by Maggie Way
“Nice person? You have no idea who this guy is,” he hissed. “He could murder you in your sleep if he wanted to!”
“Don’t you think that’s a little overdramatic?”
Carl’s face hardened. “No. I don’t.”
Did he have to be so difficult?
“The police checked his fingerprints. The shrink at the hospital gave him a full psychological evaluation. He’s fine,” Gretchen said.
“That’s not enough,” Carl argued.
“Yes, it is.”
Huffing in irritation, Carl looked up at the clouds, his ultimate expression of frustration. He was not going to give up. If Gretchen didn’t do something to appease him, she had no doubt he would be trying to watch her night and day for the chance to protect her from John. It was time for Gretchen to pull out all the stops on him.
Resting her hand on his forearm immediately drew his gaze to Gretchen’s. An expectant look pushed Gretchen to speak. “Your number is the first one in my favorites on my cell phone. If I need help, I know you’ll be there.” She was using his feelings for her against him, but Gretchen knew it was the only way to make him back down. “John needs some help right now, and I’m in the position to give it. I need you to trust me on this.”
Carl opened his mouth to object and Gretchen was quick to continue. “If I feel in danger in any way, I promise I will let you rescue me and put me in your debt forever.”
His righteous frustration faded into a slight smile. No doubt the idea of Gretchen owing him was very appealing. Amusement faded quickly as he seemed to remember his earlier concern. “Are you sure about this? It really seems like a bad idea to me.” His hand slipped around her shoulders and pulled her against his chest. “You know how much I worry about you,” he said.
“I know, and I really do appreciate it.” Gretchen honestly meant that. Having Carl next door always made her feel better. He even played a part in her deciding to let John move in. Not that she would admit that.
After just slightly too long, Carl finally released her and stepped back. “I want your promise that you’ll call me if anything upsets you or makes you feel worried at all.”
His look of stoic seriousness made her smile. “I promise.”
Carl actually seemed to relax a little at that.
“I think you’re really just jealous,” Gretchen said teasingly.
Grinning from ear to ear, Carl folded his arms across his chest. “Of course I am.”
Rolling her eyes, Gretchen said, “You’re unbelievable.”
“Unbelievably handsome, and strong, and—”
“Humble?” she mocked. He just smiled. “Now, would you please let me get my groceries into the house before my ice cream melts?”
“Butter Pecan?” he asked.
“You bet.”
“Are you sure you don’t need any help with your bags?” Carl asked, eyeing Gretchen’s front door.
“No,” she said quickly. The last thing she needed was Carl in the same room as John.
“All right, then. Call if you need anything.”
“I will,” Gretchen said, shaking her head.
Watching Carl walk back to his house, Gretchen realized just how much his presence reassured her. Both Carl and John were right about her being scared to open her home to John. She really didn’t know what she was getting herself into. Gretchen only hoped she wouldn’t need to call in her white knight to rescue her from her decision.
Carl would most definitely never let her live it down.
Chapter Thirteen
Gone
Her gentle hands woke John in the pink light of dawn. Opening his eyes, he immediately searched for her face. Gretchen’s soft smile wasn’t hard to find. She was kneeling next to his bed, watching him anxiously. As John’s mind came back to life, so did the pain. His throat constricted as it tried to keep a wave of pain-induced bile from coming up.
“Are you okay, John?” Gretchen asked. She brought her hand up to his forehead to feel for the symptoms of fever they had been warned about. Her hand came away slowly.
“I’m fine,” John said.
Shaking her head, Gretchen studied him for a brief second. “I’m going to have to call in sick. I can’t leave you here like this.”
“Gretchen, I’m fine, really. I just need my pain meds,” he said. “Could you grab them off the nightstand for me?”
Her careful fingers measured out two pills and handed them to him with a glass of water. She watched as he downed the pills. In an effort to show Gretchen he was fine, John pushed himself up in bed and leaned against the headboard. That in itself was a bit of a trick with only one hand able to support his weight, but he did it with a determined grimace. John had been going for a smile, but it turned out he was shooting a little high with that one.
“See,” John said, “I’m fine.”
Raising an eyebrow at him, Gretchen said, “You’re not fine. I better stay.”
“No. Go to work. I can handle lying in bed all day just fine. I don’t want to interrupt your life any more than I already have,” he said. John said it, but at the same time he dreaded seeing her walk out the door.
“You’re not interrupting anything. It’s not that big of a deal to call in sick. My boss will understand,” she argued.
Her boss would probably give her the day off, but she would also wonder how many more days Gretchen was going to need to take care of some homeless guy she found in the middle of the road. It was her first year teaching. Taking tons of sick time was not going to win her any brownie points with the school district.
“Can you hand me my crutches?” John asked.
She seemed to think about her decision before she finally standing and collecting them. Holding the crutches out for John, she waited. Clearly, she was testing him. If he couldn’t get up to the crutches, John knew she was going to call in sick. Very slowly, he slid his casted leg across the mattress and lowered it to the floor by miniscule increments. As careful as he was, the slight touch of his foot on the carpet sent pain racing up his leg. John was sure he could feel exactly where all three breaks were in his leg.
The next step of the test was pulling himself up to the crutches and actually using them, which was tricky with one arm in a cast. Luckily, the break in his arm was the least serious of his broken bones and he could hook his thumb on the crutch to steady it and swing it forward.
John held his breath as he reached for the crutches and pulled himself up from the bed. Instead of moving slowly, he thought it would be better to go for it in a rush. All he accomplished was making himself lightheaded, which also seemed to intensify the throbbing in his leg. Gretchen’s strong grip on him kept him from plopping back down on the bed.
“See, no problem,” he said with a smile.
Gretchen didn’t smile back. Her lips parted and John knew she was about to announce she would stay home, so he swung his crutches and trundled past her. The swinging motion hurt like hell, but he kept going until he reached the kitchen.
Pretending Gretchen wasn’t watching him like a hawk, John searched her cupboards for something to eat. Not finding a whole lot, he finally gave her a chance to speak.
“Do you have anything for breakfast?” he asked.
Now there was the hint of a smile on her lips. “Cinnamon-raisin toast?” she asked.
“Sure. Where is it?” John hadn’t seen any bread during his quick look through the cupboards but, with how haphazardly everything was thrown into them, he easily could have missed it. Going back to the Lazy-Susan cupboard, he pushed it in and watched the boxes and cans spin past him. The sound of the fridge door being pulled open caught his attention.
Gretchen held up a bag of bread with a smug smile.
“You keep it in the fridge?” he asked.
“It stays fresh longer that way,” she said. “Sit down and I’ll make you some.”
Well, at least she knew where things were in the kitchen.
“Don’t you need to be getting to wo
rk?” John asked. He was not going to let her distract him with food. Keeping her there over a simple breakfast sounded much better than having to face the anxiety of being alone. She had to work, though. Even if he had to shove her out the door himself, she was going to take her books and go teach a horde of teenagers about the periodic table, or whatever it was they needed to know. Being alone was something he had to face. It might as well be right away.
“I’ve got a few minutes,” Gretchen said.
That hardly sounded like anything concrete. Dropping two slices of cinnamon swirled bread into the toaster, Gretchen turned around to face John. “Do you want butter or cream cheese on your toast?” she asked.
“What do you like?” he asked in return. Was she stalling for time?
“I like butter, but a lot of people like cream cheese, too.”
“How about one of each then?”
Gretchen nodded and started for the fridge again, but John was closer and beat her to it. Pulling the door open, he had to search through random takeout boxes and Tupperware containers before he found them. As organized as the rest of the house was, the cupboards and fridge were a disheveled mess. Eventually, he got both the butter and the cream cheese onto the kitchen counter, then hunted around in the drawers until he found a butter knife.
When the toast popped up, John reached over to snatch it out before Gretchen could. He had them buttered and cream cheesed in record time and took a big bite out of the one with the butter. Savoring the flavors of each one as he leaned against the counter, John stored them away for when he could get to his notebook.
Watching John eat, and watching the clock on the stove with equal interest, Gretchen’s indecision had her tapping the countertop in anxiety. The clock read seven-fifteen. John knew she had to be at work by seven-thirty. The school was only a few minutes away, but he wondered if he had already made her late for work.
Licking the last of the cream cheese off his fingers, John grabbed his crutches again and faced Gretchen. “I’ll be fine, Gretchen. Would you please just go to work?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “What if you need something? What if you’re in pain or you need help? I don’t like leaving you here alone.”
“I have your number at work, plus Lynn’s, plus Maria’s, plus Dr. Sanchez’s, plus all my med’s. I’m going to sit down on the couch, watch some TV, and probably take a couple really long naps.” Hobbling over to her, John put his hand on Gretchen’s shoulder and pushed her toward the front door. “And you are going to work, right now.”
“John, I can stay,” she said. “You’re not ready to be left alone.”
Was she thinking about the last time she had left him alone? Or was she really just afraid of leaving a stranger in her house? It was probably a little of both for her, as it was for John. What would John discover about himself when completely alone?
“No, Gretchen. I’ll be fine. I need to do this. I have to do it eventually, so you might as well let me take a stab at it today,” John said. She still didn’t look convinced. “Please, go to work. You’ve done so much for me already. Will you please let me do this for you?”
“Are you sure?” she asked.
Repeating her own words from the hospital, John said, “I wouldn’t have asked if I wasn’t.”
Gretchen smirked at him, but took a hesitant step toward the door as well. Frowning slightly, she waited a few seconds before taking another step. Then another. It was slow progress, but she made it to the door eventually.
“Call me if you need anything, okay?”
“I promise.”
Then Gretchen yanked the door open and dashed across the lawn to her car without looking back. John thought she even had her eyes closed as she backed out of the driveway. Not the safest thing to do, but it kept her from changing her mind and running back to the house. Turning out onto the main road, her car disappeared from view.
John should have felt some accomplishment, but a strange ticking noise interrupted his thoughts. Looking down, he saw his hand shaking, tapping against his crutch. It was as if the panic started in his fingertips and he could visibly see it travelling up his arms. Fascinated and terrified at the same time, John just watched as the tremor moved rapidly up to his chest, grabbing his heart and lungs.
It suddenly hit him that Gretchen was gone.
He was alone again.
Even though he was the one who told her to go, and should have been fine, he wasn’t. The empty void which had claimed John before was swallowing him again. Suddenly, holding onto his crutches was too difficult to manage. They clattered to ground, and he slid down after them.
Chapter Fourteen
Tasting Homework
The day passed with excruciating slowness. Gretchen bided her time by watching the clock as impatiently as her students. John being alone all day had her on pins and needles. He was still so weak and helpless. His pleading to let him doing one thing for her had barely been enough to keep her from calling in sick.
When she had gotten back into the house with her half melted ice cream the day before, John had been sound asleep. He woke later that evening in pain. Stepping down from the morphine they had him on at the hospital wasn’t an easy transition. He’d tried to hide the pain that morning, but it was written too deeply in his face to hide. He didn’t want her to stay, though.
By the end of the school day, Gretchen had given up on her planned lessons and set the students to reading the assigned chapters she doubted most of them would read at home. Heads down to either read or sleep, they sat in silence, making the wait even more unbearable. 3:22. 3:23. 3:24. 3:25.
The shrill ring of the bell made everyone jump.
“Finish the assigned reading tonight,” Gretchen said as she gathered up her things, “and be ready to answer questions about the chapter tomorrow.”
Groans spread through the host of exiting teenagers. Waiting for them to clear out took an eternity. When the last one finally trudged out the door, Gretchen made a beeline out of the building, skipping her usual stopover at the teachers’ lounge. She knew Desi would be there waiting to pounce on her, wanting all the details of having John at her house. Gretchen did not want to get trapped in a long conversation. She knew Desi would call later, anyway.
Jumping into her car, Gretchen joined the mass exodus from campus.
She only lived a few miles from the high school, so the drive home was blessedly short. Pulling sharply into the driveway, Gretchen hurried out of the car, grateful Carl wasn’t home to see her rushing to John like a frenzied nutcase. He would definitely have something to say about that.
Worry gripped Gretchen when her hand touched the door handle. What would she find when she walked in? It was her own house, the place she normally felt safe and comfortable in, so her hesitation was disconcerting. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Carl’s complaints resurfaced, warning her.
Gretchen shook her head to tried and clear it. John was barely able to get around on his own. What could he really do to her in that state? He was probably lying down on the couch watching TV. Gretchen couldn’t let Carl’s overprotective paranoia get to her. John wasn’t going to hurt anyone. Pushing open the front door, she stepped out of the entryway and gaped at the kitchen.
Bags of chips, boxes of cereal, packages of cookies, carrots, apples, it looked like every piece of food in the house had been drug out of the cupboards and fridge and laid on the countertops and kitchen table. John was sitting in the middle of it all with a sheepish expression. Gretchen didn’t even know what to say.
“Hey,” John said slowly, “I didn’t think you’d be home quite yet.”
“Apparently,” Gretchen said. Walking into the kitchen, she was amazed at the mess. “What are you doing?”
Smiling as if he had just been caught sneaking treats before dinner, John held up the notebook she had given him. “I was doing my homework,” he said.
“And that required pulling all the food out of the cupboards?” It was going to take
forever to clean up.
“Well, food is one of the few things I can rediscover right now.” He opened his notebook and laid it out for her to see. “I made a list of the things I like and don’t like.”
The pride in his smile made her want to laugh. He was so pleased with himself. And Gretchen supposed he should have been. He wanted to find out about himself, so he did. There was so little he could do while practically immobile. Glad he had found a way to make himself feel a little more normal, Gretchen let her annoyance at the mess fall away and picked up his notebook.
“How can you not like butter pecan ice cream?” she asked after reading the list.
John frowned as if maybe he had done something wrong.
“I’m just kidding. You don’t have to like it,” she said. “That’s just leaves more for me, I guess.”
“I didn’t hate it,” John said. “I just didn’t really care for the sweet and salty taste. It was weird.”
“But the sweet and saltiness of it is the best part.” Gretchen laughed as he wrinkled his nose in distaste. “You do like sweet pickles, though. I think those are disgusting. Talk about a weird mix of flavors. Sickly sweet and bitter vinegar? Yuck.”
“If you don’t like them, why were they in your fridge?” John asked. His raised eyebrow and superior smirk were amusing, like he’d won something.
Gretchen rolled her eyes. “My friend Desi talked me into hosting a candle party and the sweet pickles were left over from the hors d’oeuvres. Nobody at the party wanted them either,” Gretchen said, matching his smirk.
“What is a candle party?” John asked.
“Desi sells these fancy scented candles. She does parties every so often to introduce people to what they are and to sell them,” Gretchen said. She kept forgetting how much he didn’t know anymore.
Shaking his head as if the idea of a candle party were the most bizarre thing he had ever heard of, John started rolling down the top of a bag of chips. “Sorry about the mess. I guess I got a little carried away,” he said.