Ashes of Life

by Erica Lucke Dean

  “No. No problem. I need her to sign a few forms now that—”

  I folded my arms and stamped down the urge to flee. “She’s not technically my stepmom anymore, you know? She has nothing to do with my life.” Except for the devil’s spawn she was carrying, linking us forever. I shuddered.

  “Yes, well, I’ll just wait awhile, and if I don’t hear from her then…” She looked like she was trying to work out a puzzle in her head.

  “I’m pretty sure I won’t be talking to her anytime soon, but if I do, I’ll make sure she calls you.”

  “All right. Thank you, Madison. Everything okay with the Thompsons?”

  “Yep.” I forced a smile.

  She nodded a couple times. “The tardy bell is about to ring. If you have trouble with your fourth hour teacher, tell her you were talking to me.” She spun on her heels and marched down the hall, leaving me an alibi for what I was about to do.

  The art wing was located in the basement of the school, and as I went down the steps, the stench of paint and glue assaulted my senses. I heard a bunch of guys talking and laughing. At the other end of the hall, I saw Grey. He sat on the floor scribbling something in a notebook, his messy brown hair falling in his eyes. As usual, he seemed completely oblivious of the little blonde staring at him from a few feet away, as if he was Harry Styles or something.

  “Uh, hello,” one of the other guys said, and Grey raised his head to look at me. I’d never noticed how blue his eyes were, like the lake on a sunny summer day—almost a perfect match to his blue button-down.

  Grey’s mouth dropped open as he stared up at me. “Madison? What are you doing down here?”

  I gripped the strap of my backpack, feeling the sticky remnants of the “Dance is Life, Life is Hard” sticker I’d tried to pick off like old nail polish. “I was, uh, going out for a smoke.”

  “Hmm…” He lowered his eyes to his pad of paper. “I only drink when I smoke, and I only smoke when I drink. Or is it, I only do molly when I drink? I can’t remember, can you?” He looked up again.

  “Asshole.” I turned around and headed back the way I came. Blondie can have the jerk.

  I heard him jump up from the floor and jog toward me, undoubtedly breaking one heart in the process. “Damn it, Maddie. Wait.”

  No way. I wasn’t going to stand around and let him make fun of me in front of his friends, no matter what he’d done to help on Saturday or how badly I wanted the joint in my backpack.

  “Stop.” He touched my arm just before I reached the steps.

  I spun around and glared at him. “That was a pretty shitty thing to say when I came down to thank you and apologize for—you know.”

  He glanced down at the worn pair of Doc Martens on his feet where the brand-new Vans should have been. “Ruining my shoes?”

  I couldn’t see his friends from where we stood, but I was sure they could hear us, so I dropped my voice. “I’ll replace them.”

  “You did me a favor actually. I hated that pair. My grams bought them for me, and they never fit right.”

  Why that made me smile, I don’t know. “If you’re done being a jerk, I’ll say thank you now.”

  He smiled and changed his whole face. Instead of distant and judgmental, a smiling Grey made me want to lean into him and stay a while. How’d I never notice how hot he is? “I’m done, but I did warn you about Brody.”

  “Well, thank you for helping me when I didn’t listen.”

  “You’re welcome.” He rubbed the back of his neck.

  I reached into my backpack and fished for one of the joints Brody gave me. “Wanna have a hit with me?”

  His eyes widened until I could almost see the white all the way around the blue. “Are you kidding me? Did Brody give you that, too?”

  “He—” I was going to lie, but I had a feeling he’d see right through it. “Yeah, so?”

  He shook his head. “I told you. There are better ways to deal with the pain.”

  “Right, because you’ve lost so many parents.” I shoved the joint into my bag and put a few steps between us. I wanted to run back the way I came, but I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of running off.

  He shoved his hands into his pockets and stared at the scarred linoleum beneath his feet. “My mom died four years ago, and I never knew the sperm donor. He didn’t stick around very long after she told him she was pregnant.”

  “Oh.” My eyes stung. She would have died when we were in junior high, and we hadn’t gone to the same school then.

  He lifted his head to lock his eyes with mine. “Anyway, try to stay out of trouble, okay?”

  I wasn’t really thinking about staying out of trouble. I was thinking about the sliver of bare skin I saw when he raised his arm and how he smelled like citrus and a new box of pencils.

  “Maddie?”

  “What?” I shook my head. “Oh, yeah. Stay out of trouble. Speaking of which, I should get to fourth hour.”

  I turned to leave, but he reached for my hand and smoothed his thumb over my fingers. “You’ve probably heard this a lot lately, but if you need anything, well, you obviously know where to find me.”

  “Thanks, but I’m fine.”

  He dropped his arm, and all the warmth left my hand. “Yeah, okay.”

  It wasn’t until the ride home that I realized I’d been thinking about him and not about how much I missed my parents. Somehow, that short conversation had gotten me through those last few hours, and I wondered how many more conversations I’d have to have with Grey Daniels in order to make it through the rest of my life.

  Chapter 6

  Alex

  “Can we get some help here?” Natalie wailed at the nurses behind the triage desk. “My friend is bleeding, and it’s running down her legs. She’s pregnant.”

  “How far along?” The red-haired nurse asked Natalie as if I wasn’t able to speak.

  “Less than four months.” I panted through a wave of pain.

  Natalie rubbed my arm. “Do you think she’s having a miscarriage? Her husband died less than a week ago, she hasn’t been eating, and she started complaining of nausea and discomfort. By the time I got to her, her pants were soaked in blood, and she was in horrible pain.”

  “No!” Not that. Not after losing David. “Please help me.”

  “Get me a gurney over here!” someone yelled, and the Emergency Room was a flurry of activity.

  A man burst through a set of double doors at the end of the hall, and my world stopped. My legs buckled under me. David.

  Natalie wrapped her arms tighter around me as I slipped toward the floor. “Oh my God, I need help.”

  Then his arms were around me. “Don’t worry, I’ve got you,” he whispered in my ear as he scooped me off the floor and placed me on a gurney.

  A deep shudder cut through me as if a red-hot sword was embedded in my gut and someone twisted it from side to side. “Hurts so bad.” I smiled up at him through a blur of tears. “But it’s okay. You’re here now. Stay this time. Don’t leave.”

  “I’m not going anywhere. Can you tell me on a scale of one to ten how bad it hurts?” His warm hands slid over my abdomen, and I reached for them, squeezing them in mine.

  “Ten. Twenty. Can’t you just make it stop?” Another twist of the sword sucked the breath out of me, and everything that had happened that afternoon came flooding back. “David, why didn’t you tell me about Maddie?” I locked my eyes with his. “You know she hates me.”

  A deep furrow formed between his eyebrows. “Alex, I’m Dr. Hudson. Don’t you remember? We met Saturday. At the fu—at the church.”

  I blinked up at him. I did remember meeting Dr. Hudson at the funeral. Only he hadn’t introduced himself. They had the same wavy brown hair, but he wasn’t David at all. Pain spiked through me,
starting in my heart. “I thought you were…”

  Natalie’s voice moved closer. “Dr. Hudson’s going to take care of you, sweetie. Ben, why is she so out of it? It’s like she’s on something.”

  “It’s the pain and blood loss. Look up here, Alex.” The deep resonating voice called to me, and I turned my head in his direction. His face was a mask of grim determination. “It doesn’t look good for the baby. Our job now is to get you stabilized.” He turned his eyes from mine and yelled to someone behind him. “We need to get an IV started, get a type and cross, find the OB on call, and get them down here, we’re gonna need an OR.”

  “I can’t lose this baby.” I shook my head, tears welling up in my eyes until his face became blurry, and visions of David clouded my thoughts. He wanted more children. A house full of them. He loved his daughter so much.

  Maddie.

  The first words I’d heard her utter came back like a staticky radio with a fresh signal. “Why’d you bring her?”

  I’d had such hope as we drove to the Silver Bullet Diner. Even as she’d sat in the backseat of David’s car with her slight arms folded across her chest, staring at the trees as we passed by, I’d imagined us being friends if nothing else.

  It wasn’t that long ago I’d been a teenager myself. I could speak their language. Loved the same music. Spent time interacting with teens as I worked on the video games I developed. But as David’s daughter sat rigidly across from us in the tiny booth, my hope dwindled.

  Maddie glared at me, and I felt every drop of hate she directed my way. “Why’d you bring her?”

  David wrapped an arm around my shoulders and pulled me against him. “Alex and I are married.”

  “You’re married?” She laughed. Just a quick blast of air through her nose as if David’s announcement was a sick joke. “No offense, but what’d you do, knock her up?”

  I froze to the vinyl bench seat, my heart hammering in my chest as she gaped at us in turn.

  Maddie’s horrified expression made her look older than her sixteen years. “You did knock her up! What about Mom?”

  “Sweetheart, your mom and I have been divorced for almost two years. It’s time we both moved on. I know you and Alex will become great friends.” David squeezed my hand under the table.

  Maddie’s face hardened as she locked her eyes with mine. “She’ll never be anything to me.”

  “Alex, can you hear me?” The doctor squeezed my hand, and my attention snapped to him. If I squinted, he looked so much like David, and I felt safe.

  I pulled my eyes from his as a sob escaped me. “I’m sorry, David. I’m a total failure as a mother. I’ll never be what she needs.”

  “Come on, we need to roll before we lose them both.”

  I tried to focus on what he was saying, but it was too much. First David and now… I couldn’t even think and let the darkness wash over me.

  “Hey, you’re awake. How are you feeling?” Natalie stood over me smiling, but I could see the worry lines in her forehead.

  I tried to reposition myself, but I hurt all over. And the worst pain was the kind that drugs couldn’t fix. “How do you think I feel?”

  Natalie’s eyes glistened with unshed tears. “Like you went five rounds with Tyson?”

  “I suppose that’s accurate.” Playing along was easier than talking about reality.

  “But would it be Tyson now, or Tyson when he was still a boxer?” She fiddled with my blankets, smoothing the white cotton over my toes.

  I stared at a faint scar on the back of her hand and wondered how many times she’d burned herself serving coffee. “Does it really matter?”

  “It might.” She stepped away from the bed and pulled up a chair, never once dropping the façade. “He’s pretty out of shape these days.”

  “I’ll bet he could still do some damage.” Damage? Could anything do more damage than the one-two punch life had just dealt me?

  “Right. That’s why he’s doing The Hangover Six or whatever.” Natalie blew out a breath and fixed her eyes on mine. “Wanna tell me how you really feel?”

  I avoided Natalie’s question and focused on anything but her attempt to strip my soul bare. The faded blue wallpaper did nothing to dispel the depressing mood of the sparse hospital room. Neither did the drab curtains or the Motel 6 artwork screwed into the wall. “Like someone just ripped what was left of my heart from my chest.”

  “Oh, sweetie.” Natalie grabbed my hand in hers and gave it a gentle squeeze, careful to avoid the tubes and wires.

  I pulled my hand back, and my gaze followed the path of the clear tubing all the way to the bag of fluid hanging on the rack beside the bed. A slow and steady drip fell into the tube, leaving a chill in its wake. I hated hospitals—hated the smell, the dim lights, the generic walls—and the reminder of the lives lost within them. Not even a week ago, David had lain cold and still on a gurney in this very building.

  I pulled my attention from the blank wall and shook off the memory. “No one will tell me what happened, but I can feel the loss. I know the… I know I lost it.” My lips refused to form the word baby.

  “I should have Ben come back in to talk to you.” Natalie jumped out of the chair as if it had bitten her.

  “Ben?”

  “Yeah, Dr. Hudson. He’s one of my coffee customers. He was on duty last night. He took care of you.” Pity oozed from her expression. “You thought he was David.”

  I threw my arm over my face. I wasn’t sure whether I should be humiliated or heartbroken. I’d wanted him to be David. So much.

  “Don’t worry about it. I’ll go get him.” Natalie patted my shoulder then left the room.

  I timed the seconds by the monitor, beeping softly along with the cadence of my heart.

  “How’s our patient today?” The doctor approached the bed—the man who, other than coloring and build, didn’t resemble my husband much at all.

  Natalie trailed behind him, avoiding eye contact.

  “I’m fine.” I may never be fine again. I’d lost my baby. David’s baby. “How long have I been here?”

  “You came in yesterday.” The doctor pulled his stethoscope from around his neck and pressed the cold disk to my chest. “Deep breath.”

  I sucked in as much air as I could then let it out.

  “Again.”

  I did as he asked and waited while he listened.

  He tucked the instrument around his neck and ran his warm fingers over my tender abdomen. “Are you experiencing any pain?”

  Pain? When was the last time I wasn’t experiencing pain. My heart couldn’t tell the difference between internal and external misery anymore. “A little.”

  “On a scale of one to ten…”

  “If you mean physical pain, I guess a six.” As far as emotional pain, I couldn’t count that high.

  Natalie pointed at me as if she’d caught me stealing muffins from behind her counter. “She said she felt like she’d gone five rounds with Tyson.”

  “Five rounds? Really?” The doctor’s eyebrows shot up. “You’d go that long? I’d probably take a dive after one.” He flashed the same sympathetic smile I’d seen on too many faces in the past several days.

  “Well, I wasn’t being literal.” I wanted everyone to stop trying so damn hard. Stop making jokes to lighten the situation. Just stop.

  He tilted his head to the side the way David did—as if he were trying to read my mind or crack some impossible code—and I had to pull my eyes from his face. I couldn’t allow myself to imagine he was someone he wasn’t. I tried to sit up but changed my mind when a searing pain erupted in my midsection.

  “Are you sure it’s just a six? Your face is telling me it’s closer to an eight.”

  I’d take an eight if it would distract me from the twelve working
its way through my heart. “Just tell me already. Get it over with, like pulling off a Band-Aid. Stop trying to protect me from the truth.”

  He shifted his weight and stared at the floor for a moment before locking his eyes with mine. “You’re right. You deserve the truth. I’m very sorry, Alex, but you had a miscarriage. You’re lucky Natalie got you here so quickly. Had you waited any longer, we might have lost you too.”

  I barked out a hollow laugh. Would that really have been so awful? “Well, I guess I owe my life to Natalie… and you. Thank you.” It seemed to be the appropriate thing to say.

  “I want to keep monitoring you for another hour or two, but as long as your vitals stay where they are, you should be able to go home today. Is there anyone we can call?”

  “No.” I stared at the plastic hospital-issue bracelet circling my wrist. “There’s no one. Not anymore.”

  “What about your parents?” Natalie asked.

  “They just went home.” Was it only yesterday? “And they worry about me too much as it is.”

  The doctor’s brow furrowed as he jotted notes on my chart. “I’d really feel better if someone were at home with you. You’ll have a difficult time getting around for a few days. And you lost a lot of blood. We need to make sure you don’t hemorrhage again.”

  “I can stay with her.” Natalie took my hand and squeezed.

  “No. You have the coffee shop. I’ll be fine by myself, really,” I said.

  “Don’t be a martyr. I’ll just get Rachel to work a few extra shifts. It’ll be fine.”

  I shook my head hard enough to see stars. I just wanted—no, needed to be alone. The tiny fissures beneath the surface of my soul were spreading like cracks in the ice, and it would only be a matter of time before I fell through. “I can’t let you do that.”

  “Quit being difficult, Alex.” Natalie held her hand up to halt my next thought. “You’re not doing this on your own, whether you like it or not. Just accept it.”