“Even her sister was afraid of her.”
“Oh, yes, I know all about Natasha.”
Interest sparks in Laney’s eyes, and she leans forward. “You do? What’s she like? Evie always said they were cut from very different cloth.”
“I don’t know Evie well,”—or at all, of course—“but I’d think that’s probably true.”
“Yeah, she sounds like a total bitch.”
I think of Natasha and her life and her problems. What’s that saying about how people wouldn’t judge each other if they really knew their stories?
“She’s not really, but it does seem like she’s been a lot harder on Evie than she should have been.”
“Hell, yeah.”
“I think she’s changed, though.” I think about her grateful expression when she accepted the ring from me. “I think things will be different between them when I…when I move on.”
Laney cocks her head at me. “When are you moving on?”
I shrug. “I don’t know.”
She hands me Evie’s envelope. I’d been trying not to rip it out of her hands. I hold it in both of mine and want Laney to leave me so I can open it alone.
“Maybe Evie knew something. She usually did.”
I nod. “That’s the hope.”
“Well, I’ll leave you to it.” She pats my arm and stands. As brief as this was, I’m glad to have met her. There are very few people in the world who know Evie’s secret, and even fewer who know the world is better because of her.
“Laney, I’m glad Evie had you. I’m glad you appreciated her abilities.”
“I can’t tell you how glad I am. Hey, good luck, Julianne.” Without another word, she steps away and waves at me before taking off at a light jog in the direction of the playground. I imagine the smiles and hugs her husband and daughter will welcome her with, and I feel lonely.
I tear into the envelope, already surprised at how thin it feels. Is there even a letter in here? Not really. It’s only a small piece of memo pad paper and not what I’d hoped would be a several-page treatise on the nature of existence and the mysteries of the universe in general and my body jumping problem in particular. The small square of blue paper clings to the inside of the envelope so that I have to tear the whole thing open before I can get a glimpse of the writing on it. When I do, I feel every muscle in my body freeze in terror.
There is just one word.
Run.
Chapter Thirty-Two
I run.
A primal force deep in my DNA asserts itself over my fear, and I run with every molecule of energy I can seize. I don’t even look to see if anyone is following. I believe Evie with everything that I am. Half of what I am is her. I run as if our lives depend on it, because somehow, some way, I know they do.
After starting off in a blind panic, I realize I should have come up with some kind of plan for where I’m going. Not knowing where I’m headed could be the most dangerous thing. I could be heading toward our enemies, not away. I could be running us into a blind alley somewhere where the bad guys are waiting. Or just a dead end where I will trap us and give them time to catch up.
I stick to major roads and pretty soon realize that my feet are bringing me back the way I came, in the direction of the hospital. Physical danger trumps emotional angst, I guess, because all of a sudden it seems like the best place to be—a public place with loads of witnesses, somewhere people are looking out for others, a place that has security and professionals who’d try to fix you if you got hurt.
I hear the footsteps following me. Have they been there the whole time?
I didn’t hear anything in the park. Or before the first two turns I made onto slightly peopled sidewalks, but I hear them now. Sneaky rubber soles slap down with a violence out of sync in the casual crowd between us.
I decide to turn at the next corner, and, as I do, I chance a quick glance over my right shoulder.
Oh, yeah. I’m being followed. Two tough-looking guys are throwing glances my way with frightening frequency. Evie’s bad guys have found me. I wonder if they’ve been to my house, if they have threatened or hurt Barclay, and my stomach feels ill.
One man is lanky and lean, his nose sharp and his cheeks hollow. The other is a big man that I imagine is the baddie Jim mistook Barclay for, but personally I don’t see the resemblance because in the glance I catch, this guy isn’t wearing a feather boa.
Even without Evie’s warning, it would be insane to hope that these two were exercise buddies out together on a daily jog. No. They’re out to get me—Evie, I guess—but me, and they’re pissed.
I’m breathing hard, and the sweat is running down my face. I swipe my forehead, but the perspiration is already stinging my eyes. Damn Atlanta’s heat and humidity. My vision is blurry. I blink a lot and push on.
The hospital looms ahead of me on the right. If I can just make it there, I’ll be safe. I picture zombie hands snatching me and ripping me back from the entrance before I can get there, but when my feet hit the floor mat outside the automatic doors, nothing prevents me from running on through.
Once on the other side of the twin set of double doors, I stop in the crowded lobby to catch my breath. I put my hands on my knees and lean down, so grateful to be sucking in sweet air, even if it is hospital-scented.
I’m facing the front, though, with my eyes on the door. Lanky-scary guy and Pimp-Version-of-Barclay have not followed me inside. I can see them through the glass doors, talking to each other on the sidewalk.
Would they try anything in here? A security guard stands sentry front and center in the lobby. I hope they’re not dumb enough to come in here and start causing problems for me, but then again, maybe I do. Maybe then they’d be arrested and could be dragged away from my life—and Evie’s.
But I can’t trust that, so I head up to my room, hoping they don’t know who Evie’s here to see.
When I get to my hospital room, there’s no one visiting. I’m alone with myself. I go to my body’s side and look down at me. For once, I don’t recoil. Instead I try to look at myself like my mother used to look at me. Not exactly, of course, because my mother’s eyes were always filled with unfathomable love. But I search the planes and valleys of my face for the woman who is my mother’s daughter.
After a while, I see her. I see her in the sweep of my long eyelashes against my cheeks. My full, rounded cheeks that I always thought were too chubby but which I’ve read show fewer wrinkles and keep one looking younger longer. I see her in my full, symmetrical lips and my perfectly arched eyebrows. She’s there in my heart-shaped face, and I wonder how I could ever have missed how very much I look like her.
And she was beautiful.
Tears stream down my face, and it’s not because I miss my mother and desperately want to see her. I’m crying for me, for that girl lying there who hasn’t gotten to live the rest of her life yet. A woman who has a whole world of opportunities open to her that she was willing to throw away, just like Evie.
I think of my mother looking down on me in this hospital bed, one of her daughters she loved with the fierceness of a thousand tigers, and I know that not for an instant would she have thought that I was anything less than beautiful, brilliant, and truly, down-to-the-bone good. More than anything, I want to be that woman she’d think I already am.
Laurel comes into the room—of course she does—this loyal, unwavering sister of mine. I run over and throw my arms around her and sob. At first she’s stiff, but after a second she bends and returns my hug, patting my back and whispering, “There, there. It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.” Even though I know she’s worried things will never be okay again for any of us.
“I’m so sorry,” I tell her between choking sobs. “I am. I’m so sorry.”
She can’t know everything I’m apologizing for, but it feels good to say to her, and she says, “That’s all right. Everything’s fine.” I’m glad to be here with her like this, even if she doesn’t know I’m me. I want to be a comf
ort to her, but in this moment I’m grateful for her grace.
We pull apart after she lets me have a good cry. She hands me a tissue and fusses over me like the good mother she is.
“What are you doing here? Isn’t this later than you can usually stay?” I ask her.
She wipes a tear from the corner of her eye. “It is, but Brent’s home with the kids. And I just felt like I needed to see my sister.”
I nod.
“I really miss her, you know?”
I nod again. “I’m sure she misses you too.”
“Do you think so?”
“I really do. I think coma patients know what’s going on in the outside world. I think they just flounder a bit until they find their way back to it.”
“Do you think she’ll find her way back?”
“Oh, God, I hope so,” I say, meaning it more than ever.
“What do you think happens—” Laurel starts but is interrupted when the two very scary men burst into the room.
Evie’s pursuers loom above Laurel and me, and I quake. How did I ever think they wouldn’t find me here? Did they go room to room, disturbing patients everywhere? I was so naïve to lead them here, putting my sweet sister in danger. Laurel doesn’t deserve whatever chaos they plan to rain down on us. Evie is my life and my problem. I’d take her problems on as my own and protect Laurel with everything—both Evie and Julianne—that I am.
I push Laurel behind me and stand between the fleshy wall of scary men and my sister.
“Okay, boys, let’s take it outside,” I say with more bravado than I feel. I put my hands on my hips and glare at them like I know what I’m doing.
“Why you hiding out here, Evie? This dead girl got our money?” The big man steps toward my body, and I freak inside as much as if he were going after Laurel.
“She has nothing to do with this. And she’s not dead. Get away from her.”
He smirks at my defensiveness, and his eyes light up like I’ve given away a clue.
He cuts his eyes to the other man and jerks his head to indicate me. The thinner man picks up the line of questioning. “That’s it, ain’t it? You runnin’ some scam on these rich people. You got your drugs, now where’s my money? You gettin’ it out of them?”
“No. Leave them alone.” I step forward and try to look braver than I feel. “Come on outside, and I’ll tell you where I hid the money.”
I’d said the magic word. Two sets of menacing eyes snap to mine.
“You best not be playin’ us, Evie,” the drug dealer says with a snarl, stepping forward.
“You won’t know until you follow me.” I muster all my courage and attempt to lead them from the room, but as I’m trying to cross past scary drug dealer guy he punches me in the face.
Maybe he thought I’d run again. Or maybe he just has impulse control issues. Or maybe he knows I don’t have a prayer of coming up with his money.
Laurel screams. I fall to the floor. My face is exploding in painful hot bursts. Both men advance on Laurel, presumably to shut her up, but I’m in front of her and have less than a second to do something. I block out the pain and shock of being punched in the face and jump up to intercept them before they can reach my sister.
I don’t stop them.
Instead, the bigger man deals me a one-two punch with another blow to my face and an extra slam into my gut. I can hear Laurel screaming again, but I can’t do anything as the force of the punches lands me halfway across my comatose body.
I scramble to get up again, struggling through the pain in my stomach and face and an encroaching brain fog that makes me just want to black out and forget about all this, but I rally because they’re already kicking past my legs to grab at Laurel. I have to save her.
I push against the prone body on the bed, trying to leverage myself up to stand, getting my sluggish hands tangled up in tubes and wires and the rubbery feel of my empty body’s hand against my own.
Then everything changes.
Chapter Thirty-Three
When I open my eyes, I blink, completely disoriented. I don’t think I’ve lost any time because I can still hear Laurel screaming, and I feel the tumult of the men rushing toward her, but there seems to be more people in the room now because someone else is between them and her, struggling to stand, and I’m here on the bed still, but something’s weird.
The pain is gone. Or it’s different and not where it should be. The pain from my probably broken nose and the other in my jaw, the harsh ache in my middle from the last slamming punch, are all gone.
Instead I feel a heaviness to my limbs and an increased gravity like it would take incredible energy to move.
But I have to. Security is nowhere to be seen and Laurel needs me. I push through the sapping emptiness and wrap my hands around the metal bar at the side of the bed to stand. But the bulky casts on my legs topple me, the tubes and cords connected to me pull taut, and I fall. The beeping machine crashes to the floor next to me and stops beeping.
“Julianne?” Laurel’s voice is shocked, and it has the effect of quieting the room. Two security guards and a few orderlies rush in and apprehend our two attackers. I try to tell them how bad they are and to be careful because they’re trying to kill us, but I find I can’t speak because my mouth is so dry it feels like there might be sandcastles in it.
“Julianne!” Laurel yells, and I finally turn my head enough so I can see her. She’s looking right at me.
Holy crap.
I’m Julianne.
I look around and see that Evie’s still here, just a few feet from me. She’s kneeling like she got knocked down again, but it’s really her because she smiles at me past her battered face, and I see by the knowing look in her eyes that she’s the person in the room who’s most aware of what’s really going on.
“Julianne,” she says in a low voice which probably only I can hear. “It’s so good to finally meet you.”
My eyes inexplicably fill with tears even though I feel as dry as a summer sandbox. “You too,” I try to say, but my voice barely scratches it out.
A nurse comes over to help me, and Laurel rushes to my side, her face beaming.
She throws her arms around me, and I laugh in my broken, ratchety voice.
“I can’t believe you’re awake!” Laurel says into my neck.
The nurse shoos her away so she and an orderly can get me back into bed and take my vitals, but Laurel doesn’t go far, and she doesn’t release my hand, which she’s holding like she’s trying to keep me here.
I can’t believe it either. I didn’t even know it was happening. I think about how I didn’t hear the whoosh or feel the tug of my soul this way or that. At most there was a melting feeling, but maybe I imagined that. I wonder for a moment why the transition should be so easy and almost unnoticeable. Perhaps it’s because I was becoming myself again. And myself is who I’m meant to be.
I was coming home.
I gesture for some water and Laurel speedily makes it happen. I wonder when I’ll get a chance to talk to Evie—alone—and as I think this I look at her over Laurel’s shoulder and watch a sick look cross her beautiful face.
Her face becomes tinged with gray, and she sways when she tries to stand. In everyone’s flurry to help me with my waking up and getting the bad guys out of the hospital, no one thought to help Evie who got punched twice in the face and once in the gut.
And is entering the two-months belated effects of a fatal heroin overdose.
“Evie!” I yell, and I don’t know whether it’s because I’ve been trying and trying to speak or because this time it’s life or death if I don’t, but Laurel and the nurse and the orderly hear me. We are all looking at Evie when she wobbles and falls, her eyes rolling back in her head before they close.
Codes are called and attention is given. I tell them that she’s overdosing on heroin. The nurses and doctor take my word for it, but Laurel looks at me like how could that possibly be? And why would I know that?
I don’
t have the strength to say it, but I want to tell her something she’s probably never believed.
Evie’s my best friend, remember?
∞∞∞
The next day I get a lot of visitors.
Despite my being awake now, the doctor says I’m not ready to go home. I’m super weak, and there are still some tests and observations that have to happen. But I’m getting close. My casts are off and, from what they tell me, the tests are going great. Pretty soon I’ll be released back into the wild. And physical therapy.
Laurel and Brent come to see me and spend hours talking to me, bubbling over with happiness that I’m back. Of course I can’t tell them that I already know the source of the personal sadness lurking beneath their joy. I know they’ll tell me about Laurel’s cancer when they’re ready, and I’ll be there to help Laurel with anything she needs.
If I can go through the mystical and physical journey that I just went through, then I can damn well help my sister beat cancer.
Naloxone saved Evie’s life. It was lucky she was in a hospital when she overdosed and not home in her crappy apartment like she would have been almost two months ago. She got immediate help and within five minutes was awake and responsive, the opiates having completely been blocked.
Withdrawal is a different story.
She’s gone straight into rehab, and I’m sure it’s going to work. She wants to be off the stuff. Natasha also showed up and seems invested in helping her get clean. And I’m going to be there for her too.
Barclay shows up around eleven in the morning. He was worried when I—as Evie—never came home last night so he headed to the hospital to see if I was here. He’s a bit of a shock to Laurel and Brent, neither of whom know what to make of him. Or understand any of the things he’s saying.
“Julianne! You’re awake!” He sashays into my room with a nod to Laurel and Brent and comes straight to the head of my bed. He puts his face right in mine and scrutinizes me with narrowed eyes. “That really you, Julianne? Or did some demon hop into your empty-ass body?”
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