by Jordan Ford
“We don’t know that yet.” His father’s large hand landed on his shoulder, giving it a firm squeeze. “Come on, let’s go to the hospital. We’ll find out what we can.”
Tristan gazed up at his father. “Seriously?”
“Yeah, let’s go.” He jumped out of his seat, racing out of the room to get changed and grab his keys.
Tristan pulled on his boots, struggling to tie the laces as he waited for his father. The urge to get to the hospital was battling with the urge to bury himself inside a hole. He didn’t know what state Helena would be in when he got there. Would she want to see him? What could he possibly say to make it better?
The drive to the hospital was pure torture. Tristan’s leg bobbed the whole time, the toe of his boot pressing into the dash. His father knew better than to say anything, so he kept his eyes on the road and his lips sealed. They found a spot easily and bustled into the emergency room.
Tristan raced for the counter, slamming into it and startling the nurse on duty.
“Sorry,” he mumbled. “I’m here to see a friend.”
“Name?” She gave him a droll look.
“Uh, Helena…Thompson. She came in about an hour ago.”
“Mmhmm.” The woman clicked at her keyboard, adjusting her reading glasses to stare at the screen. “And how are you related to the patient?”
“A friend.”
“Son.” She removed her glasses, folding her arms across her ample chest and shaking her head. “I can’t let you through.”
“But I need to see her.” He tipped his head.
“She’s his girlfriend,” Dad piped up over Tristan’s shoulder.
The woman’s face bunched with a look of sympathy and she rose from her chair with a sigh. “I can ask, but don’t hold your breath.”
“Thank you.” Tristan leaned against the counter as she walked away, gripping the shiny edge in an attempt to stay standing.
His father hovered behind him, a towering pillar of strength. It was kind of ironic really, the whole change of situation. He’d never expected his dad to step up, but he had. It made him want to cry with relief.
Ten minutes ticked by with a slow painfulness that made Tristan’s head pound. Patients shuffled in and out of the ER, phones rang, wheels squeaked on shiny floors, and static voices blurted from the intercom. Finally the woman reappeared, her sympathetic friendliness replaced with a stern look of reprimand.
“You are not welcome to visit Miss Thompson, and my suggestion to you is that you leave right now.”
“But—” Tristan lifted his hand, an argument at the ready.
“I’ve spoken to her mother, so don’t try any tricks with me.” She pointed an accusing finger at Tristan.
“This is bull—”
“Sir, I will call security if I need to.” She snatched the phone from the cradle, her big eyes rounding with assertion.
“You don’t.” His father’s voice matched the firm hand on Tristan’s shoulder. With a little squeeze, he pulled his son away from the desk and led him back outside.
The glass door shut behind them and Tristan kicked the concrete ramp leading out of the hospital entrance. “This is horse shit!”
Ripping off his beanie, he squeezed it in his hands, trying to fight the overwhelming urge to punch something.
“I know.” His father sighed, shoving his hands into his pockets and leaning against the metal railing.
“I just want to know if she’s okay. I need to see her.”
“I know you do.” His dad’s brows dipped together and he looked over his shoulder, scanning their surroundings with narrowed eyes.
“What are you thinking?” Tristan twisted the beanie in his hands.
“I’m thinking we’re not leaving here until you see your girl…and I’m thinking this is a pretty big hospital and there’s probably more than one way in and out.”
Tristan’s lips twitched with a surprised smile. Was his father seriously saying that stuff to him?
His dad’s half grin grew as he stood forward and lightly punched Tristan’s arm. “Come on, let’s try around this way.”
32
Desolation
Sneaking in ended up being easier than Tristan thought. His father led him around the back and he snuck in through a delivery door. The white sterile lights reflected off the clean, squeaky floor as he scurried through the bowels of the hospital. Finding an elevator, he caught it to the first floor and peeked his head out. The coast was clear of anyone he knew, so he stepped out, merging with a large family holding balloons and a bunch of flowers.
He scanned the signs as he went, leaving the group and ducking into the shadows outside the emergency ward. He was pretty sure Helena would still be in there.
Crouching low, he snuck to the door, popping up to peer inside the round windows. He couldn’t see much, just rows of beds, some with curtains pulled around them.
A tall male nurse in blue scrubs and white sneakers came into view, moving for the door. Tristan pressed himself against the wall, hiding behind the door and then catching it with his hand once the nurse had bustled through.
He crept into the room, his eyes darting around the area while the intense smell of the sterile environment stung his nostrils. Aware that his sneaky tiptoeing might seem suspicious, he pulled his shoulders back and tried to saunter, casually stopping by each curtain and peeking inside.
Helena was in the third bed down, and by some act of providence was actually alone.
Tristan’s breath caught as he gazed at her. She looked pale, her usually bright eyes dull and lifeless as they stared up at the ceiling. Her long hair was draped over one shoulder and her thin hands were clasped together. His gaze fluttered over her legs beneath the blanket. An acidic bile swirled in his stomach.
She probably didn’t even want to see him.
Closing his eyes, he clutched the curtain and contemplated leaving when a soft whisper stopped him. “Tristan?”
“Hey.” He forced a smile, tiptoeing to her side and resting his hand on top of hers.
“How did you get in here?”
“I snuck in.” He cringed. “I had to see you.”
Her lips toyed with a smile, rising at the edges for the briefest moment before starting to quiver.
“Hey.” His voice was a gentle caress. He leaned over her, kissing her cheek and pressing his forehead against hers. Her jasmine scent was being tainted by the sterile smell of the emergency ward. He closed his eyes, squeezing her hands lightly. “It’s going to be okay.”
“How?” she whispered.
He leaned away, gazing down at her stricken expression. “I don’t know. But I do know you’re strong and you can survive this.”
“I might not be able to walk ever again. I’ll never dance, never be able to climb the attic stairs,” she whimpered. “I can’t reach my haven anymore.”
“You don’t need that haven.” He kissed the tears trying to escape out the corner of her eye. “You can take your imagination wherever you go…and you’ll learn. You’ll learn to walk again. They have ways to teach you. This isn’t over.”
“It should be.” She wiggled her hands from beneath his grasp.
His fingers fell to the blanket, rubbing over the coarse white covering. He glanced down, his eyebrows dipping as he pinched the blanket.
“Whether I walk again or not, this is going to be a long, slow process, and you can’t be tied to me. Mother blames you for this. She won’t let you near, and it’s only going to make things worse. In her eyes, the outside world has hurt me. She’ll trap me forever…and I can’t trap you as well.”
“Don’t say that.” Tristan shook his head. “Please, I don’t—I don’t want to live without you.”
Her despair fled for a moment, replaced with a warm glow. Reaching for his face, she cupped his cheek and whispered. “Sweet, Tristan. Only knights of old talk that way.”
“That’s what I am.” He sniffed. “A sentimental fool, just like Romeo.”
>
She shook her head, her laughter sounding hollow and sad. “She caught me unbolting the tower window. I’d found a screwdriver in the closet. I thought maybe I could secretly escape and then climb back up after I’d seen you. But she walked in and…and then she saw my necklace. Asked me where it had come from.” Helena swallowed. “I couldn’t lie, so I told her. I relived the night in my dreamy splendor, unaware of the way her eyes glazed over, the mottled tone of her skin. She ripped the necklace from me. Told me I would never see you again.” Tears built on Helena’s lashes. “All I could think about was escaping and being with you.” Her lips wobbled, her chin bunching as the tears descended. “But that can never happen now, so I must set you free.”
“No.” Tristan frowned. “I don’t want to be set free. I want to be with you, no matter what.”
Helena ignored him, her gaze distant as she stared at the ceiling. “Juliet didn’t have to kill herself, you know. She could have lived…fallen in love again.”
Tristan stood tall, hating the turn of the conversation.
“Come on, where’s the romance in that?” He put on a brave smile, shoving his hands in his pockets and rocking back on his heels.
Helena pressed her lips together, her chin trembling when she met his gaze. “You have to live, Tristan. You have to make every heartbeat count, and you can’t do that if you’re trying to help me. I want your house filled with paper cranes.”
“They will be. They’ll be filled with our paper cranes. We’ll write them together.”
Shaking her head, she opened her mouth to deny him, but he lurched forward and stopped her words with his soft lips. She quivered against his touch, sucking in a whimper as she reached for his head and threaded her fingers into his thick locks.
He pulled back, breathing against her skin. “We can do this.”
“You shouldn’t have to.”
“But I want to.” He pulled back a little more so they could look each other in the eye. “I’ll fight for us. Whatever it takes…and…and you want to leave a footprint, remember? Even if you can’t walk, you can still leave your mark. I’ll help you do it.”
“It was a pipe dream, Tristan, and I can’t expect you to burden yourself with me. It’s too hard.” She sucked in a breath, her raspy whisper barely audible. “She’ll win and I’ll disappear.”
Her blue eyes shone with fear.
“No, you won’t. I’m not—”
The curtain snapped back, making them both flinch.
Helena gasped. Her wild gaze flicked from her mother to Tristan, her large eyes rounding so wide it hurt. Tristan reached for her hand, giving it a reassuring rub.
It was the wrong move.
The dragon’s eyes flashed. “What are you doing in here? Get away from her.”
Yanking at his jacket, she tugged him back from the bed, yelling for security.
“I just wanted to make sure she was okay,” Tristan murmured.
“She’s not okay. Can’t you see that? She’ll never be okay again, thanks to you.” Her dark words dripped with accusation.
Tristan flinched, like she’d physically slapped him.
“No, Mother. That’s not fair.” Helena wasn’t loud enough to cut through the woman’s animosity.
“Please, just leave us.” The desperate request distorted her mother’s voice, making it sound deep and heavy.
Tristan stumbled back from the bed and straight into a pissed off security guard. The man snatched his arm and Tristan didn’t fight him.
Glancing at the bed, Tristan drank in Helena’s desolate expression and whispered, “Fight for us.”
Her eyes shone with tears and she shook her head, cutting their connection by closing her eyes.
The security guard yanked Tristan away before he could say any more, and a deep sorrow pulled him down as he trudged out of the hospital.
33
A Dose of Miss Warren
Tristan’s father couldn’t console him. They drove home in silence. As soon as he was in the door, Tristan trooped up to his room and remained there. He didn’t want to eat and he couldn’t sleep, woken by constant dreams of Helena’s body falling to the ground—the way her hair fluttered around her face…and then the thud.
The morning brought no relief, so he stayed beneath the covers staring at the paper cranes above him and lamenting the fact that he may never have anymore. His father knocked on his door late in the morning, holding two baseball mitts.
“You want to play catch?”
He frowned at his father’s pitiful attempt, shaking his head and rolling away without a word. He waited out the sigh and the slow click of his door closing before getting out of bed. There were still a few paper cranes sitting on his desk. Snatching a marker, he wrote down his woes on the wings and threw them out the window.
Pressing his palms against the frame, he watched them float on the breeze and land in the gutter.
“It didn’t work,” he muttered. “I still feel like shit.”
He squeezed his eyes shut, pinching the bridge of his nose and shuffling back to bed.
Although he wanted to stay there for a few more days, his father wouldn’t let him. At six thirty the next morning, his covers were thrown back and he was ordered into the shower. Seeing his father take control again was a weird experience. Tristan couldn’t decide if he liked it or not.
“I’m driving you to school,” his father murmured, sipping at his coffee before taking a bite from his toast.
“I’ve got my bike,” Tristan muttered.
“Your brain is on another planet today and I don’t trust you in the traffic. Let me drive you to school and pick you up.”
Tristan’s eyebrows bunched together and he pushed his bowl of half-eaten Cheerios away.
His father stopped the bowl from falling off the table and threw Tristan a disapproving frown. “Okay, I get it. You’re not used to me playing dad, but it’s my turn. You looked after me when my heart was in pieces. Now I’ve got to step up and do the same for you, so please let me, okay?”
Tristan shrugged, gazing down at the table and avoiding eye contact.
It was probably horrible for his father, but Tristan had suffered the same stony silence for months, so it was only fair.
Rising from the breakfast table, he threw out his cereal, rinsed the bowl, and then got ready for school. They pulled into the Burlington High parking lot and Tristan got out of his dad’s pickup truck with a mumbled goodbye. He could feel his father staring at his back the whole way into school, but he wasn’t about to turn around and wave.
Jumping straight back to his old tricks, Tristan fell into numb mode, letting the world around him turn to fuzz. He missed the concern in Mikayla’s voice when she asked him how his weekend was, and he nearly got hit in the head with a flying football on his way to PE.
He remained in a dazed stupor until the end of English when Miss Warren pulled him up after class.
“What is it this time?” he muttered, kicking at the desk leg and bumping it out of alignment. He gripped his bag strap, feeling bad but not making a move to correct his mistake.
“You’ve got that lifeless look in your eyes again.”
Tristan shrugged.
Miss Warren crossed her arms, her skin-colored pumps tapping on the floor as she walked around to the front of her desk. She leaned her butt against it and tipped her head to study him. “How’s your friend?”
Tristan’s face bunched. He didn’t want to talk about it, but the soft way she asked was bending his will. He sucked in a sharp breath, bunching his lips and looking away from her.
“Uh-oh,” she whispered. “What happened?”
“She had an accident.” He swallowed, running a hand through his hair and fighting the burn of tears. “She fell and now she’s in the hospital. They think she might be…paralyzed.” The last word nearly choked him. He struggled to clear his throat and remain standing. His legs were quivering inside his jeans.
“Oh, Tristan, I’m so sorr
y.”
“She can’t be.” His forehead crinkled. “She can’t. She hasn’t even lived yet. She hasn’t experienced all the world has to offer. She wants to leave a footprint, but she won’t let me help her do it.”
Confusion marred Miss Warren’s pretty face.
Tristan sucked in a shaky breath. “She’s had a very sheltered life. I’d finally convinced her that there was more. She wanted to be a part of it, but now…”
“Now it’s going to be a thousand times harder.”
He nodded, biting his lips together and gazing down at the linoleum floor.
Miss Warren stepped forward, her shoes sounding loud in the empty room. He watched them approach—elegant, even steps—until she was standing in front of him. She squeezed his shoulder. “Harder, but not impossible. She’ll learn to experience life in a different way.”
“No she won’t.” He shook his head. “You don’t know… She—” He glanced up at his sympathetic teacher, wanting to tell her but unable to find the words.
He let out a ragged sigh, fisting his bag strap.
“I promised her she’d always exist somehow. I promised her that I’d always keep her with me, but I don’t know how I’m gonna do that when she wants me to leave her. She wants me to get on with my life, without her.”
Miss Warren’s brown eyes were soft with compassion. “That’s obviously what she needs right now to cope. But she might change her mind.”
“I just want her to be happy. I want to give her some sense of hope in all of this. I can’t do that if I’m not there.”
Miss Warren’s eyes grew warm as she smiled at him. “Tristan, you’re new here and I’m still getting to know you, but what I have learned is that you’re a guy with a really big heart. If anyone can find a way to help this girl, it’s you. Keep your distance if that’s what she wants you to do, but don’t give up. You’ll find a way to bring her hope, I just know it.”