Left Behind

by Vi Keeland

  Chapter 32

  Nikki

  I stop in the street in front of Zack’s house, bending over, hands on my knees, to catch my breath. That feeling hits me again. It’s eerie, like someone is watching me. I wipe the sweat from my forehead, pull the earbud from my ear, and scan the area, finding no one. Then I notice the blinds moving inside the house across the street. Emily’s house. I stare for a moment, but eventually the blinds still. My own fears and suspicions are definitely getting the best of me.

  Zack answers the door before I even press the doorbell. He smiles at me and grabs my hand, yanking me to him. The kiss he plants on my lips makes me forget everything else.

  “Were you able to get back into the attic after she left this morning?” Zack asks as soon as the door closes behind me.

  I nod, but say nothing, looking around.

  “No one’s home. My parents went to San Diego to visit my Aunt. They won’t be back until late tonight.”

  “Oh.”

  “Was it Long Beach Hospital?”

  “No, it was North Shore University Hospital. I googled it. It’s about twenty miles away.”

  “I know where it is.”

  “Their website said you either have to go in person and show ID to request medical records or fill out some forms and get them notarized,” I say.

  “Do you have your school ID on you?”

  “Yes.”

  “So let’s go.”

  “But…” I look down at my running gear. “I’m a sweaty mess.”

  “You look hot.”

  “I am hot. I ran fast and it’s warm out today.”

  Zack wiggles his eyebrows. “That’s not what I meant.”

  “Oh.” I blush.

  He pulls me close again. “I like you like this.”

  “With my hair falling out of my ponytail, face flush and sweat dripping from my body?”

  He nods, a dirty grin on his face. “You sweaty and flushed is my favorite look for you. It reminds me of two nights ago in your room.”

  The temperature on my already heated face rises. “You have a one track mind.”

  “Yep. All Nikki, all the time.”

  Zack kisses me again and groans. “Come on, let’s get on the road, or we won’t wind up going anywhere today.”

  ***

  We pass a sign on the highway for North Shore University Hospital and my nerves ratchet up. Zack squeezes the left hand he’s been holding since we started driving.

  “You okay?” He glances at me and then back to the road.

  It was Zack’s idea to sneak back into the attic and get the name of the hospital so I could try to get my records. He’s been incredible ever since I told him about my sister. Searching online and finding out all about California law. I don’t feel like I’m in this alone anymore. “Thank you for taking me.”

  “You don’t have to thank me. We’re in this together.”

  We park and walk to the front door hand in hand. I pause a few seconds as the motion activated front door slides open. Zack looks back. “Hey. You okay? We don’t have to do this today if you’re not ready.”

  “I know.” I blow out a stream of air. “I’m ready.”

  The security guard directs us to the Medical Records Department and we follow a series of hallways until we come to the last turn. Zack squeezes my hand reminding me he is here— each step of the way.

  “Do you think this is it?” Zack teases as we arrive at a blue door with a ridiculously huge “Medical Records” sign.

  “Maybe.” I smile and try to sound light, but it’s difficult to hide my anxiety.

  Zack pulls the door open, holding it for me to walk through first. The rusty hinges squeal a high-pitched creak, catching the attention of the gray haired older woman sitting at one of the desks. Everyone else in the large room ignores us.

  “Can I help you?” Her voice is more pleasant than I expected.

  I hesitate and Zack jumps in. “Yes, thank you. We’d like to get some medical records.”

  “Sure.” She walks to the table of forms next to us. “Fill out this blue one. I’ll also need to make a photocopy of your ID.”

  With a shaking hand, I complete the request for medical documents, dig my school identification card from my pocket and hand it to the woman. She smiles and examines it. “You were born in 1996.”

  “Yes.” I respond.

  “That would make you seventeen still, right?”

  “Yes, seventeen. I’ll be eighteen soon.”

  “I’m sorry. We can’t release your medical records unless you’re eighteen. Your parents can authorize the release of the records, if you want to have them come in?”

  Zack speaks up on my behalf. “Nikki’s parents both passed away. We were hoping to find some information in the file about her sister who was adopted. “

  The woman looks at me sadly. “I’m sorry. A guardian perhaps?”

  “Aunt Claire?” Zack turns to me and whispers doubtingly.

  I return my attention to the woman. “I don’t have anyone who can sign.” Aunt Claire has records from my birth. She obviously knows I have a sister, yet hasn’t said anything. The more time that passes, the more Mom’s warning in her letter seems real. I really hoped the warning was part of her paranoia; Aunt Claire turned out to be pretty great otherwise.

  “Have you tried Social Services down at City Hall in Long Beach? They might be able to help.”

  The woman is trying to be kind. I force a smile, but fail miserably. “I haven’t had the best experience with social services. I’ll come back when I’m eighteen.”

  The woman nods.

  “Thank you for your time,” I say.

  We’re almost out the door when her voice stops us. “Wait.” She comes to the door and extends her arm to a row of seats. “Give me a minute. I have a friend at Social Services. Let me make a call for you.” She winks and goes back to her desk to use the phone.

  A few minutes later she returns and hands me a slip of paper. “Here’s my friend’s name and number. She searched the system and you’re in there. She’s going to have your file pulled. She said it could take a few months to get the files from archives, but she’ll call you when they come in.”

  “Thank you for all your help,” Zack says warmly. “It was very nice of you to go out of your way and make that call for us.”

  “I hope you find what you’re looking for. If they don’t call, you come back after you turn eighteen and ask for Marcy. I’ll help you sort through the documents to find what you need.”

  “Thank you.”

  The woman was kind. But, nonetheless, I feel disappointed as we leave.

  Zack wraps his arm around me as we snake our way through the maze of hallways. “We’ll keep looking. There has to be something somewhere. There just has to be.” He squeezes me close.

  Just as we reach the front door, Zack stops abruptly. A handsome older man in a suit is walking towards us.

  “Zack? What are you doing here?” The man asks, friendly but a hint of concern in his voice.

  “I’m…helping a friend. But we’re done now. It was good to see you.” Zack’s words are polite, but his action is rude. He slowed, but never stopped, even though the man had clearly stopped to talk.

  “Who was that, Zack? Why did you rush us away so quickly?” I ask when we’re out of hearing distance.

  “Just a friend of my parents. Nobody important. I didn’t want to explain or answer any questions. Your business isn’t anyone else’s business.” He plants a kiss on my forehead. “Let’s go home.”

  I turn back to the front entrance as we reach the door. The man is still standing at the door, watching us.

  Chapter 33

  Zack

  Six weeks have passed since the day Nikki read the poem that bared her broken heart to the class. And I’ve made it my mission to make it up to her everyday. Each day gets better and better. Instead of finding things that I don’t like as we grow even closer, I discover more to love ab
out her. We’ve become practically inseparable the last few weeks. Even at night. The nights her Aunt works at the hospital, I stay till morning. My parents are so delirious I’m happy, they don’t even care that I don’t come home a few nights each week. Plus, I’m eighteen now.

  Although my parents may not care, her Aunt Claire would most definitely have something to say about it. I get the odd feeling she doesn’t like me, although Nikki insists she’s just overprotective. Either way, there’s no way I’m getting caught when she gets home in two hours. My alarm goes off at six and I slip out of bed, trying my best not to wake Nikki. Then I realize that she never put her shirt back on last night.

  Morning wood and the sight of her bare, beautiful breasts, and I push aside the notion that I have to let her get some rest, even though we were up half the night fooling around. Each time it gets harder and harder to stop ourselves. But at least we both know there’s relief in the not so distant future.

  We’ve agreed to wait till Valentines’ Day to be together for the first time. Nikki has no idea it was Emily’s birthday, and at first I was hesitant to think of spending the day making love to someone else. But the night she suggested it, I would have agreed to anything to keep that beautiful smile on her face.

  Lowering myself back to the bed, I crawl up her body, positioning myself over her. I kiss her neck first, until she groans, waking from her sleep without complaint. She wraps her arms around my back and her nails dig in as my mouth grazes her collarbone. A quiet moan escapes her lips and the sound makes me crazy. My kisses become more adamant, harsher, faster, more consuming. I kiss her everywhere except the place we’ve deemed off limits for now, taking my time as I make my way from the tops of her toes back to her neck.

  She groans as I hover over her, our needy body parts perfectly aligned. Wrapping her legs around my back, she pulls me even closer against her. The sensation is incredible. My hardness pushes deeply into her. I feel the throb of both our bodies, even through two layers of underwear.

  “Tell me again why we’re waiting,” I groan as I dip my tongue into her mouth with need. My fingers press into her hips, and I roll us so she’s on top. There’s something so fucking sexy about watching her take control. And she does. She kisses me and then moves down to my neck, nipping at the end of each kiss. It drives me goddamn wild. Then she moves lower. Returning the worship I’ve just extolled up and down her body, she lowers her mouth to my chest, kissing my pectoral muscles. But the position is more than I can tolerate. Her bare breasts are pushed up against my hardness and my body begins to rock into her before I even catch myself.

  “Nikki,” I breathe. She looks up at me, her eyes hooded and seductive and I know I can’t possibly last like this. Startling her, I flip her back over to her back and kiss her chastely on the lips before jumping up from the bed.

  “Zack,” she gasps, looking as dejected as I feel.

  “I have to go.” I search around frantically for my sweat pants.

  “Ugghhh…,” she groans and pulls the sheet over her head.

  I throw on my sweats, pull my t-shirt over my head and kiss her through the sheet. “I’ll call you later. Get dressed before your Aunt comes home.”

  She tosses a pillow at my back as I grab my shoes and practically run out the door.

  ***

  The mall is a place I utterly detest. Correction. The mall is a place I utterly detest…without Keller. Standing on line at the pretzel stand thirty feet away from the men’s room, I hear his voice boom through the bathroom door.

  “Corn! When did I eat corn?” he screams, his deep voice impossible not to hear.

  Every guy in front of me in line cracks up. Every girl crinkles up her nose and looks totally disgusted. He emerges a minute later, all smiles as he raises his hands above his head to display them to everyone in line. “Clean! I washed ‘em this time,” he exclaims, as if it’s a novel feat.

  I shake my head and order.

  “Dude, no wonder you don’t have a girlfriend. You’re disturbed.”

  “It’s all part of my selection process.” Keller taps his finger to his temple, indicating how smart he is.

  “I’m afraid to ask.”

  Keller smiles. “If a chick can’t laugh at my jokes, she’s not for me.” He shrugs.

  “So you’re waiting for a girl to think you’re funny, rather than disgusting?”

  “Yep,” Keller says proudly.

  I chuckle. “Great plan.”

  “I thought so.”

  “You’re going to be alone for a long time, jackass.”

  “Nikki laughs at my jokes,” he grins. “And she’s smoking hot.”

  “Stop looking at my girlfriend.”

  “What should I do, cover my eyes whenever I see her?” he goads me.

  “You know what I mean. Stop looking at her like that.”

  “I don’t think I can. She’s got some ass, man.” Keller mimes a shapely ass with his hands.

  If it was anyone else in the world, they’d be laid out on the floor right now, admitting that they are openly ogling my girlfriend. But Keller…well…he’s just Keller. So I wind up and punch him in the arm, hard enough to leave a bruise, but falling short of beating the crap out of him.

  “Oww!” Keller rubs his arm. “What did you do that for?”

  Clueless. Totally clueless. We walk the mall for another hour in search of the perfect Valentine’s Day gift for Nikki, but nothing seems to be right. We stop at the last jewelry store in the mall. The sales clerk looks perplexed when Keller asks her, with a completely straight face, if she can direct him to their lingerie department. Luckily, Keller sees some guys from the team outside of the store and I get a few minutes to look around without being kicked out of yet another store.

  “Who are you looking to buy a gift for today?” The saleswoman asks hesitantly.

  “My girlfriend.”

  “For Valentine’s Day?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Are you looking for anything in particular?”

  “No. I guess I’m just hoping something jumps out at me.”

  The young salesclerk smiles. “Tell me a little about her, maybe it will give me an idea to help point you in the right direction.”

  “She doesn’t really wear a lot of jewelry. Well, sometimes she wears these beads. But they’re not really fancy jewelry, she just wears them because they were her Mom’s.” I look around and everything just seems too formal and cold to give Nikki. “To be honest, I’m not even sure if jewelry is the right gift for her,” I admit with a defeated shrug.

  “She wears her Mom’s beads? Did her Mother pass away?”

  “Yeah, last year.”

  “Hmmm.” She looks around the store. “Maybe I have an idea.”

  She walks away for a moment and comes back with a black velvet tray. A long gold chain hangs delicately on it, a large pretty heart weighing down the bottom. She sets it down in front of me. “It’s an antique, so it’s a little different than most that you see today.” She presses something at the side of the heart and it opens. “It’s a locket. There’s room for two pictures. Maybe you could put a picture of her Mom on one side and you on the other.” She turns the heart over. “The back is inscribable, you could even write her a little note.”

  A heart to represent her favorite holiday, a place for a picture of her Mother and me and room to leave her a note. “I’ll take it.”

  Chapter 34

  Nikki

  Nervousness and excitement mix for a potent cocktail. Not unlike my limited dabbling with alcohol, this cocktail leaves me nauseous and ready to throw up. I’ll never be able to sleep tonight.

  My phone rings and I smile at the goofy selfie that comes up, indicating it’s Ashley. We took the picture on my last day in Texas. We’re both lying in the grass, our long hair splayed all around us as we look up, smiling widely for the camera. It was about one heartbeat after we snapped the shot that Ashley realized she had a huge Texas size spider crawling on her face. The
picture captured that short second where she was still smiling, yet the spider appears prominently on her check. Absolutely priceless.

  “Got any plans for Valentine’s Day?” she asks, teasing. Over the last month we’ve gone from talking twice a week to hour-long deep conversations every single day. Sometimes more than once. She knows how anxious I am about tomorrow.

  “Valentine’s Day? Nah. I was thinking maybe I’d stay in, snuggle up with a good book,” I quietly close the door to my room. Aunt Claire is home and I don’t want her overhearing my conversation with Ashley.

  “I think I might be more excited about you doing the dirty deed than you are. You sound so calm.” Every time I talk to Ash she has a different name for sex. Today’s isn’t terrible, but in the last week we’ve had makin bacon, rockin the trailer, bumping uglies and my personal favorite, one I still don’t even understand, roasting the broomstick.

  “I’m far from calm. Every morning I wake up panicked about something that could go wrong. Today I envisioned myself throwing up on him before the bacon even made it into the frying pan.” I plop down on my bed on my stomach. My face is so close to my pillow, I can smell Zack, his shampoo leaving behind a scent I’ve come to associate with him in my bed. I take a deep whiff and smile as I exhale.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Nothing,” I lie.

  “Did you just sniff something?”

  “No!”

  “Liar. What did you smell?”

  “Ugh….” I growl because she knows me so well. “My pillow,” I confess.

  “Smells like Zack?”

  “Yes, if you must know.”

  “I must.” We both laugh. Aunt Claire would definitely be upset if she knew I hadn’t washed my pillowcases in weeks. But I just can’t bear to give up the smell. It keeps me company when he slips out from my bed in the morning.