How To Save A Life (Emerald Cove #1)

by Lauren K. McKellar

  "Do you want a water?" Mum asks. She's been sitting by my bedside since I woke up, her hands folded in her lap, pinching into her palms. "I can get you a water."

  She stands up to get the jug placed on the other side of the bed. She's itching to help me, and while I appreciate the sentiment, it's not what I need right now. "Mum. I'm okay."

  "Okay." She sits back down and resumes hand twisting again. I reach out my good hand and place it over her writhing wrists. "Thank you."

  She shakes her head. "No, baby. I'm sorry. I'm so—"

  "You were there when I needed it."

  "I just wish I'd woken sooner."

  Mum had been on her third alcohol-free day, but, as she told me when I came out of recovery this morning, without the booze in her system she'd been struggling to sleep. She'd taken a sleeping tablet before bed, which was why she hadn't heard my screams. After a while, she woke with an innate sense that something was wrong—and that was when she saw me lying in the hall, Smith's hand around my ankle. She called the police and then grabbed that knife and raced downstairs. That was when she saw him stalk toward the kitchen.

  "You woke." I give her a gentle squeeze. "That's all that counts."

  We sit in silence for a while, the soundtrack of the hospital playing its sterile tune.

  "No missed calls or anything?" I ask, my fingers crossed. I know it's a useless question. She'd have told me. And besides, it's only been two hours since I last asked, and she's been by my side for most of that time, aside from the odd bathroom break.

  "Baby, I'm sorry." She shakes her head.

  Jase was discharged from hospital sometime early this afternoon. His injuries, thank God, were primarily surface level, and despite the black eye and split lip looking bad, with painkillers and time he'd be fine. They'd only kept him in for twelve hours to make sure he didn't black out again.

  "Did they say how long until you'll be healed?" Mum asks, looking at my wrapped up hand. I was lucky, I guess, in the sense that two of my fingers only had minor fractures. The third, though? That had required surgery, and little pins to piece it back together.

  "A while. A few months, maybe?" I said. What I didn't tell her was the surgeon's words when I first was wheeled into the recovery room.

  "You might not get mobility back. It may take a long time until you can move your fingers as flexibly as you used to."

  I clutch at his jacket with my one good hand. "But ... I'm a pianist."

  He licks his lips, gently holding his hands over mine. "I'm sorry, Lia."

  The pain of those words hurt worse than the stinging in my cheek from where Smith had punched me, hurt more than the numb ache in my fingers from the breaks.

  That pain was too much.

  "You know—"

  "I wanted to say—"

  I laugh nervously. "You go first."

  "I wanted to let you know I am serious about quitting this time," Mum says slowly, her mouth rounding each word with care. "I know you've heard it all before, but I really am going to beat it this time."

  I smile. I don't know if it's as simple as want. She's wanted this all so much before. It's what she's told me before, too many times to count.

  So I answer like I always do. I don't know any other way. "I know."

  **

  My heart hurts. It aches, and it aches, and it's more intense than any pain I've felt before, deeper than any wound. It's cancerous, spreading throughout my body with its constant sting until it infects every part of me. Until there's very little Lia left.

  I can't play for my scholarship audition. My release, the one thing that set me free is now gone, taken away. My escape—it's ruined. My life is tied to this stupid town.

  As if sensing my mood, my fingers ache. It's a sting deep inside them that goes more than bone deep. This pain is heart deep, a deprivation of the soul.

  I glance over at the scout hall, thinking of my old friend inside it. My feet take baby steps toward the wooden building, and before I know it my key is in the lock and the fluoro light flickers on.

  Without rhyme or reason, I'm drawn to the beautiful old beast in the corner. Her shape calls to me, begging me to join her, to make her sing pretty again.

  With my good hand, I raise the cover. My fingers hover over the keys, the urge to play so strong now that it's hard, the hardest thing I've ever done to not risk ruining my broken fingers even more by pressing down on those keys. Even though, Lord knows I want to.

  Instead, I crumple. My body slides down the side of the piano, and I huddle on the floor, crying tears for everything. For my encounter with Smith. For my mother, who tries so damn hard. For the scholarship I'll never have. For my future, condemned to end here.

  But most of all, I cry for Jase.

  Because he thought I could be more, and I've completely proven him wrong. Because he came when I needed him, and all it did was hurt him.

  I clutch the piece of paper I've been holding tighter to my chest, as if holding it there will somehow take a part of my heart and place it in the words I've written there by osmosis.

  We only knew each other for a few short weeks, but he quickly became my everything. Missing him tears on my heart. Missing him tears on my soul.

  Thirty minutes later, I stand outside the bar, staring at it. The lights are on, and a gentle tune plays inside—but it's a Wednesday, and I know they're not open.

  I consider my options. I can go in, and apologise. Tell him he's what saved me. The reason why I kept going.

  But will that really solve anything? Will that fix all the hurt I caused?

  Our relationship was built on lies, and I wonder if I ruined Jase and I before we even truly began.

  I clench the piece of paper held tightly in my hand. I came to deliver this and leave. Just because he's here doesn't mean anything's changed.

  With slow steps, I walk up the delivery ramp, then push through the plastic flaps. It's dark in here, and the music from the building just a faint echo in the distance. I put the note on the floor, then the door shakes and I run, scampering down the dock and heading for the path that leads back home. I don't want him to feel he has to talk to me, not when he was so clear on ending it before. Before, Smith hurt him so damn badly. Nothing's changed between us. I'm not stupid enough to think it would have.

  "Lia!"

  I don't turn back. I just let the future swallow me up as I think about the words I left behind.

  I WAS BROKEN

  I WAS SCARED

  THEN I BELIEVED

  THIS IS HOW YOU MAKE ME FEEL

  ***

  Now, the dreams are happier …

  "You're okay, you're all right."

  "Good girl, you did such a good job."

  "So proud, she'll be so proud."

  All these voices.

  None of them I care about.

  None of them my mother.

  Then I spot her, behind the crowd, being wheeled into an ambulance.

  "Mum!" I cry and race toward her, clutching the blanket wrapped around my shoulders. "Mum."

  The paramedic stops, smiling at me as I grab on to the silver handles on the trolley, leaning over my mother, the only one relative I have left. "Mum ..."

  She smiles and pushes to her elbows, despite the paramedic's gentle shake of her head.

  "Baby." Her eyes are so very sad, and I can't tell if it's because of what she's done or what she didn't quite do. "I'm ..."

  "Do you mind if we ask you a few questions, Miss Stanton? We can question your mother later." A policeman steps in front of me, his hands behind his back.

  I shoot a panicked glance at Mum. Her face is white, ashen, and I know that I have to think quick. I know that I have to do something, because I didn't dive back into that lake just to watch her drown in a psychiatric ward. I need her to be my mum.

  It's the most selfish and the most selfless thing I've ever done, all at once.

  But I don't have a choice.

  "Yes." I nod. My knees weaken, and suddenl
y everything seems a little blurry at the edges.

  “Get her on a stretcher!” someone calls, and soon I’m lying down, and my breathing calms again.

  "You can ask her questions after she's checked out at the hospital." The paramedic frowns, and the officer holds his hands up apologetically.

  "Of course! Drop by the station." A white matte cardboard business card is placed into my hand, and I flip it between my fingers.

  The ambulance ride is quiet, one man driving and the woman from before in the back with us, fiddling with some machines. She takes both of our blood pressure again, and checks all our vitals before we reach emergency.

  When there, the woman leaps out and Mum leans closer to me. She grips my hand, her grasp so tight it makes my bones creak. "Tell them the truth, baby. About everything," she whispers. She kisses my temple. "I'm so, so sorry."

  "Let me give you a hand," the female paramedic puts her arm out for me. I look at it, then back at the frail figure sitting across from me. My mother.

  "The car skidded when you took the bend too fast."

  The lie comes so easily, I don't even have to think about it.

  But it's a lie that will bring us closer together.

  I hope.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  The police request I go in to give a formal statement, and it's hard. It's so much harder than when I talked to them about what happened to Mum and I at the lake, because this time, every word brings vivid flashbacks, shocks of pain that hurt every little piece of me.

  When I told them about the lake, it was fiction. It was me creating a new world for myself. And it saved my mother. All she got was a negligent driving charge, and a fine, even if rumours did spread about just how much of an accident the crash really was.

  When I told them about Smith, it was too real. The kind of reality that eats away at you, and makes you want to lose faith in humanity again.

  He'd been charged with assault and attempted rape, as well as attempted grievous bodily harm. The papers reported his attack on a 'local woman'—note how I was no longer a teen—who wished to remain unidentified. They also detailed the suspicious circumstances surrounding his own daughter's death, and I cried so many nights as I wondered, the what ifs floating around my brain on a loop.

  It’s just on three days home from school, and even though the timing was crucial, and our final exams were just one week away, I had no motivation. What was the point? What was the point when I'd already lost everything?

  "Sweetie, are you okay?" Mum asks, coming to sit beside me on the couch. The TV blares mindlessly in the background, but I don't see the pictures moving on screen. The only thing I see is Jase.

  I don't know when it happened, but at some point, I changed my mind. The pain I feel about the piano—it's not to do with missing my scholarship opportunity. It's about losing that piece of me. That piece of me that connected Jase and I together.

  Before, I needed to run. I had to escape this town, the memories it held. I had to try and protect my reputation, stop the world from connecting me with my drunken mother.

  Now, though? Now I'm stronger than that.

  And I know I have Jase to thank for it. Even though we'll never be together, I don't feel that desperate need to leave anymore. You can't run away from your feelings. They'll catch up to you. And you have to face them eventually.

  "Yeah." I shrug. I fold my blanket over my legs, even though it's warm out.

  "Do I look okay?" Mum stands and twists from side to side. Her black pencil skirt stays firmly in her place, and her blue blouse swishes from side to side.

  "Perfect." I smile. "Like the best assistant ever."

  It's not hard to smile at Mum today. She has an interview for an admin assistant job down at the local unemployment office. I can only hope it’s the start of more good to come.

  "Lee Lee ..." She hovers over the couch and sits down again. "I shouldn't have needed that wake-up call to stop."

  The atmosphere changes from playful to solemn in an instant. I reach for the remote on the coffee table and turn off the TV. "Mum ..." I open my mouth to say more, but I realise I have nothing else to say. I can't just tell her it's fine, that it's all okay, because it's not. Three days of her being a candidate for Mother of the Year, bringing me food, ensuring I take the pain medication I'm supposed to—that's not enough.

  It took me breaking completely to realise what she'd done. And now that I'm at my weakest, I'm at my strongest when it comes to her. And I can't just forget the last eighteen months of my life.

  "I don't expect you to forgive me. But I'm trying, my baby. And I won't stop."

  She stands and walks toward the door, grabbing my keys on the way out. "Bye, Lee Lee."

  Her hand twists the doorknob, and there's such a look of hopelessness on her face that I have to say something. I can't let her go like this. Because while we might not be okay now, we will be.

  I have every faith in that.

  "Good luck," I call out, a smile twisting my lips. "Knock 'em dead."

  Instantly, I wince at my poor choice of words. There's been enough death and pain in this family to last us a lifetime.

  Mum just laughs though, and shoots me a grin and a wink. "You got it, baby!"

  ***

  I don't know when I fell asleep, but I do. I dream of pianos and broken hearts, and fish that swim around your ankles and try to pull you down. Then the fish are big, the size of bowling balls, and they're throwing themselves at our front door, shaking the house.

  Bang, bang, bang, bang

  "Go away, fishies," I mumble.

  Bang, bang, bang

  "Hello?"

  Wait. Fish don't talk.

  My eyes flicker open, and I realise at some point my dream has morphed with reality as someone is definitely trying to bash down the door.

  "Delivery for Lia Stanton," the voice cries again.

  "Just a second," I call, throwing the blanket aside. I swipe at my hair and push it back on either side of my head. It's kind of sweaty and obediently gets out of my face as I stumble toward the door, adjusting my too-short shorts and oversized tee as I go.

  I catch a glimpse of myself in the hall mirror and snort. My makeup-free face and slept-in hair look atrocious. Here's hoping I don't smell as gross as I look, or the poor delivery guy is going to get the shock of his life.

  "Ah well," I mumble, and swing open the door.

  And am greeted by a piano.

  A big, black, beautiful Steinway & Sons piano.

  That is rolling toward me.

  "Crap! Grab it!" A man races around the front of the instrument and slams his body in front of it, stopping it from impaling the doorway and running me down. Death by runaway piano. Wouldn't that be just my luck?

  "Sorry, ma'am." The guy dips his head. He's dressed casually in jeans and a tee, a broad smile plastered across his face. "Are you Lia?"

  "I—"

  "Troy! Shut it."

  That voice.

  That freaking voice.

  My heart leaps to my throat and I grab at the doorway for support, because my knees don't seem to be keen on being members of my bone structure any longer.

  "I was just curious! She's a hot—uh, you're real pretty, ma'am." The guy dips his head, his cheeks turning red.

  "He doesn't have much of a filter."

  My heart starts up again, racing along at the speed of light because he steps out from behind the piano. His hair is scruffy, those brown locks glowing as the afternoon sun plays along them, and his jaw is covered in a layer of stubble. His arms—those muscles ooze from his sleeveless tee, and I suck in a breath at the sight of all that glorious golden skin.

  What warms me though is his smile, his big, all-encompassing smile that makes me feel as if everything might be okay after all.

  Even if there is a cut to the side of his lip.

  "Jase ..." I open my mouth to say something else, but shake my head instead. I can't believe he's here. He's at my house.

&
nbsp; With a piano ...?

  "What's this?"

  "It's a piano—"

  "Not what I meant."

  "Oh! He's what we like to call a bogan. Honestly, Troy's not that bad. He’s—"

  "Jason ..."

  "Oh, she's brought out the big guns, bro." Troy laughs, looking over his shoulder. "Might be time to stop foolin' around."

  At the words 'fooling around', something flashes through Jase's eyes, and heat washes through me. There's no denying that my body sure wants to fool around with him, too.

  "Lia." Jase takes four steps toward me. They're only four steps, but they cover so much emotional ground.

  "Jase," I breathe. I reach out to touch his arm, running my hand down over his biceps. I can barely believe he's here, right in front of me.

  "I'm gonna go wait in the truck," Troy mumbles, or maybe he shouts it and I don't hear it because I am so lost in Jase's eyes, those beautiful golden brown orbs that have stolen the rest of existence out from around us.

  He swallows, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down, then licks his lips. His lower one glistens in the sun, and I think what it would be like to kiss it. To press my mouth against his in a fit of passion.

  Then my gaze touches on that cut again, and I force myself to stop. Because I did that. I hurt him and I lied. And even though he's here right now ... no. I have no idea why he's here.

  "Lia, I ... I wanted to apologise. Again."

  "Apologise?" My jaw drops open, and I'm sure you could roll that damn piano in there it's dropped so low.

  "Yeah." Jase shoves his hands into his pockets. "I ... I flew off the handle that day. About your age, and ..."

  "I shouldn't have lied." I shake my head so quickly it swims. "I didn't realise how much I was putting you at risk. How your whole bar could have been jeopardised."

  "I'm not going to pretend I don't think it was a lousy thing to do. But me reacting the way I did, yelling at you in front of your friends? That wasn't cool either."

  There's so much honesty in his eyes. So much truth there. And I want to lay mine on the line, too.

  "Jase, I get it. I absolutely screwed up. I am so sorry ..."

  “You’re sorry?” He gives a small laugh. “And to think, I put off coming here because I thought you’d be pissed with me.”