The Girl In Between series: Books 1-4

by Laekan Zea Kemp

  But then he just said, "I'm glad you came."

  A nurse came in, hovering over Roman, scribbling something onto her clipboard. "How's it today, Mr. Santillo?"

  "The best day we've had in a long time."

  "Dawn called me last night with the news." She brushed Roman's hand, looked at me. "Guess we should be glad you found the service stairs and slipped in after visiting hours last night."

  "I'm...I shouldn't..." I turned to Roman’s father. "I'm sorry."

  The nurse gave me a wink. "Calm down. Whatever you did or said, it worked. That's all that matters."

  She rushed back out and I stared at my hands, Roman's IV in the corner of my eye.

  "I'm sorry I came in here last night," I said. "I just..."

  "You were here?"

  I nodded.

  "And he...he just woke up?"

  I hadn't mentioned the kiss to anyone. When our lips touched it had felt inevitable, like something cosmic and important. But when he opened his eyes and didn't say my name, didn't say anything at all for an entire night, suddenly I couldn't remember if any of it had even really happened, if it was real and he was really awake. So I didn't mention it. Not when the nurses rushed in and asked me what had happened. Not when Dani and Felix asked me the same question. I couldn't. So I just nodded again.

  My phone buzzed and I stepped out into the hall, bracing for my mom’s voice.

  “Mom?”

  “Bryn.” She paused, probably surprised that I’d actually answered this time. “I talked to Dani. Your friend…he woke up?”

  “Last night.”

  “Oh Bryn, why didn’t you say anything? You just took off and I was so worried. What were you thinking?”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, even though I wasn’t. Roman was awake and whether or not it was because of me, I could never be sorry about that.

  “When are you coming home?” she asked.

  “I…”

  I didn’t know. It was the very dilemma I’d tried not to think about when I was squared off in the bathroom with Dani just a few nights ago when I’d told her that Roman was real and that I had to go to him. And then what, she’d said. I hadn’t answered her. I hadn’t thought I’d find an answer until I found Roman, until I saw him in this world, felt him in it too. But I’d been sitting by his bed for almost an entire day, watching him sleep, and it felt like he was still in a coma, like I was still trying to wake him up. It felt like maybe I would be for a long time.

  “Your graduation,” my mom reminded me as if it was still supposed to mean something.

  “I know,” I said. “I’ll…be back in time.”

  It had only been a little more than a week since prom, the last few days of classes starting in less than an hour. But all of that felt so far away—the past, the future. It was like it didn’t even exist. It wouldn’t until Roman was himself again.

  “That’s five days, Bryn. Where are you even staying?”

  “In a hotel near the hospital,” I said. “I can pay for the days. Just give me a little more time.”

  “And then?”

  I was quiet.

  “Bryn, what is this about?”

  Fate.

  “Bryn.”

  “Mom, he needs me.”

  “And I need some answers.” She was trying to sound angry but I could hear the strain in her voice. She was afraid of the distance between us, of the lies, of me being driven by my emotions. If they were strong enough to send me halfway across the country what if they were strong enough to make me sleep and never wake up?

  “I don’t have them,” I said. “Not yet. Just give me some time. I’ll call you later, okay?”

  “Bryn…”

  When I’d begged for the extra time to think about the trip to Germany my mom had given it to me, even though there was no time to give. We both knew that my Klein-Levin syndrome was getting worse and after six months of the episodes growing more frequent and unpredictable, we also knew that Dr. Banz might be my only chance at finding a cure.

  It was something I’d wished for my entire life—a chance at normalcy, a chance at freedom. I’d been living with KLS since I was twelve years old and for the last five years my primary specialist, Dr. Sabine, had yet to even find a way to manage my symptoms. But then Dr. Banz had turned up out of the blue, he and his assistant, Vogle, the only other people who had ever seen this strand of the disease before, because the only other person to ever experience anything like it was Dr. Banz’s own daughter, Eve.

  Every time I closed my eyes at night I fought off thoughts of her, of the way she’d died after slipping into a sleep so deep that not even medical intervention could reach her. She’d starved to death, withered away because her body rejected the intravenous nutrition they tried to give her and after finding myself in the dream-state with Roman more than in the real world I knew that I was treading dangerously close to the same fate.

  Now every step, every second, every breath was carrying me closer to something dangerously out of my control and if I wasn’t careful I wouldn’t just be searching for a way to wake Roman back into his body, I’d be searching for a way to wake back into my own.

  Roman’s father stepped out of the room and I forced every fear and thought from my head.

  “I have to go, mom.” I hung up before she could say another word.

  “I have to run to the office for about an hour,” Roman’s father said, hesitant.

  “Oh okay,” I said, not sure what he wanted from me.

  “You’ll be here?” he asked.

  I could tell that he didn’t want to leave. Maybe out of the fear of missing even a millisecond of Roman with his eyes open, or breathing on his own, or stretching his fingers across the mattress. Or maybe out of the fear that this time his son wouldn’t wake up and the past few days had just been some kind of taunting nightmare. I’d felt the same way when we first arrived at the hotel last night.

  “I’ll stay with him,” I said, trying my best to sound reassuring.

  His lips betrayed the smallest smile, thin and tired.

  Nurse Jia followed me back into the room, a big Asian woman with fake eyelashes. She moved around Roman’s bed, scribbling things down on his chart. Her shadow poured over him and he opened his eyes.

  He peered out beneath his lashes and I dimmed the lights. It was strange watching him wake up. It was subtle and almost infantile and I held my breath. I’d only seen his eyes a few times since I’d woken him and each time I’d waited for him to say something, to say my name. He never did and now was no different.

  They weren’t sure how long it would take him to recover his motor skills; most of them would have to be re-learned completely. But according to Nurse Jia and Roman’s doctor, Dr. King, every coma patient was different. He could recover faster than most. He could be himself again.

  “How are we doing today, Roman?” Nurse Jia cooed. “Did you have a good nap?”

  Roman parted his lips and I pretended he was smiling.

  “Your friend’s still here.” She nodded to me and I moved closer.

  “Pretty girl, Roman. I knew you were some kind of playboy.”

  I smiled but I couldn’t manage much more.

  Jia lowered her voice and lifted her eyes to me. “Talking takes time.”

  I stared at Roman’s face, waiting for him to prove her wrong. But he looked tired, already on the verge of sleep again.

  “You could try talking to him when he’s awake. He’ll have to relearn how to do it himself and it helps if he can watch how you form the words.”

  Jia stepped back into the hall and then it was just Roman and me. He was looking around the room, eyes settling on the empty chair by the wall where his father had been sitting.

  “He had to run to the office for a little while,” I said, nodding to the chair.

  He exhaled and I tried to force out another sentence before his eyes fluttered closed again.

  “Roman.” He looked at me. “You know who I am.” I’d mean
t it to be a question.

  His head fell to the side and then he closed his eyes again.

  3

  Roman

  Ever since Nurse Jia told Bryn that talking might help me recover my speech she hasn’t stopped. It was strange to hear her within these walls, the dream-state having filtered our voices through rolling tides and falling stars and colors and textures that took my breath away. I could hear hints of that place in every word she said; the sound of her, her closeness so beautiful and so sharp I thought she’d draw blood. It was tears that tried to fight their way to the surface instead and I choked them down with all of the other words I wished I could say to her.

  I’d been waiting for the realness of this moment from the time I landed on that beach in Bryn’s memories and not just to find out who I was but to find Bryn too, to touch her, to feel her in a place that was as constant as the way I felt about her. I thought I would wake up relieved, never doubting for a second that what had happened between us wasn’t just a memory but something branded into my very DNA. What I didn’t expect was how much it would hurt. All of my emotions were singing at a fever pitch until there was only one note—pain—and it spiked every time I saw the fear in her eyes as she stared down at me in that hospital bed.

  She’d been shy at first, stealing a glance every now and then, fighting with the fact that I might be a stranger. I knew that’s what she was afraid of and as I fought with my own words, trying to pin them down, to force them out, all I wanted was to tell her that I wasn’t, that I remembered everything. But that wasn’t all I remembered.

  When I first opened my eyes, every memory rising to the surface with stinging clarity, I’d also remembered why I was lying in that hospital bed in the first place, why I’d ended up in Bryn’s dreams, why my dad had spent the past six months mourning my mother’s suicide alone. Because after she took her own life I set out on that empty road to take my own.

  Memories barreled into me from all sides, a wave that drowned me over and over again: the smell of gasoline and things burning, a flame pinched between my lips, my mom’s dry blood beneath my fingernails, my own dripping into my lap while the shattered windshield flickered in the moonlight all around me.

  I remembered who I was—a person who didn’t deserve to be a miracle. I hadn’t beaten the odds or accomplished some extraordinary medical feat. I hadn’t done a goddamn thing. I wasn’t awake because I willed it or because I’d even wished for it. I was awake…I was alive because of Bryn and only Bryn. Because she loved me.

  But I didn’t deserve her love or her sympathy or even to glance in her direction. So I didn’t. I stared straight ahead, pretending like I was still waking out of something terrible, not answering her and not even trying. I couldn’t. Because whether I could form the words or not Bryn could never know who I was or who I’d been. She could never know how much I loved her.

  But that didn’t stop her from trying to draw me out. She was sitting next to me, flipping through the channels on the small TV hanging in the corner. She settled on some home improvement show.

  “He came back,” she suddenly said.

  I wanted to ask who but I knew I wouldn’t have to.

  “I thought he’d left again. But then my dad just showed up and he brought me the copy of Through The Looking-Glass I’d lost. He said he’d found it in the old trailer house.” She chipped at her thumbnail. “No one’s lived there since we left. Apparently it was in the closet in my old bedroom. I don’t know why he went back there or why he brought it to me but he looked…sad.” She let out a long breath. “I hate that I saw it. I don’t want to feel bad for him. But maybe I do?” She looked away. “You know ever since I met your dad I can’t stop comparing the two. Your dad spent six months sitting in that tiny plastic chair just waiting for you. My dad would never do that.” She looked at me. “I’m glad you woke up for him, Roman.”

  There was an ache in my throat, words maybe, or something else. The silence lingered for a little while and I thought she’d given up.

  “I’m afraid to go back there now.” Her eyes found my face but then darted away when I wouldn’t look back. “I don’t know what it will be like without you in my memories. Maybe everything will just go back to the way it was…but…” Her voice was shallow. “I don’t want it to go back to the way it was.”

  I was stung, her words sparking pain before numbing me completely. I fought the urge to look at her as she fought the urge to cry.

  “Even when I first started waking up there at my grandparents’ farmhouse I never thought it was that extraordinary. I was angry mostly and I knew it was all just another symptom of my KLS. But then you showed up and everything changed. I showed you my memories and every time the landscape changed or the sun stalled as it was setting or the beach was covered in sunflowers, I remember the way your face would change. And whatever you were feeling—surprised, mesmerized…”

  In awe.

  “You made me feel it too. For the first time.” Her cheeks were stained pink from whatever was burning inside her. “I’d told you that it wasn’t purgatory and I’d tried to convince myself of that too but it wasn’t until you showed up that I realized that’s what it had always felt like. A prison.” I waited for her to fall apart, trying my hardest not to do the same but then she straightened, taking a controlled breath. “But maybe it was always meant to go back to the way it was. Maybe I’m supposed to be alone there.” She looked down. “I haven’t…seen them. Whatever those shadows were, I think maybe they’re gone now. Maybe this…” She looked around the room. “Maybe you waking up fixed things somehow.” She sighed, speaking more to herself. “I knew it would make things right.”

  But she didn’t sound convinced and I knew that meant that I was still just as good of a liar as I’d always been. I wasn’t convinced either. My first memory of waking back into my body was the pain, so much that it made me wonder if it was the shadow that had drawn me out, not Bryn.

  In the dream-state, I’d thought I’d destroyed it; that even as it crawled inside, whatever light Bryn had ignited within me was powerful enough to snuff it out. But the darkness was still there and after remembering who I’d been and all I’d done before the accident I realized that maybe it always had been.

  That was what scared me most. That no matter how much I loved Bryn or what I did now it wouldn’t change that fundamental fact. I was wrong and bad and toxic. Thanks to my mother I always would be.

  But even though the past was all I could think about Bryn never spotted the truth on my face or in my eyes. Or maybe she just wouldn’t let herself. Either way she wasn’t wasting a second. She spent the rest of the afternoon talking about the dream-state, about her mom’s old records and the two of us dancing in her grandparents’ living room. She talked about the ocean and the trees and the snow, painting every detail just the way I remembered it. That’s what she wanted me to do. All she wanted.

  “Remember?” She breathed it after every sentence, waiting until it was too painful and then she’d start again.

  All day long her voice had me wafting from anxious to dazed and sometimes it was so warm that I couldn’t help it, the sound coaxing my eyes closed. Sometimes it made my heart race, panic taking over every time I couldn’t answer her, every time I couldn’t just say the words that would make her stop all of this, that would make her leave and never look back. But the words were tangled in knots I couldn’t unravel, strangling me. Sometimes I wanted them to.

  Especially now that my dad had spontaneously decided to spend the day at the office and Bryn and I were alone. His briefcase and the stacks of papers that were lining the windowsill just yesterday were gone. I was still sleeping a lot but I figured he’d finally felt comfortable enough to leave me for a few hours since Bryn was around, especially after I overheard him on the phone with the accountant. I didn’t want to think about how much six months worth of hospital bills would add up to.

  Not to mention the fact that before my accident we’d spent the past y
ear hating each other. For all he knew, the Roman recovering in that hospital bed didn’t remember any of it. Not the fighting or the blaming each other or pretending like the other one didn’t exist. Every time he looked at me I could tell he was struggling with whether or not to keep pretending, his hand always kneading his jaw as if he could distract his mouth from betraying the truth. I wondered what he’d say, if it was an apology on his lips or if he was staring at me and hoping for the same.

  The problem was we’d created some strange semblance of peace since I’d woken up and we both knew that just one word about the past would unravel all of it. So I understood why he needed to get away for a little while. Honestly, when we were alone, just the two of us, I wished I could do the same.

  The truth was, in the silence of the mornings or the looming solitude of lights out, Bryn was the only thing that saved us. Her small talk and even just the sound of her voice always made the room seem a little lighter. I wasn’t sure how much my dad knew about her yet or if he realized that her stay was only temporary. I’d heard her on the phone talking about graduation. It was soon. She’d have to go back for that. I was just glad I wouldn’t have to be the one to break it to him.

  Bryn was watching the clock as we waited for the far-off ding of the elevator and my dad to appear in the doorway with some more awful takeout. I watched it too, not daring to stare at the television for fear that my gaze would drift in her direction, betraying the wounds you could only see if you were staring straight through me.

  She said something about rain clouds clustering outside and then she sniffled. “I wish you could just…” She stopped.

  I wasn’t sure how many days I’d been awake, how long she’d been waiting for me to say something. But she was desperate. I could see it.

  I was desperate too. Every day I was plagued by new sensations, feeling returning to me in pieces, and all those pieces wanted to do was touch her. I just wanted to touch her.

  I swallowed, opened my mouth. Air. I took another breath, holding on to it.