Run

by Byrne, Amanda K.

  The dryness in my mouth had reached intolerable levels by the time a scrub-clad man walked in. “What can I help you with?”

  “Water.” I rasped out the word, tongue sticking to the roof of my mouth.

  “Ice chips first.” He ducked out, returning with a large plastic cup. When he brought it over, I saw it was full of slivers of ice. “Can you help yourself?”

  I managed to lift a hand enough to dip my fingers into the cup, fumbling to grip a shard. The instant it hit my tongue, I whimpered. Several chips later, the worst of the dryness had subsided, and I registered the deep, throbbing ache in my stomach.

  The man, who must have been a nurse, took the cup and set it on a nearby table, one I could reach if my limbs weren’t encased in cement. “I’m going to see if I can find the doctor and bring him in, okay?”

  I managed a nod, then shut my eyes as he squeaked out of the room.

  I don’t know how long I slept that time, but when I woke, I was able to reach for the cup of ice myself, only to find it mostly melted. Tipping it to my mouth would have resulted in a soaked hospital gown, so I was reduced to pressing the call button again.

  A different nurse responded. “You’re awake. Good. Let me get the doctor.”

  “Wait.” My lips smacked together on the word. “Could you help me sit up, please? I’ll probably fall asleep again if I stay like this.”

  She showed me the buttons on the side with the arrows, and the top half of the bed lifted, shifting me into a mostly sitting position. As she strode out of the room, I reached for the cup again, hand trembling. I could manage a few sips without spilling. I had to.

  The tepid water tasted like ambrosia and gave me another piece of vital information—I must have been out for a few hours for the ice to have melted and the water to warm to room temperature. To kick my brain into gear, I glanced around the room. The shades were drawn, and the other bed was empty. A needle attached to a clear tube stuck out of my left arm, and my feet were cold. Light edged the blinds. I pushed the blankets to my lap and worked the gown up over my hips.

  Cotton padding was taped down on my lower right stomach. I squirmed a bit, trying to touch my back. No corresponding dressing on the opposite side. The bullet must not have gone through.

  “Ms. Davis?” A short, sandy-haired man with a paunchy stomach and a double chin stopped at the foot of the bed. “Dr. Kearns.”

  “How long have I been out?”

  He skimmed his gaze over the chart he’d unhooked from the end of the bed. “You were brought in around ten last night. It’s about five now. Less than a day. The bullet grazed your kidney. The blood loss was the most damaging. We’d like to keep you for a few days for observation.”

  Adam’s face loomed in my memory, his tone angry and frantic as he shouted my name. Shit. I didn’t have an emergency contact listed in my forms at the diner, and I didn’t carry anything in my purse that identified my place of employment. Unless someone had gone through my phone and called Trevor or Celia, no one would know where I was.

  The same nurse who’d gone for the doctor poked her head in. “Dr. Kearns? There’s a guy asking to see her. Is it all right if I bring him in?”

  Dr. Kearns glanced at me, and my heart sped up. I nodded. I wanted to see Trevor, with his sexy mouth creases and calm blue eyes, his strong, nimble fingers threading through mine.

  But the guy who walked through the door was the one I’d least expected. “Adam?”

  “Glad to see you two know each other,” the doctor said. “He wasn’t able to provide a lot of details.”

  Of course he couldn’t. He only knew me as a teacher. As a failure. As the devil who had to be cast out.

  The doctor gave a run down on my injuries. Beyond the wound in my stomach, I was otherwise fine. Internal damage had been minimal, considering the edge of my kidney had been the path of the bullet. A few days in the hospital to watch for infection and I’d be released.

  He left with a parting comment about sending someone up to get my insurance information, since Adam had been unable to provide it.

  Insurance. Something I didn’t have.

  Adam had remained quiet the entire time, hands clasped between his knees. A scrub-wearing woman walked in with a large plastic cup, a straw, and a pitcher of water. After setting these on the nearby table, she walked out again.

  I hurt. All over. My joints ached, my skin itched, my wound flamed out along the edges, scraping along my nerves. I was stuck in a hospital in a city where I knew practically no one, and the person sitting next to me wasn’t an adorably shaggy-haired, broad shouldered man who called me “darlin’,” but a man who’d bruised me twice, then made sure I got medical attention.

  “If you’re going to sit there, mind making yourself useful and moving that table closer?”

  He rolled the table over and went a step further, pouring water into the cup and sticking the straw in it. He handed it to me. “Why are you in Austin?”

  I fought not to gulp the water. “It seemed like a good idea at the time. Better question is why are you here?”

  He trained his gaze on his hands. “Friend of mine invited me down for a weekend. Needed to get away for a bit.”

  “Been longer than a weekend.” This was the strangest conversation. I was laid up, unable to move, in a great deal of pain, and chatting calmly with the man who’d threatened my life a year ago. He had yet to lay a finger on me.

  “Sure as hell didn’t expect to run into you.” He rubbed the tip of one of those fingers over the knuckles of the opposite hand, the occasional beep of the machine filling the void in the conversation. “Blaming you was easier.”

  Of course it was.

  “Blaming you meant we didn’t have to think about what we could have done to save her. Blaming you meant we could ignore the blind eye we all turned, thinking she was only being a teenage girl.”

  I’d played the blame game at first. I’d blamed everyone except myself. Her other teachers for not speaking up. The few friends she had for not paying close enough attention, her family for the same reason. Someone, anyone, for not taking the time to check in with me, to see if I had concerns.

  We’d all failed her, in the end.

  “They still blame you.” His eyes met mine. “My parents. I doubt they’ll ever take responsibility for their own inability to see what was right in front of them.”

  He stood. “You should come home, McKenna.”

  I should. I’d told Trevor all those weeks ago I was done running, and I’d stood my ground, as cracked and shaky as it was. I put down stakes to mark it as my property and decided this was my city, for as long as I wanted it to be. I’d known the other night it was time to leave and see if I wanted to come back, or stay away.

  There are varying degrees of fleeing. I’d left Bend for so many reasons. Adam and his family and their threats was one of them. Being unemployed was another. The biggest one of all, the need to outrun the guilt and anger, the hope that if I left the scene of the crime the memories would dull, hadn’t turned out the way I’d pictured. I hadn’t thought I’d end up as much a mess as I was when I left, or that someone would love me in spite of it.

  “Wait.” Adam’s retreating back tensed. “Do you know where my phone is?”

  He glanced over his shoulder. “Probably in the closet.” He made his way to a door on the opposite side of the room. After a few seconds of digging, he unearthed it and held it up, startling when it rang in his hand. By the time he crossed the room and handed it over, it’d stopped. He dipped his head once more and strode out of the room, leaving me staring at my phone.

  Missed texts. Missed calls. Almost all of them from Trevor, including the most recent one. Rather than read through them, I called him back.

  “Are you all right?” No hi, no where are you. Only concern, and a healthy dose of it, too, from the way his breath stuttered out, how the words trembled as he spoke.

  Honesty? Partial truth? I was alive. I would live. An outright lie wo
uldn’t work; after almost two solid weeks of seeing him daily, breaking pattern would draw suspicion. “I’m in the hospital. Just…get here, okay? I’ll explain everything when you get here.” I plucked at the sheet. The name of the hospital was stamped along the edge, and I read it to him. The dead air on the other end instead of a goodbye was a pretty good indication of how he was feeling.

  The way he stormed into my room twenty minutes later was a better one. He took in my face, the blankets, the faded blue gown peeking over the edge of the sheet. The finger he trailed down my cheek to my jaw was gentle, fury a violent, snapping light in his eyes. He rubbed the ball of his thumb along my lower lip. “What happened?”

  “Shot in the stomach. Right side, last night as I was walking from my car to my apartment.”

  He dragged the chair right to the edge of the bed and thumped into it, clasping my hand between both of his. He lowered his head, bent over our clasped hands. “Jesus,” he whispered. The fury had sharpened into a hot, potent weapon when he raised his head. “Piece of work, darlin’. Piece of fuckin’ work.”

  Stung, I tugged at my hand. He gripped it tighter. “I know I’m gonna lose you one day. But I am not going to lose you because of that shitty apartment of yours. You can’t afford to move yet, you’re staying with me. Or Celia. Hell, your boss. I don’t care who.”

  My brain latched on to the lose you one day and refused to let go. “What do you mean, one day?”

  Exhaustion overtook him, etched lines into his face I hadn’t seen through the anger masking it. “You’re living in a shitty apartment, McKenna. You work in an industry with a high turnover rate. Add in all those places you’ve stayed in the last year, and yeah, you’ll leave. Austin’s another rest stop for you.

  “Hey.” He lifted our hands, kissed my palm. “Don’t worry about it. You have to get better first.”

  This was not what I’d imagined when I’d called him. I’d anticipated anger. Concern. Frustration. Maybe some of his laid-back, careless grace. The new cracks in my heart? No. “Trevor.”

  He half-stood, brushed his mouth over mine. “Never thought I’d get to keep you,” he murmured. “And that’s okay.”

  He resettled in the chair. “You look beat. Get some sleep. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

  Sleep? How the hell was I supposed to sleep when he’d exploded that bomb in my lap? “I’ve been asleep for most of the day.” He was right, though. I was fighting a losing battle. I didn’t want to surrender. Not when it would be plagued with nightmares of Trevor walking away.

  Did he want to keep me?

  I tried to shift onto my side, bringing me closer to him, and gasped as a poker of fire speared me. Trevor shot out of his chair and hurried to the door, sticking his head out into the hallway. “No, don’t. I’m fine.” I forced myself to breathe through it, fumbling for the pump button. A low dose of morphine already flowed through the tube, mixing with the saline, but I could give myself a bump if necessary. My thumb slipped off the button twice before I managed to push it, and Trevor reseated himself.

  “You sure?” He rested his elbows on the bed. I nodded. “Sleep for me. Please. I’m not going anywhere, and neither are you, not for the next little while.” His smile didn’t reach his eyes, the sight of it knotting my stomach.

  Don’t let me go. Maybe I’d found where I was supposed to be.

  Maybe I hadn’t.

  Maybe if I left, there’d be a way to come back.

  “You’ll stay?” I mumbled, the weight of his hand on mine a comfort, my lids drooping shut. Stay with me. Don’t leave.

  His lips brushed my temple. “I’ll be here when you wake up.”

  That wasn’t what I’d asked. It would have to be enough.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The silence was getting to me.

  Day after day of conversations we could, and should, have had. Days where I lay in a hospital bed, restless and anxious and waiting for the next bad thing to happen, followed by days in Trevor’s apartment, restless and anxious and waiting some more.

  Trevor didn’t make it any easier on me. When he wasn’t working, he was quiet, and the few times I attempted to talk about my imminent departure and return, he’d simply nod, tell me he understood, and retreat to his internal hidey-hole. For him, my leaving was the end point. I would not be returning.

  As close as we’d become the past few months, there was a lot I didn’t know about him. I was missing a big, big piece of information, bigger than just losing Molly, and I couldn’t find the words to ask him about it.

  Did he want to keep me? Could he just try?

  I stared at my phone, willing my fingers to work. I’d been out of the hospital for four days, and while I wasn’t strong enough to return to work, I no longer felt like dying would have been preferable. My long-overdue phone call to my parents couldn’t be put off any longer.

  I tapped into my contacts and pulled up my parents’ number, holding my breath as the line rang through to the other end.

  “Davis residence.”

  Memories of home hit me with the force of a tsunami. Skiing at nearby Mount Baker. Hanging out at the Bean Pot after school when I should have been doing my homework. Rainy Christmases and Easters and even Fourths of July. Ragged hills, steel-colored waves, seagulls screaming at one another as they wheeled and swooped overhead.

  Home.

  Bellingham. The little city on the bay. Home.

  “Mom?”

  “McKenna.” The strained silence that followed refused to let me breathe. “It’s been a while.”

  That sentence must have been difficult to get out, considering how strangled it sounded. “I know.” But I couldn’t apologize for it. My year on the run had done none of what I’d hoped and everything I expected it to. “I should have called earlier.”

  “Yes, you should have.” I cringed. “Where are you?”

  “Austin.”

  “Texas?” Her tone was doubtful. “How did you decide on Texas?”

  “The car was pointed in that direction?”

  “McKenna.” Doubt was replaced with the tone perfected by mothers everywhere—don’t you smart mouth me, young lady.

  “Sorry,” I muttered, wincing as my stitches pulled. The clock on Trevor’s DVD player read five fifteen. I’d need to clean and re-dress soon. I hadn’t let Trevor do it after the first time, adding another brick in the wall rising between us. “I’d never been to Austin. I thought if I was seeing places, I might as well see it. It’s hot. Really, really hot.”

  The front door rattled and clicked, swinging open. Heat rushed in, followed by Trevor in all his sweaty, scruffy glory. I waited for his smile, chest tight in anticipation, and when it didn’t come, the weight of the tension between us settled like a stone in my stomach.

  “Kenny? Sweetie, are you there?”

  I tore my gaze from Trevor’s sober face. “Yeah, Mom, I’m still here.” I motioned for Trevor to come over to the couch. He shook his head and pointed to the hallway, then disappeared into its shadows. “I got a job working in a diner.” I ignored the painful lump in my throat as the bathroom pipes rattled to life a moment later. “One of the girls I work with, Celia? She’s been showing me around a little. This place is insane with live shows.” Trevor wouldn’t be in the shower much longer. I hissed as I twisted around to glance at the hallway.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  I slumped on the couch. Lying to my mother after so many months of radio silence was another layer of guilt I didn’t need. “No. I was shot in the side a few days ago.”

  Wrong thing to say, judging by the silence crackling on the line. “McKenna Marie Davis. Repeat what you just said.”

  The water shut off. “I was shot in the side. Right side. The damage was minimal. I have pain pills and antibiotics in case of infection. I’m staying with someone, and he’s been helping me out. I’ll be fine, Mom.”

  “Fine means you’re not injured. If you think for a minute I’m going to accep
t that as an explanation, you are very, very wrong. Now,” she said. Something scraped in the background. “I’ll be there in a day. Two at the most.”

  Trevor wandered out and sat on the opposite end of the couch, too far away for my liking. “Mom, I’m fine. You don’t need to come down here.”

  I hung up several minutes later, annoyed and uneasy. To get my mother to stay put, I’d agreed to fly to Bend in three days. She was going to purchase my ticket and email me the information.

  And Trevor had heard the whole thing.

  He sat there like a stone guardian. Not so much as a finger twitch. We couldn’t put this conversation off any longer, and he was going to participate, whether he wanted to or not.

  “I am really tired of guessing what’s running through your head. Are you ever going to tell me what’s got you all glum?” Wincing at the pull in my side, I shifted around so I faced Trevor, my back against the arm of the couch. “I know it’s got to do with me leaving. You’ve said as much.”

  He stared at my feet, reached out and lifted them onto his lap. “It fucking hurts, okay?” As angry as the words were, he just sounded…tired. Resigned. “You don’t see this the way I do. Everything about your life here shouts temporary. You don’t tell anyone back home where you are. You said so yourself you’ve been running.”

  “And I told you I was done running.”

  He curved a hand around my ankle. “You did. You’ve also gotta go back and face what you left behind. And try as you have, you don’t have a life here. It’s another placeholder.” His thumb rubbed over my ankle bone, the touch barely penetrating the shock numbing me. “Maybe you’ll come back. Maybe you won’t. But you’ve got to make the best choice for you, and I’m tryin’ like fuck to keep from influencing your decision.”

  I pulled my knees up. “So, what? You’re just giving up?”

  “Giving you space,” he corrected. “I can’t be the reason you stay. I don’t want to be the reason you stay. You had a life. You’ve gotta go see if you can salvage it first before you sink it completely.”