I no longer identified with Talis, that’s for damn sure. Aidan hadn’t turned out to be exactly what I expected, either. But by not believing him, was I torturing him? Even though we lived together in harmony, my refusal to believe was an elephant in the room. If he would just frigging make my mom better, that’s all it would take. Since he refused, I worried I would resent him if she didn’t make it. Did we have a future? That was something that every couple asked themselves, even under normal circumstances, but would I be able to move forward with Aidan? Aidan thought he had a never ending future, but how much of that included me?
Maybe I wasn’t so different than Talis, after all. My body shivered violently and I put the book down. Time to get back to work.
All I had to do on this round was check to make sure all the rooms were clean and stocked. The patients were all taken care of, resting as comfortably as they could. I had a cart that I pushed between the rooms, filled with basic supplies that always needed to be replaced. I started at the far end of the unit from my mom’s room on purpose, so I could linger a little longer with her.
Since she couldn’t talk, I imagined the conversations we might have during our visits. In my fantasies, she was so proud to see me here. She apologized for how she’d been, and she promised to make it better for now on.
And I accused Aidan of being delusional.
Tonight I thought her color looked better, not so yellow. The bruises were starting to heal, and some of the swelling had retreated. Her supply closet was stocked to bursting, and before I emptied the trash and headed back to meet up with Stephanie, I lingered just a little longer, hoping for some signs of life.
Were her eyelids moving? I leaned in a little closer to see if my eyes were playing tricks on me.
“Kyndra?” My mom’s eyes were still swollen, so they could barely open more than a slit. “Is that you?”
Thirty-One
All I wanted to do was hug her, press her against me, but I was afraid to touch her. For so many reasons. “It is, Mama.” I choked out the words.
“I’m pretty fucked up.” Near death experiences were no match for Joanna Bartley. “Where are we?”
“At Cambridge Memorial Hospital.”
“You’re dressed like you work here.” Her eyes closed, she must have been exhausted by this little bit of conversation.
“I do.” I finally got to tell her. Not exactly as I imagined, but I was still proud.
Her chapped lips parted; she was missing a couple teeth. I wondered if that was a result of the accident or just a result of years of treating her body like a burned out dumpster. No sound came out, but I could have sworn she was laughing. The movement dissolved into a dry cough, blowing any good feelings I’d had about my news out of the room. “How the hell did you manage that?”
“I went to school.” In less than a minute, I went from thankful to defensive teenager.
“Your grandmother didn’t tell me about this.” Her eyes struggled to reopen.
“Memere’s dead, Mama. She’s been gone for almost a year. She couldn’t know.” As painful as her words were, I knew after what her body and brain had gone through, this was expected.
“She knew about that guy you’re shacking up with.” Her eyes darted to me, with a sly smile.
“Matt? No.” Matt was the only boyfriend I’d ever had when Memere was alive, and I certainly didn’t live with him.
“Not that kid. Some older guy. Sounds like I should date him instead.”
What the fuck. I stepped back, not knowing what to say.
“You should go back to sleep.” My head spun. I needed to get out of the room. “You can’t tell anyone you’re my mother, okay?”
“Are you ashamed of your mother?” She tried to pick her head up, struggling, but she failed. “You little bitch.”
“No!” I whispered, moving back toward her. “They’ll move me to another unit if they know. I want to take care of you.”
“I’ve been doing just fine on my own, Kyndra.” Her voice was almost nothing. “I don’t need you.”
I left the room without another word.
“Can I take a break?” I asked Stephanie. “Everyone’s stocked.”
She gasped when she saw my face. Such raw emotion couldn’t be masked, not even by the best actress in the world. That certainly wasn’t me.
“Okay.” She didn’t ask any questions, and finally I had something I could be thankful for.
I didn’t even bother putting on my jacket before leaving the building. The spring nights were still cool, but I wanted to feel something, everything. I didn’t want to cushion myself from the blow of what had just happened in that room.
I wished my mother never woke up, never got brought to my unit in my hospital. When she wasn’t part of my life, I could pretend she was a normal mother, who was proud of me. Who loved me. Who didn’t punish me for existing.
The sky had started to brighten. Another thing I could be thankful about, was this nightmare of a shift was coming to a close. When I went back, we’d have paperwork I could get lost in. I wouldn’t have to look at anyone and I wouldn’t have to say anything.
Stephanie had already started working on things when I came back in. I don’t even know why they called it paperwork, all of our notes went on the computer.
“Anything you want to add to the notes, Kyndra?” Stephanie asked. Every awful thing my mom said in that room bounced around the inside of my skull. I wished I could blame the accident, or the medicine for her nastiness, but that was how our conversations always went.
She said Memere told her about Aidan. She hadn’t named him, but she’d nailed it enough to scare the hell out of me.
I had a million things I wanted to add to those notes, I opened my mouth a few times and closed it, unsure of what to say. “Nope.”
If my mother thought she could take care of herself, well, let her. Maybe she’d be just as nasty to the day shift. If she mentioned me, I’d deny it. I was pretty sure they’d take my word over hers.
I had to start taking care of myself, too.
“All right then.” Stephanie hit save and turned away from the computer, toward me. “How’s everything going?”
I sat up straighter, my heart pounding all over again. “Fine.”
“You just really seem to be struggling in this department. I don’t know if these patients are too much for you, or if you’re having a hard time getting used to the hours. That does happen. We’re not meant to be nocturnal. But sometimes you just seem like you’re a million miles away.”
“I’m sorry.” Fuck. Why did I have to have The Conversation at every job I ever had? It didn’t matter how hard I tried to fix myself, I was a first class fuck up. It was just a matter of time before the hospital decided I couldn’t handle this job at all, and I had to start from scratch all over again. I couldn’t let that happen. Enough things had happened to me, and I had to start fighting back. “What can I do to make it better?”
Stephanie’s face lit up. “That’s the right attitude. I’ve been dancing around this for a couple of days, I wasn’t sure how you’d take it. This isn’t an easy job, and I know this is your first real job. Honestly, I think you’re doing great, but I can tell you’re stressed out.”
I think you’re doing great. Just the words I needed to hear. I wished they came from my mother instead of Stephanie, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. “It’s harder than I expected.”
“We’ll see if we can get you into something cheerier, like maternity.”
No. I still couldn’t leave my mother. “Can I finish the rotation?” I asked quickly. “I don’t want to ask for special treatment. And I need to tough it out, even if something isn’t for me.”
“You have a great work ethic. I wish I was as focused as you when I was your age. Sometimes I wish I was that focused now.” Stephanie smiled. “You are wise beyond your years, girl.”
“I hear that a lot.” I smiled back. “I don’t want to take the easy way out.”
>
Stephanie squeezed my hand in approval.
“And someday, I keep telling myself, there will be a reward for that.” I don’t know if I wanted to tell Stephanie that, or myself.
Thirty-Two
“How would my mom know about you?” I told Aidan about my mom the minute we woke up. “I’d get it if she’d thought she’d talked to her mother, she’s been comatose for days. But there’s no way she could know that.”
“Lucky guess?” Aidan asked, still holding me close to his chest.
“Nothing my mom’s done has ever been lucky.” I tore myself away from him, sitting and hugging my knees. “She got it pretty right. And I think she wants to date you.”
Aidan rolled over on his back, his face swirling with emotion. “I can assure you, that’s not going to happen.” He shook his head. I’d already told him the reunion had gone less than ideally. “And this is the woman you want to live forever?”
“She must not realize how close she was to dying. I just thought it would be different. That she’d be grateful.”
Aidan sat up and took my hands into his, turning one over and tracing the lines in my palm. “I know she’s your mother, and this is going to be hard to hear. But some people aren’t worth the pain they cause you. She’s one of them. You love her so much, and she swats at you like a mosquito every time.”
“Why?” I asked him.
He shook his head, looking at my hands instead of my face. “I don’t even want to understand it. I had no choice but to watch my son’s life from the shadows, but I did everything I could to make things better for him, even if he’d never know I was responsible. I would have given anything for more.”
“What did you do for him, Aidan?” I moved off the bed. “You abandoned him, too. Getting little gifts aren’t the same as having your parents there for you. It might have made you feel better, but if Aidan Junior knew his dad was around and wasn’t a part of his life, he would have hated you, too.”
Aidan was somehow in front of me, holding on to my wrists so tightly I didn’t dare squirm. The slightest movement might snap a bone. His eyes had that red tinge to them, the one I’d only seen before he did something awful. I forced myself to look into them.
“You are one giant contradiction, Kyndra.” There was a slight rumble to his words that vibrated through my entire body.
“How?”
“You want your mother to love you, but when I tell you that I loved my son, you tell me it’s not good enough. You want me to save her, but you hate the way she treats you.”
“I want you to prove to me,” my words faded to a whisper, “that you are what you say you are.”
He lowered his face to my neck, his lips grazing my skin. “Do you?”
“Not like that.”
He let go of me, and I fell backwards on to the bed. “You of all people should know we aren’t living in a fantasy world. We don’t always get what we want. You need to adapt.”
“I’ve fucking adapted!” I screamed at him. “My whole fucking life everyone has reminded me I’m not good enough. Until I met you. You believe in me. You’ve let me start to be the person I want to be. I just want to know that you’re real. That you’re not some fucking fantasy.”
He sat down next to me on the bed, and I scrambled away from him. I didn’t want him to touch me. “Kyndra, I love you.” Those were the words I’d wanted to hear my whole life. From my mother, from anyone but Memere. Even though I still upset with Aidan, I melted. “But I’m not God, and I won’t play God, either. My days of killing people for sport are long over. I’m not angry anymore.”
“But Matt—“
“I’m done talking about him.” His eyes faded from red to black. “Don’t expect me to apologize.”
“Then how do you survive? I don’t even know.” The little bit of blood he’d taken from me couldn’t be enough to keep him going. Had he drank from Matt? Still, that would be long out of his system now.
“Energy.” He smiled. “Your energy feeds me. I feel happy when you’re happy. And when you’re upset, I feel that, too. I’ve felt sick the last few days, because you’re so anxious about your mother. Being on the Kyndra diet is a wild and crazy ride.” He laughed, but I wasn’t ready to laugh with him. “I used to go out and wander the city so I could pick up on the vibrations of people. It was one of the reasons I was out on Christmas Eve. I wanted to feel good about a day that I usually get left out of. And it led me to you.”
“All of your explanations fit in a nice neat box, but—“
“Because I’m telling you the truth.” His laughter faded, but a hint of the smile remained in his eyes. “Sometimes, you just have to accept that. You need to have faith.”
“You ask me to believe that everything I know about human nature is a lie.”
“You, of all people, should be the first one to accept that.” He brought one finger under my chin, to tip my face up to his. He kissed me so lightly, like a feather falling from the sky. “Your grandmother was the only person who ever believed in you. And you know all those other people are wrong. Maybe it’s time you stop being the butt of human nature’s joke.”
“I don’t understand what my shit luck has to do with believing you.” I sighed, hating myself for even starting this conversation. This was my night off, I didn’t want to spend it all angsty and emotional. It drained me. Or was it Aidan, draining my energy from me? Thinking about it made my brain hurt.
“I guess I don’t, either.” He looked away from me, disgusted. “I have to get to work.”
I watched him walk out of the room, conversation over, nothing solved as usual. He probably wanted to make sure he recorded every detail of the fight into his book. It just made me angrier. Not that he was doing it, but that I resented him for it. He was the only person in the world that loved me, and I insisted on torturing him because of it. I needed to make this better.
Joining him in the kitchen, I made coffee and toast without saying a word. “I have the night off,” I finally said.
“I think you need it.” He handed me the butter and jelly from the fridge. “What are you going to do?”
I shrugged. “Can we go somewhere? I want to start today over. I hate fighting with you over stupid things.”
“They’re not stupid things.” He leaned against the counter as I fixed my toast. “And I hate fighting with you, too. Did you have something in mind?”
I looked at the clock on the stove. It was still early evening. “Let’s go to a movie.”
He smiled. “That’s a great idea. Pick something out and let me know when it starts.”
“Anything you want to see? Because I could pick some chick flick.” I nudged at him playfully.
“That’s fine with me.” He nudged back, tickling me.
“Seriously, no opinion?” Although, I didn’t know what was in theaters, either.
“All I really want to see, Kyndra, is you happy.” He drew me in for a kiss. “Whatever it takes.”
Thirty-Three
Maybe I fed off of energy, too. After a night away from the hospital, and especially my mother, I felt refreshed like I’d spent the entire time at a spa. Date night was just what Aidan and I needed, to get out of the little bubble we’d carved out for ourselves and join the rest of the world. I did pick a chick flick, not to be a smart ass, but because we both decided it was the best movie playing. Afterwards, Aidan brought me to The Red Rooster Diner, just like the first time we met.
I couldn’t take my hands off of Aidan, even the next day, thankful for a new beginning of sorts.
“I’m not getting anything done,” he said when I stopped kissing him.
“I’m going to work in a couple hours.” I grabbed his bottom lip with my teeth and pulled. “Then you can write whatever you want.”
“I will.” He followed me as I leaned back, his tongue stroking against mine. “You’ve given me a lot to write about.”
“So, is this going to be the last of these books?” If he insisted
I was Marielle, he found me. Game over. Series over. The end.
He looked thoughtful. “I don’t know,” he finally said. “I really never thought the series would end. Maybe they’ll just take a different turn now.”
“Like what?” I asked. “Are you going to change my name?”
“Do you want me to?”
Now it was my turn to think. “I don’t know. There aren’t a lot of Kyndras.”
He kissed my hand. “There’s only one Kyndra.”
I blushed. “Well, do you think people will know?”
“That you’re sleeping with Allison Duprois? Probably not.”
“Good point,” I laughed. “I like having you to myself. I don’t want to share what we have with the world. They wouldn’t understand.”
I didn’t even understand.
“Screw them.” And that was the end of that conversation until I peeled myself away from him to get ready for work.
I didn’t want to go. But as I pulled my hair back into a ponytail, and wrapped it around my hand to twist it into a tight bun, I pushed that thought out of my head. My mother wasn’t going to ruin this for me. She’d already put her stranglehold on my childhood, but now that I had earned the title of adult, I’d be damned if I’d just hand that over to her, too.
After the night that I walked in to my mother in cardiac arrest, I would be forever thankful when things seemed like business as usual. Mikhail winked at me when I walked in, and instead of looking away, I smiled brightly and waved at him.
“What did I miss?” Stephanie had beat me to the desk, no surprise since Aidan and I stayed in the drop-off lane until the very last minute. I was still catching my breath from my effort to punch in on time.
Silent Night: Vampire Holiday Romance (The Night Songs Collection Book 4) Page 18