by Jay McLean
I watch Garray’s car come up our driveway, then focus on Lachlan running around the front yard in his underwear, the sprinklers on, and I wish his laughter had the same effect as Laney’s—that it shifted reality—just an inch. Because I don’t want to be sitting on the porch steps looking at my baby brother and taking in the sight and sound of him, not knowing how long it’ll be until I see this again, and I’m numb and I’m tired. So fucking tired.
Garray steps out of his car with a bunch of flowers and stops in front of me, assesses me. Without a word, he sits next to me, places the flowers between us. “I don’t even know what to say,” he mumbles.
“There’s not a lot you can say.”
Lachlan’s standing in front of a jet of water, drinking it in.
“Lachy, don’t do that, bud. The water’s from the tank, it’s not clean.”
He spits out the water, laughs as he jumps through the maze of sprays.
“I heard about the trial coming up,” he says. “I’ll be there, Luke, not that it matters. And I spoke to Principal Jenkins; he assures me that you and Lois are going to graduate regardless.”
Senior year.
Graduation.
It feels like a different life.
He asks, “How are Leo and Logan doing?”
I sigh. “Leo’s locked himself in his room. He refuses to talk about it, refuses to see Lane. And Logan’s going to therapy every day. It was tough on him.”
“Yeah,” Garray says. “They have that at school. The therapy. And now they’re installing metal detectors at the doors and adding a security guard. It didn’t even happen at the school.”
I nod, but it makes me furious that the actions of Cooper Kennedy have set off a chain of events at a school where my brothers will have to attend. I drop my gaze, look down at the flowers. “Thanks for the flowers,” I say.
He laughs once. Forced. “They’re not for you. They’re for Lois. I tried to see her, but they won’t let anyone in the room that’s not on the list.”
I face him, eyes narrowed. “The list?”
“They have a list at the desk.”
“Oh.”
“You didn’t know?”
I shrug.
Brian calls, says, “Can you get to the hospital? I need your help.”
My heart pounds, and I look at Lachlan, look back at the house where Leo’s in his room, refusing to deal with reality.
Garray nudges me, somehow knowing what’s going on. “I’ll watch him,” he says. “Go.”
I cover the phone. “Are you sure?”
“We’ll have fun.”
I tell Brian I’ll be there soon and hang up. Then I tell Lachlan that Garray’s going to hang with him for a while. Garray spins on his heels and starts chasing Lachlan around the yard, through the sprinklers, fully clothed.
“You have a dumb name,” Lachlan cackles.
“Sure, Latch-Lan.”
“It’s not Latch-Lan. It’s Lock-Lan, Dumb Name!” He laughs again, harder and louder, and Garray picks him up, throws him over his shoulders.
I get in my car, look up at the house and wave to Leo watching us from his window.
He doesn’t wave back.
He never does.
It takes six minutes and fourteen seconds to get from my house to the hospital, less than it took from the hotel in an ambulance, sirens and all. I rush through the doors, now clear of media (because who cares about the girl who was shot by the rich kid, right?) and go straight to her room. Brian’s pacing, Lane’s sitting on the edge of her bed, her bags packed next to her. Her arms are crossed, her gaze distant. I speak to Brian, “What happened?”
He says, “She’s adamant on going home.”
“But the nurses said—”
“I know, Luke. I can’t get through to her. She’s just been sitting there, stubborn as hell.”
I crack a smile. “Like old times, huh?”
But he doesn’t find it funny. “I need to go for a walk, clear my head.”
He leaves, and I look at Lane again. She hasn’t changed positions, hasn’t stopped staring at the floor. I squat in front of her, take her hands in mine. “What’s going on, babe?”
She doesn’t look at me when she says, tone flat, “Do you know it costs us two grand a day just to be here? That doesn’t even include the surgery or the medicine or the fucking rehab I’m going to need for my leg.”
“I’m sure your dad’s just relieved you’re okay, Lane. All that stuff isn’t important right now.”
She shakes her head. “We can’t afford to pay that, Luke. Not now. Not ever. And you…” Her eyes finally meet mine, so sad, so distant. “Why didn’t you tell me about UNC pulling the scholarship?”
I sigh. “Because it’s not important, either.”
“It is important,” she grinds out, her eyes filling with tears. Her jaw tenses, her breaths becoming harsher and harsher until…
Until she stands up, picks up a vase and throws it across the room. “It is fucking important, and I’m sick of you all treating me like this!”
I stand, shocked, look over at the shattered glass. “Lane!”
She shoves my chest, and I fall back a step. “I’m sick of you coming here every day and pretending like everything’s going to be okay! You’re going to prison, Luke. You’re going to prison, and Dad has to take out more loans!” Another shove. I try to hold her, take her wrists, but she’s too wild, too angry, and I let her push me, over and over, her cries getting louder and louder. “I keep going back, keep trying to work out what the hell happened to me! How the fuck did I get here?” She stops pushing. Starts limping around the room. “I’ve ruined everyone’s life, Luke! Everyone’s! And I want to go home. We can’t afford for me to be here anymore!” She freezes, turns to me, her eyes on mine. “And you need to go to UNC! Even without the scholarship, you can still go, right? You can’t stay for me! I won’t let you!”
“Laney.” I try to breathe through the pain. “I’m not going anywhere without you.”
“Jesus Christ,” a woman says, and my gaze snaps to the door, to Mrs. Kennedy standing there and how the fuck long has she been here? How much has she heard? She says, “Lois, you’re bleeding.”
I look back at Lane now sitting on the bed, looking down at her abdomen. The blood seeps through her blue hospital gown onto her hands. Blood everywhere. Blood everywhere.
“Lucas, call for a nurse,” Mrs. Kennedy orders.
I find what little strength I have left, put one foot in front of the other, find a nurse in the hallway and take her back to Laney’s room.
“What happened?” the nurse says, looking between Mrs. Kennedy and me and the broken vase on the floor, shattered, just like my heart. Whoever said the truth sets you free is a fucking liar. It cages you, keeps you locked in your head with no escape.
I don’t speak. There’s nothing I can say. Nothing I can do.
“Lois,” says the nurse. “You’ve torn your stitches.”
“Leave it,” Lane snaps.
“We have to sew it back up and stop the bleeding.”
“Just smack a Band-Aid on it so I can go home,” Lane tells her. “It’ll heal fine.”
“Is she ready to go home?” Mrs. Kennedy asks, and why is she here?
The nurse shakes her head. “Not even close.”
I stand by the door, my hands behind my back, look down at the floor.
“I didn’t mean it,” Lois cries.
“You didn’t mean to break the vase?” the nurse asks. “It’s okay, sweetheart. We’ll clean up.”
“No… Luke!”
I lift my gaze.
She’s covering her mouth, muffling her cries. “I didn’t mean it. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” I whisper. It’s not.
She reaches for me, winces in pain. So I go to her, take her in my arms. She cries into my chest. I cry into her hair.
“I’m so sorry,” she repeats, and I want to take her pain away. “I don’t know why I s
aid those things. I’m just trying to make sense of everything and I can’t…”
“It’s okay,” I say, and this time I mean it.
“Can he stay?” she asks the nurse. “When you stitch me up?”
“If you’re comfortable with him seeing your wounds, I don’t see why not.”
Mrs. Kennedy leaves while the nurse stitches her up again, changes her dressing. The physical scars that’ll mar her body will be nothing compared to her emotional ones. Brian returns, his reaction the same as the nurses. “What the hell happened?”
“I lost it,” Laney says, woozy from the anesthetic. “I’m sorry, Dad.”
“It’s okay,” he tells her, but he’s looking at me, his eyes worried.
A moment later, Lane’s asleep, and I explain to Brian everything that happened as best as I can. “I think it was just building up and she needed to get it out and this was her way of doing that.”
I motion to the door and he follows behind me. “Is it really costing two grand a day for her to be here?”
He rubs his sad, tired eyes. “That’s just for the stay. I’m in over a hundred.”
“Grand?”
“Welcome to adulthood, son.”
“I have some money my mom left me,” I offer.
He shakes his head, a man of pride. “I’m not taking your money, Lucas. I’ll handle this the same way we’ve handled everything else.”
We stand in silence a moment, a heavy thought hanging between us. It shouldn’t be up to him to cover this. “They should be paying for this, financially and otherwise,” I mumble.
He sighs. “You don’t think I’ve thought about that? But doing that would mean forcing Laney through more hell with the Kennedys. She’s experienced enough of that.” He pauses a beat, looks away and avoids my gaze. “I failed her, Lucas. I was so wrapped up in my relationship with Misty, I never even saw this coming.”
“I was with her,” I admit. “I watched that entire relationship form and continue and break down, and I—”
“But I’m her father,” he whispers.
“And I’m her best friend. I let her go with him that night.” I grasp his shoulder, wait for him to look at me. “We’re all going to walk away from this with regrets, but it’s what we do with those that’s going to change her life. And I think, right now, it’s important to remember that at least she has the chance to live one.”
I leave him to stay with Lane, and I go in search of Mrs. Kennedy. I want to know why she’s here, what the hell it is she wanted. I find her at the admin desk of the recovery ward, two folders in front of her. She says to the clerk, her voice low, “Are you able to make this one out as if their insurance covered it?”
The clerk nods, and I stop next to Mrs. Kennedy. “What are you doing?” I ask.
She flinches at the sound of my voice. “Nothing.” Liar.
I look down at the open folders. Medical bills. One for Cooper Kennedy. The other for Lois Sanders. I don't even bother asking how she has access to the file because she is who she is. Instead, I ask, “How much did you hear in there?”
Her hand’s gentle when she touches my arm, waiting for me to meet her gaze. “I heard nothing. Just like I’m doing nothing. You understand, Lucas?”
I swallow the lump in my throat, realization forming. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Good.” She releases me. “How’s Lois? Or… it’s Laney, right? That’s what you call her?”
I nod.
She smiles. “Like Lois Lane?”
I nod again.
“That’s a sweet name.”
“My mom gave it to her.”
Her grin widens. Then she reaches into her bag, pulls out a pamphlet. “I’ve done some research into some rehab facilities for Laney. The best one is forty-five minutes away, but I figured, you being you, you won’t mind driving her.”
I take the pamphlet from her, pretend like I’m skimming it as if I haven’t done my own research. “Mrs. Kennedy, I appreciate this, but Brian—Mr. Sanders—he can’t afford the best. He can barely afford mediocre.”
“Oh, it’s covered,” she says, winks. “By insurance. Also, expect to be getting a call from your lawyers about us dropping the charges.”
I stop breathing. “I’m sorry?”
She reaches up, cups my face in her hands, looks into my eyes. “I know evil, Lucas. I’ve stared it right in the eyes and wished for death. Evil people belong in prison. You’re not evil. You’re everything Lois said you were.” She offers me one last smile before walking away.
When I sat in the holding cell, I started to question my mother’s belief in fate. Instead, I wanted to believe in circumstance, in justice. But maybe Mom was right. Because right now, there’s absolutely no logical reason why this is happening. “Mrs. Kennedy?” I call out, wait for her to stop and face me. I jog over to her. “Why are you doing this?”
She wipes at her eyes, lifts her chin. “Because I failed my son by not acting, not speaking up, not changing the course of his life.” A single tear streaks down her cheek, and she wipes it with the back of her hand. “But it’s not too late to change yours. Yours and Lois’s. You’re both amazing kids, and Lois is lucky to have you.”
“I’m the lucky one.”
“I knew you’d say that.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am. About Cooper. About your husband. You really are a good person.”
She drops her gaze, and when she looks back up, she’s smiling. “Good is the enemy of great, Lucas. I want to be great.”
My lawyers called a few minutes after Mrs. Kennedy left the hospital to confirm what she’d told me. The Kennedys had dropped the assault charges.
I wait for Lane to wake up before calling Dad and asking him to come to the hospital. I want them all here. Even Logan and Leo. Especially Leo.
“He won’t want to,” Dad says.
“Make him.”
I hang up.
Laney says, “What’s going on, Luke?”
“Wait. I want everyone here.”
“Am I pregnant?” she jokes.
Brian’s face pales. “Don’t do that,” he says, and I finally find something to laugh about.
Logan enters the room, goes straight to Lane. Every other time he’s come in, she’s been asleep. “I’m sorry,” is the first thing he says. “I should’ve stepped in—”
“Shut up,” she cuts in. “I don’t want to hear it. Not now. Not ever. You understand?”
“But—”
“Logan.”
“Yeah?”
“Shut up.”
“Okay.” He chuckles. “You look really pretty, even in a hospital gown.”
“Yeah. The pale blue really brings out the color in my eyes.” She looks around the room. “Leo?” she asks me.
“I’m here,” he says, stepping out from behind Dad, seeing her in the hospital for the first time. He raises a hand, refuses to look her in the eyes. “I miss you,” he croaks.
Laney frowns, looks at me. “Can you give us a minute?”
We give them the minute, but the minute turns to fifteen and I’m sick of waiting. I go back in the room to see Laney holding Leo, his sobs catching in her gown. She raises a finger and I go back out, wait some more. Eventually, Leo appears, wiping at his eyes. “We’re ready,” he tells me.
Laney squeals when I tell her the news. “So we can be together? You’re not going anywhere?” She hugs me tight, and I tell her to be careful—her stitches—but she doesn’t seem to care. Her hug is replaced by Dad’s, Brian’s, and then my brothers. Leo holds me the longest, tells me he was scared, that he didn’t know what he’d do without me, and the truth is, I was scared, too, of what I would do without them.
I call in another favor from the head chef at Pino’s, and he’s more than happy to oblige. Everyone knows about the shooting, about Lane, and he offers to make her meals every night she’s in the hospital, on the house. I pick up the food, and Lane and I have dinner on her bed, the room light dimmed, and swear it, you co
uldn’t wipe the goofy grins off our faces if you tried. “Are you sad about not beating Lord Voldemort’s record?” she asks.
“Voldemort?”
“He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named.”
I shrug. I haven’t even thought about it. Haven’t gone on a single run since prom. “Not really. It’s petty compared.”
“Yeah,” she says. “Besides,”—she points to herself—“You got the grand prize right here.”
She’s crazy.
And I love Crazy Laney.
I get home at 6:59, get Lachlan ready for bed. I asked that I be the one to tell him, so he has no idea. I get into bed with him. “Guess what?”
“You’re dumb and I’m not?”
“Well, yeah.” I roll my eyes. “But… I’m also not going anywhere.”
“No baddy jail?”
“Nope. You’re stuck with me until you’re thirty, kid.”
He laughs uncontrollably, the sound contagious. He jumps on the bed, and I let him. I look around his room, see his shrine dedicated to me, see the trophies, the medals. And a calm washes through me, a vision of my future. I take one more look at the trophies, say goodbye to my old life. A life that never defined me like my family does. Like Laney does.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
LUCAS
The minivan smells like hot dogs and stale socks, and I smile in Dad’s direction because he just said, “I’m proud of you for doing this, Luke.” I should do more than just smile because I’m lucky. Really, I am. And everyone’s told me so. Numerous times.