by Various
“Can I call you tomorrow? If Camilla’s condition doesn’t improve, I’d like to see Haley then and keep her for the night like usual.”
“Yes, of course.” She put her hand on his knee. “I’m sorry. She must be in bad shape. What happened to her?”
He gulped. “Car accident.”
“That sucks. That really sucks. I’m sorry,” she said again. “Are you okay?”
He nodded.
“You want to tell Haley about tonight?” she asked.
“Yeah. I need to tell her about my arrest, too.”
She stood up to get Haley and squeezed his shoulder. “I’ll go get you some lemonade. Want some cookies? Fresh out of the oven.”
It was ninety-five degrees out and humid as hell. “Lemonade will be fine,” he said, shaking his head at her baking enthusiasm. She always said houses sold better when they smelled like cookies, but he knew her guilty secret. She loved baking, whatever the time of day, whatever the weather. It used to drive him crazy since he didn’t like sweets, but now he thought it was a pretty cool quality for a mother to have.
A few minutes later, Haley had taken her spot on the porch swing. He took a fortifying sip of tart, perfectly pulpy sweetness. “Would you be too disappointed if you stayed here with your mom tonight?”
She made a pouty face she was getting a little too old to pull off. “But I want to see your ghost again. I want to talk to her. I want to ask her what it’s like to be dead and why she picked you to watch over.”
He looked at his little girl in awe. She was curious and brave and sweeter than his drink.
“Well, Haley—” he stumbled over how to begin and decided to just spit it out. “Her name is Camilla, and she’s not dead.” He hoped like hell that remained true for a long, long time. “She was in a car accident, and she’s very sick. I want to be able to run to the hospital if she needs me tonight.” Sudden inspiration struck. “She was there for me when I had those nightmares. Now I want to return the favor. Know what I mean?”
She nodded. Then she smiled her goofy smile. “You lo-ove her,” she sang. Getting serious, she said, “Will she be okay?” She’d accepted Camilla’s status among the living with lightning speed.
“I hope so.” Now for the hard part. “There’s more, kiddo.” His neck burned with shame. “The accident, it was kind of my fault.”
Haley frowned.
He elaborated, telling her about Friday. He told her more than he’d told anyone else. There was no reason not to. She already knew he struggled with anger. She ought to see the serious effects of that kind of struggle. He didn’t want her ever to make the kind of mistakes he’d made, hurting someone by accident because of a selfish, proud decision. If she learned something from all this, maybe there was a purpose in it.
She listened with her face so serious, she reminded him of himself. When he finished, she said, “She came to you that night. Friday night was the first time, wasn’t it?”
He nodded.
“And the dreams, they were about the accident weren’t they?”
Another nod.
“Wow,” she said.
“Wow is right.”
Haley then proceeded to ask a million questions, most of which revolved around what had happened after Camilla woke up. He thanked his lucky stars she didn’t seem curious about how they’d spent the nights during her coma. He told her in simple terms about the flowers he’d sent, about meeting Camilla’s brother, and about her taking a turn for the worse this afternoon.
His soul ached as he talked. He needed his dream girl to pull through this.
Haley hugged him. “I think she’ll be okay, Dad.”
He kissed her head and inhaled her warm scent, like clean laundry, the outdoors and boundless energy. His little girl was a salve for his worried heart.
“You should go be with her now,” she said.
“You don’t mind?”
“No. I’ll meet her later, when she’s out of the hospital.”
Such faith. He decided to borrow some of it. “Sure thing, kiddo.”
He went home and shoveled in some dinner. When dark fell, he climbed onto his bed fully clothed and settled in for a wait. Either Camilla was back in a coma and she would appear in his room, or Cade would call to say she’d woken up. He refused to consider the possibility that the night would pass without any news on his dream girl.
Chapter 19
Cami watched herself from a vantage point that was somehow several feet above where the ceiling ought to be. Earlier, a team consisting of Dr. Grant, two interns, and several nurses had worked on her in her IMCU room, where Dr. Grant chased off a shell-shocked Cade and a Derek so worried she wished she could wrap her arms around him and kiss away the line between his eyebrows. Then they’d wheeled her to CAT scan, where she was diagnosed with new swelling on the brain, proclaimed to be comatose again and put back in the ICU on the fifth floor.
Monitors were attached to her so she could be watched from the nurses’ station, and Dr. Grant told the charge nurse, a matronly woman named Melissa, to keep the breathing machine handy just in case. They hadn’t reintubated her, which pleased her, but Dr. Grant instructed Melissa to restrain her to the bed the moment she woke up, and that did not please her. She wanted to tell them she’d learned her lesson—she wouldn’t be getting out of bed any more without that awful helmet on, but when she said so, no one heard her.
Not long after Dr. Grant left with the interns, Cade came in with her mother. Since flowers weren’t allowed in the ICU, her mother didn’t get a chance to ask about Derek’s bouquet. Where it had ended up, she had no idea. Instead of awkward questions about her personal life, she was treated to the spectacle of her mother weeping and Cade awkwardly comforting her and slipping guilty glances toward the bed every so often. Despite her mother asking several times how such a thing could have happened, Cade never told her. “She just fell, Mom,” he said. “It happened so fast.” True, but if omission were an Olympic sport, he would have won the gold.
Beyond the partially opened blinds, dusk had colored Mercy Med’s parking lot in faded blues and grays. She ought to feel sorry for her mother or angry with Cade or at the very least disconcerted at observing all this from above, but an irrational longing to see Derek again overshadowed every other emotion.
There had been a moment of peace just after falling when she’d looked up and found his face inches from hers. In real life, he was as handsome as she remembered from coma-land, even with fear shadowing his serious eyes and his jaw set in a sharp, angry angle. He’d been on the brink of yelling—at Cade—and worry for her had driven him to it. The realization made her feel warm and tingly.
As dusk turned to night and the streetlamps came on in the parking lot, she wondered if she’d be treated to another night in Derek’s room. Of course, she was no longer DG, so she wouldn’t be brave enough to climb onto his bed and make herself known—that would be asking for heartbreak. But to be able to glimpse him, even if just for a moment, would make her night.
While she waited on pins and needles for something to happen, Cade convinced her mother to go home. “Visiting hours are over soon,” he said. “Only one of us can be here after that. Why don’t you take off and get some sleep. I’ll stay with Cams and call if there’s any change.”
After blowing her nose and wiping her eyes a final time, her mother left. Five minutes later, Cade left too, taking his keys and phone with him.
Cami’s jaw fell open. He was leaving her all alone. He’d lied to their mother.
A wave of disappointment threatened to drown her. “Guess it’s just you and me, girl,” she said to her still body.
A minute later, the room started to fade, like the fog used to before she’d appear in her corner in Derek’s room. She no longer wanted to go. Her body looked so vulnerable in that big bed, framed by plastic handrails and surrounded by machinery. All alone. Just like she’d been after Cade had uttered the words that destroyed the carefree, outgoing girl she’
d been, and created the insecure people-pleaser she was now.
I wish you hadn’t come. It’s because of you Dad isn’t here.
“No! I don’t want to be alone!” Not even the promise of getting to lay eyes on Derek again was enough for her to accept leaving herself alone in the bed like that. But nothing she could do stopped the softly lit ICU room from changing to darkness before her eyes.
She cried out in helpless frustration. Even so, a tiny glimmer of excitement had her waiting for the feel of Derek’s hardwood floors and scanning the darkness for his prone form on the bed. She never felt the hard floor under her feet. Instead, there was a pressure under her thighs and bottom and along her back as she was surrounded by some kind of cushy seat. The glow of a car’s dash lit the darkness. She was in the backseat of an unfamiliar car as it sped down a dark freeway. Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit blared from the radio. Two men sat up front. It took her a moment to recognize them.
She looked out the rain-spattered windshield and, impossibly, saw her white Nissan in the next lane.
All thoughts of Derek ran for cover.
* * * *
Darkness fell. The minutes ticked by and Camilla never appeared. Around ten o’clock, sleep dragged Derek under. He immediately knew he was dreaming.
Rain slapped the windshield and wipers worked at a steady pace to keep the view of the dark freeway clear. He had his hands wrapped around a steering wheel. Electric anticipation zinged through him. Camilla would come to comfort him. He was sure of it.
But a sense of wrongness raised his hackles. The dream was starting in the wrong place.
Always before, the crash had happened by the time he dropped into the nightmare. The car’s console was different, too. Nicer, sleeker. A custom Mustang, judging by the galloping horse insignia on the steering wheel and the pretentious red and tan leather upholstery. Definitely not Camilla’s white Nissan. And the passenger seat, usually filled by Camilla’s father, now held a college-age guy with floppy brown hair who was bouncing his knee to the music blaring from the radio.
“Dude,” the kid said on a jerky laugh. “I cannot believe you said that. Her face was like—” He pulled an exaggerated surprised face. “Like, ‘no way!’” He waved his hands around his head. “It was the best fuckin’ thing I’ve ever seen. I swear.” He dissolved into incoherent laughter. Derek got the sense the guy was stoned out of his mind. Then the kid squinted out the windshield. “Hey, man, that looks like Cami’s car.” He pointed to the left, where a white sedan trundled along in the middle lane of the stretch of Highway 44 coming up on the exit for Shasta View.
He was in the right lane and doing a touch over the speed limit. Only a few car lengths separated him from the familiar Nissan.
“She eighteen, yet? Man,” the kid said. “I’d like to tap that, but only if it’s legal, know what I mean?”
Derek took a hand off the wheel to punch the kid in the arm. Hard. “That’s my sister,” he said in Cade’s voice. “She’s unfuckable. Un-fuck-able.” He felt kind of stoned too, and he didn’t like it one bit. What was he—or Cade, rather—doing behind the wheel while his vision was blurry around the edges and everything felt loose and funny?
He somehow knew the guy in the seat next to him was Cade’s friend, Tony. They’d been high school friends and roommates their freshman year at UCLA. They’d made Crew together sophomore year. Junior year, Tony had gotten kicked off the team for using and they’d migrated to different crowds. They’d be graduating together in a few months, if Cade survived this Spring break. Choosing to spend it with Tony after their coursework had kept them too busy to hang out the last few quarters might have been a mistake, since coach had a strict no-drugs policy that included school breaks.
“Dude, it is! It’s Cami.” Tony bounced in the passenger seat, eyes glued to the Nissan. “Get in the fast lane so I can moon your sister.” He unbuttoned his shorts.
“That’s sick. Knock it off, asshole.” Derek backhanded Tony in the chest, disgusted, but at the same time the Cade part of him was so titillated at the coincidence of meeting his little sister on the road, he started laughing and couldn’t stop.
“Your sister’s destined to see my ass, man. It’s on my bucket list.” Tony arched up in the seat and yanked his shorts and boxers down to his knees. He began flinging his floppy dick from side to side and saying, “Hey, baby, come ride the Tony express!”
“Dude, you’re fuckin’ sick! Put that shit away.”
“Aw, wittle Cadie afwaid of Tony’s big dick? How about Tony’s ass?” He maneuvered himself in his seat so his ass was in the air, pressing in on Derek’s personal space. “Kiss it, dude. You know you want to.”
Derek wanted to throw this motherfucker out of the car, but he couldn’t keep from laughing harder. His eyes watered. He laughed so hard he started coughing. When he recovered, he noticed he’d driven into Camilla’s blind spot. Her signal blinked; she crept into his lane.
Shit, she didn’t see him. He tapped the brakes, but his reactions were too slow. She clipped the Mustang’s front bumper with her rear one.
“What the fuck, man?” Tony yelled, flipping over to plant his ass back in his seat.
Derek hung onto the wheel and managed to keep them from spinning out of control, but Camilla hadn’t been so lucky. Her Nissan careened off the road and into the ditch.
A fist pounded his breastbone, his heart telling him in case he missed it he’d messed up big time. He locked his gaze onto the rearview mirror, hoping to see headlights jump back up onto the road, but the only lights back there were other cars too far behind to have seen what had happened.
Tony started laughing and wheezing. “What’d we hit, dude? You scratch my baby, you better have the dough to pay for body work.” Tony was so out of it, he didn’t realize they’d collided with Camilla’s car. “Fuck, why are my shorts on the floor?”
Cade’s thoughts invaded Derek’s head like ugly parasites. No one knows but me—If I pull over, I’ll get arrested for DUI and lose my spot at UCLA-Law. I’ll get kicked off Crew. Cami’ll be okay. Probably drive back up on the road and be fine. If her car needs work, I’ll help her out with the cash and call it a high school graduation present.
“Dude,” Tony said. “Why you driving like my grandmother? Step on it, will ya? I can’t stop thinking about Chelsea’s tits. If I don’t have them in my hands in ten minutes, I’m going to punk you good next quarter.”
Derek wanted to pull over to help Camilla—and her father, whom Cade apparently hadn’t known was in the car—but he couldn’t affect Cade’s movements. It wasn’t like being in Camilla’s body, where he could easily override her. Cade was a confident bastard, and he gave Derek’s will a run for his money. Derek fought, but Cade pressed the gas pedal, his thoughts already turning to the party they were headed to.
He woke up to the pounding rush of blood in his ears. He sat up in bed, shaking, shirt soaked with sweat from the battle with Cade. He wiped a hand over his face and cursed.
Camilla hadn’t come to comfort him.
He had an alarming feeling she’d dreamt the same thing tonight. He launched out of bed, grabbed his keys and headed for his truck. His dream girl was the one who needed comfort tonight.
* * * *
From Derek’s house, Mercy Med was a fifteen-minute drive. Along Highway 44. But he was on schedule to do it in ten. Not difficult at two in the morning. As his truck sailed over the concrete, he glimpsed a scant handful of taillights up ahead and headlights behind. Even though it wasn’t raining and he drove on a different stretch of the freeway, he couldn’t help remembering the dream. Could he have somehow seen the truth of what happened the night Camilla lost her father?
Goosebumps up and down his arms told him he just might have. And with the sickening possibility, every impulse he’d had to like Cade came to a screeching halt. If what he’d seen had been real, then Cade had offered up his sister’s happiness on the altar of his selfish ambition.
And th
e bastard had the gall to become a prosecutor. He spent his days putting criminals behind bars when he was a criminal who had gone free. Fucking hypocrite.
His hands had a stranglehold on the wheel. He wished it was Cade’s neck. Anger banded his lungs, squeezing tighter and tighter. He didn’t think he could take another breath until he unleashed his rage on the one who’d earned it.
But pummeling Cade’s face wouldn’t help Camilla.
As he exited onto East Street and navigated the mile and a half through downtown, he counted to ten out loud. Several times. By the time he pulled into Mercy Med’s parking lot, he felt marginally less like smashing his fist into Cade’s cocky grin.
He forced breath in and out of his lungs, willing the muscles between his ribs to relax. He would be seeing Cade in a few minutes, and maybe Camilla’s mother, too. The short-term goal was to get to Camilla tonight so he could repay a fraction of the comfort she’d given him. The long-term goal was to get along with her family, because making himself a part of her life had become nonnegotiable. Acting like a self-righteous asshole wouldn’t help him toward either.
Keep your eye on the prize, he coached himself as he strode to the fourth-floor IMCU, the last place he’d seen her. The receptionist asked who he was there to see.
“Ms. Arlington’s not on this floor anymore,” the woman said. She had on a lot of eye makeup and if she died her hair any blacker, it would start absorbing light. “She’s been moved to ICU.”
He cursed. ICU meant she was in rough shape, maybe even back on a breathing tube, or God forbid, in a coma. The urgency to get to her had him spinning around to head for the fifth floor. He remembered where to go from his trip to the hospital with Officer Reynolds.
“It’s family only in the ICU,” the receptionist said, stopping him in his tracks. When he turned to look back at her, she shrugged one shoulder. “They’re also pretty strict up there outside of visiting hours. Just wanted to give you a heads up.”