a faraway voice and stared out our window. “Dealing with guilt and grief doesn’t leave much room for anything else. I know about that dark stuff, but one day if you’re real lucky, you get tired of feeling bad all the time. It’s like a curtain opens and light comes in. First, it’s only a sliver. Then more.”
After a long moment of neither of us saying anything, Tanner finally smiled and sat back in his wheelchair, coming from a shadowy place I knew he’d been before.
“I didn’t know your mom long enough, but…” He nodded. “She’d be proud of you.”
I wanted to think so. I really did, but when I thought of the reason I’d skipped town, avoiding the online bullies that threatened to anonymously ruin my life, my face turned from a fleeting smile to a grimace in a heartbeat. When I went back to Palmer with Dad tomorrow, I’d have to face it. I’d have to talk to my father about it before he got bushwhacked by a well-meaning neighbor and that made me sick.
“What’s with the face?” he asked.
I shrugged. “It’s the only one I’ve got.”
“You know what I mean. Spill it. Something’s bugging you.”
“I wish there was an app for obliterating the crap in my life. Scan it with my cell and bam, it’s gone.” I heaved a deep sigh. “I was remembering what you showed me before I left Palmer. That FarkYourself website stuff. If Nate tells anyone he saw me at the hospital, that’ll put me front and center again. And you, by association. Going back to town will suck for both of us.”
I expected Tanner to commiserate with me, but when he fought a smile that turned into a big grin, I had to ask.
“Okay, not cool, Lange. What’s so funny?”
“Cyber-banditos blew a virtual hole in that site. Threads that had pictures of us? Gone.”
“What are you talking about?”
In geek speak, Tanner rattled off techno babble to explain that he’d launched an SQL injection attack on that site. I got totally lost, but I loved watching him get wired talking about malware script and keystroke loggers.
“I’d be much more impressed if I understood a fraction of what you just said,” I told him. “I need subtitles, cyber boy.”
“Maybe it’s best that you don’t know too much about the details.” He grinned, clearly feeling pretty good about what he’d done. “SQL code can launch an attack that affects thousands of other sites, but that’s not what happened. I only wanted the site administrator’s attention and I got it.”
“Then give me the highlights, Tanner. And dumb it down so I can appreciate your genius.”
When his cheeks flushed red, shy boy had returned.
“Basically, anyone who wanted access to our cyber-bully thread, I redirected those users to a dummy site where I cached their IDs and other stuff. All they saw was a glitch in the site that asked them to log in again. That’s when I replicated the FarkYourself header page. They never knew they were on a dummy site. Mine.”
“And the real site administrator didn’t catch you?”
“I made sure they had other diversions to worry about. I crashed their server for a while.” He smiled. “And I planted a back door on their site that’s embedded real deep. Even if they go looking for a virtual trail to find me, they have to go through a few foreign countries first, ones that don’t play well with others.”
Sometimes it scared me how Tanner’s mind worked, but not today. Today I was in awe…and very grateful to call him my friend.
“If I ever need to access their system again, I can do it, but it’s over, Abbey. That thread and those images are deep-sixed for good.” He locked his gaze on me, but his serious expression turned into a devilish grin. “I would’ve loved to see Britney Hartman’s face when she saw the warning on her computer.”
“Britney Hartman?”
“Yeah, she started it. It was real tempting to return the favor, but that would make me a pathetic anonymous coward like she is.”
“You put a warning on her computer?”
Okay, I had to admit. I was really getting into this. Britney was in Akk the Yak’s social-studies class this last term with me, but I’d known her since elementary school. She hated my guts. If I had known that one confetti egg would have caused me and Tanner such pain, I never would have hit that girl on the head in Girl Scouts, at least not in public with witnesses. I’d never done anything to her, besides the egg. Girls like Britney didn’t need much of a reason to carry a grudge, but to let one lousy egg turn into such a cruel prank almost made me feel sorry for her.
Maybe b
eing anonymous on the internet made her feel safe to unleash her streak of mean. The girl had serious issues. Being an overindulged princess, she’d never heard the word no from her parents or from the tight circle of mindless groupies she’d cultivated over the years like hothouse flowers. No amount of Girl Scout badges would ever earn her what she really needed—a personality—and maybe a forgiving heart.
When Tanner saw my smile, he laughed and nodded.
“Yeah, that warning message was really choice stuff,” he said.
With his voice low, Tanner tried to sound like a special agent for the FBI as he told me what Britney had seen on her computer after she logged on to the FarkYourself thread that she’d created.
Apparently he’d memorized every word of the fake message he posted.
“You are in violation of the United States federal cyber bullying law 13-068-A-0863.”
Total drama, Tanner moved a hand in front of him as if he could read his warning across a theatre marquee.
“It is a felony to display a visual image of a minor that depicts explicit sexual material. An email is being sent to your parents and school, listing your name and address. Your next infraction may result in expulsion from school with felony charges pursued. This is the only warning you will get. You are being watched.”
With the last two lines, he laughed really hard. Tears rolled down his face. He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and when he looked at me, my mouth gaped open.
I was stunned.
“How did you know about that federal law thing?” I asked.
“There isn’t a federal law, but wouldn’t it be cool if there was? Maybe someday.”
“You made that up?”
He only shrugged and smirked.
“But won’t you get into trouble?” I asked, punching him in the shoulder. “You hacked a website, Tanner. You and whoever your cyber-bandito friends are.”
“Any site that condones cyber bullying deserves to be hacked.” He narrowed his eyes and got serious again.