“It’s okay, Wesley, you’re fine now. You’re safe.”
Wesley nodded slowly at his father then looked back at me. “I always knew you were my guardian angel.” He closed his eyes and in seconds he was out.
“He lost a large amount of blood,” the doctor told us as he inspected his patient. “And we found damage throughout his muscular system that looked as if tearing had occurred. We assume that happened somehow while he was wandering through the woods. He will be quite sore for a few days.” He straightened, evidently satisfied with his patient’s condition. “It’s a curious case. We should be grateful he made it out alive.”
***
I was asleep on the couch in Wesley’s room when my phone buzzed in my back pocket. I opened my eyes, rubbed the sleep out of them, and checked my messages.
Was that really the time? I had been asleep most of the day; it was already past three.
Adam: Everything ok? You weren’t in class today.
I smiled at the message and glanced towards the hospital bed. Wesley was sleeping soundly, his chest rising and falling, all the monitors beeping as they should be. Nothing out of the ordinary. The only thing that I could gather was that the blood loss sure took a toll on him.
Me: Yeah, Wesley had an accident I’m at the hospital.
Adam: Oh shit! Is he ok? Are you ok?
Me: Yes Adam, we are fine they are just keeping him for a few days.
Adam: You ate anything?
Me: No, been too busy to eat.
Adam: Is he resting?
Me: Yeah.
Adam: Meet me in the cafeteria in ten minutes.
I hesitated a moment, not sure if I wanted to leave Wesley. Then my stomach made an impatient grumble. There was no way I could go much longer without food. It would be fine, I could leave him with my mother for an hour.
Me: Ok.
Well, that was an odd conversation. My mother looked up at me from the book she was reading and nodded.
“Go. If he wakes up I will call you. You have to be starving.”
I threw my legs off the couch and went to the bathroom to check if I was presentable. I looked like I had been run over by a Mack truck. My sweater was torn from running through the trees, and my eyes were a deep blue, so another explanation about contacts would be in order. That would be fun. I smoothed my hair back and washed my face before taking one last look at Wesley and leaving the room.
***
Adam was standing outside the cafeteria when I came sauntering up. He smiled when he saw me, but concern was written all over his face. He gave me a hug when I got close enough. I wasn’t one who usually liked hugs but his was warm and friendly.
“So glad you’re okay,” he said, his cheek on the top of my head.
I shrugged. “Yeah. All I did was assist my mother in finding him.”
He held me out at arm’s length to inspect me.
“There’s something different about you. I just can’t put my finger on it.” He was searching my face intently, trying to figure it out.
“I’m an enigma. Just when you think you know me, I change,” I joked, linking my arm through his and walking into the cafeteria.
Hospital food is never the greatest. In fact, it ranks up there with school lunches. I was hungry, however, so everything looked just perfect. We got our food and sat down at a table in the corner. Adam insisted on paying even though I’d already handed my money to the cashier. He very politely exchanged my bill with his and put mine back in my pocket, a stern look on his face.
“I asked you to lunch, so I pay,” he insisted.
I was too confused to do anything but nod.
“What happened?” he asked me at the table after a few moments of silence.
“Wesley has been under a lot of stress lately. His dad says he has been sleepwalking. He wound up in the woods. Somehow he got a nasty gash on his leg and lost a lot of blood.”
I tried to make it sound like it was much less than what it really was. I mean, how was I to tell someone who has never had any contact whatsoever with the supernatural that we had been fighting vampires? Or that my mother was an angel and had incinerated four of them with just a blink of the eye and then snapped the last of them like a twig in her hand?
I just totally made my mother sound like a heavenly badass.
“That boy has everything,” Adam replied ruefully as he put down his fork. “What could he possibly be stressed about? I mean, he has the car, he has the girl. What else could he want?”
“I can be quite stressful,” I joked.
“Naw, I don’t see that. You’re far from stressful. Either way, I’m sorry to hear that you had such a scary night.” He took a drink. “I’m equally glad that you were able to locate him.”
“Yeah, those woods are thick, and Lord knows what’s in them.” I swallowed a bite of something that looked like mac ‘n’ cheese.
“There are rumors about those woods, actually. Stories that a hundred years ago some farmer murdered a group of women from town.” He laughed. “Of course, they’re just rumors. There is no solid proof that it ever happened.”
“I would hope that they are just rumors,” I said with a little shiver.
He eyed me, amused. “What, Weathers, are you scared of ghosts?”
I growled at him before returning to the subject in hand. “Anyway, we found Wesley in the woods. Mom called the ambulance and they brought him here.”
“He’s one lucky guy. I don’t think any of my ex-girlfriends would look for me if I went missing.” Adam shook his head and then suddenly took in a sharp breath, making me jump. “Your eyes! That’s what is different!”
“What about them?” I asked, my heart pounding. So he’d figured it out.
“They’re blue. At school the other day they were brown.”
“I wear color contacts to go with my style.” The lie came out smoothly. After telling it so many times it came naturally now.
“I knew a girl once whose eyes did that.” He was staring and I was becoming uncomfortable. “It must have been a couple of years ago now. She was at our school for a year. She started out with brown eyes, but by the end of the year they were this beautiful blue. She moved that summer. Her family was military or something, just in town to do some recruiting. I think that’s what she said.”
He was rambling, but one thing that I have learned is that people tend to ramble when there is more to a story than they are making out.
I was intrigued. Who was this girl who had eyes that changed and then mysteriously disappeared? This was something that I would have to look into. Behind every mystery is an answer.
After lunch Adam gave me another hug and told me to call him when Wesley woke up. I climbed into the elevator, my stomach feeling better after my meal. As I was hitting the button for the third floor my phone started to buzz. I reached into my pocket and pulled it out.
Mom: How much longer? Wes has been awake for a while he just didn’t want me to tell you so you could eat.
I smiled at the message. Trust my mother.
Me: In the elevator now will be up there in a few seconds.
It felt like the longest few seconds of my life getting from the ground level to the third floor. I hurried into Wesley’s room and found he was sitting up eating from a tray of food.
“How was lunch?” he asked, taking another bite.
“Great. If I’d have known you were going to wake up I would have stayed.” I walked over to the bed and he reached for my hand.
“No, no, you needed to eat. I’m fine. Your mom said Adam came up to meet you.” He put down his fork and looked at me. There was no judgment in his eyes.
“Yeah, he wanted to make sure you were okay.” I squeezed his hand gently.
“That was considerate of him. Remind me to thank him later.” Wesley smiled.
“How you feeling?” I asked, focusing the conversation back on him.
�
��Great. Even better now that you are here.”
I blushed. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.” He pulled me close to kiss me briefly on the lips until he heard my mother clearing her throat behind me. “Sorry, Mrs. Weathers.” He blushed as I broke out into laughter.
“Wesley, if I have to remind you one more time to call me Angie I’m going to force you to break up with my daughter,” my mother teased.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“So how you feeling, really?” I asked, pushing a stray strand of hair from his forehead.
“Sore.”
“They said you would be.”
He took a drink of tea. “I wish I knew what happened.”
“Well, what do you remember happening?”
My mother stirred a little in her seat.
“I had this dream. I swear I heard voices calling for me. I don’t remember talking to my father and I don’t remember going into the woods. The only thing I remember is seeing your face.” He smiled and reached up to caress my cheek.
I heard my mother’s book slam closed as she stood up and left the room. It had clearly been far more than just a dream. I said nothing to Wesley, however.
“It will all be okay again,” I told him, brushing his lips with mine.
“How did you find me? They said I was pretty far in the woods.” He raised an eyebrow.
“Luck of the draw, I suppose.”
“I think there is far more to you than mere luck.” His eyes softened as he looked at me. “How did I ever get so lucky?”
“You stalked me,” I reminded him.
“I wouldn’t call that stalking.” He kissed me again.
Chapter Sixteen: The Talk
The hospital had decided to keep Wesley for four days of observation. Apparently he was pretty traumatized by the whole ordeal and more than once woke up screaming from a dead sleep. It didn’t help matters much that his fits reopened his wound so that it had to be re-stitched. Several times the doctors threw us out of the room to calm him. It didn’t work. The only way that he would become serene again was if I lay next to him with my fingers touching his face or running through his hair. They figured his reaction to a familiar touch was what caused the nightmares to subside.
My mother and I slept at the hospital. She stayed with him during the day while I went to school. Wesley and I would do our homework together when I showed up. I would turn it in for him the next day. It was amazing how many of the teachers were willing to let us do this once they got wind that he was in the hospital.
On the fourth day my excitement mounted as the time for his release approached. Knowing that he would be home again sent a thrill through my body. It was one thing to share him with the nurses, it would be quite another to have him alone to myself again.
***
I was watching a documentary on Word War II when my phone started to ring. “Hey, Adam,” I said, quickly turning down the volume on the TV.
“Hey, Dawn. I need to talk to you for a second.” There was a momentary pause. “So, I have a date tonight with a girl I met in Branson. I need you to tell me what I need to do to not scare her off.”
I heard the car door open and then shut again in the background.
Adam was what some people might call a goody-goody. The boy had barely ever made it to first base, so him going on a date with a girl was actually a pretty big deal. I was shocked that he hadn’t dated anyone at school, and even more surprised that he had asked out a girl out who lived over an hour away. I guess it would give him time to figure out what to do on the way there.
“Already replaced me, huh?” I teased him. I had been unable to keep our planned outing due to Wesley being in the hospital.
“I could never replace you. I just need advice.”
I sighed. “Just be yourself. It’s pretty much the best thing you can do. She’ll love you.”
“You seem so sure of yourself, Venus,” he mocked.
“Well, we women are not as complicated as we appear.” I paused and looked at the clock. I had to hurry or I would be late. “Make her laugh. Don’t spend the whole night talking about you. Keep her talking about herself. If she isn’t selfish she will return the questions to you, but let her lead.”
“I hope you know that if none of this works I’m going to hold you responsible for the downfall of my love life.”
I laughed. “If your love life fails I don’t think I am to blame.”
“You just think you are so funny.” I heard the sarcasm in his voice.
“Good, because I have to get dressed for a date of my own,” I told him, walking into my bedroom and beginning to rummage through my closet.
“He’s coming home today?”
“Yeah, we’re going to sit around eating salty popcorn and watching cheesy movies.” I opted for a black corset style shirt and a black skirt.
“You lazy bitch!” Adam teased me. “I suggest getting out of the house, not finding ways of staying in it. The boy has been cooped up inside for the last week!”
“I’ve had to share him with nurses and doctors for the last four days.” I paused and pulled my black boots out from under my bed. “I really don’t want to have to share him with all the other people that are going to want to know what happened.”
“You are still a lazy bitch. Alright, well, go wow your boyfriend. I’m going to do my best not to botch my date. Again, if the advice you gave me is wrong I’m blaming you.” He sounded so serious, but I had a feeling he was just kidding with me.
“Fair enough,” I said, laughing as we hung up.
***
I was blaring old school Pantera as I pulled into Wesley’s drive that night. I turned off the car, then grabbed my phone and stuffed it in my skirt’s front pocket. I was about to round the corner to the back of the house when I heard Wesley’s voice. He was on the phone. So I did what any good girlfriend would do: I stopped and listened.
“I appreciate your concern about me, really I do. However, my girlfriend is on her way over now and I would like to be off the phone when she gets here.” He paused while the other person said something before going on. “I don’t care if you think there’s something wrong with her. You don’t know her, so how can you come up with that assumption?” He sounded pissed. “No, Miranda, listen. We broke up, what—two years ago?”
There was a muffled girly scream, the type we women produce when we are frustrated.
“If I recall, your reason for breaking it off was artistic differences.” I had the distinct feeling he made air quotes and I giggled to myself. “No, I don’t care if you think you were stupid for doing it. No, no, I’m not going to come and see you. I don’t care if you are going to school just up the road. I’m not going to come up there and spend time with you.”
There were more girly screams.
“You know what Miranda? I’m happy. I finally found the person I’m supposed to be with. I’m sorry you wasted your time getting into a school closer to me, but it’s never going to happen between us again.”
I felt bad enough hearing that much of the conversation so I coughed and came around the corner. Wesley gave me a weak smile and kissed me on my cheek.
“Seriously, let it go, okay? I have to go. Dawn is here.”
She was still talking as he hung up on her. I admit I smiled a little.
“Stupid ex-girlfriends,” he mumbled as he wrapped his arms around me. “You’d think that she would understand no the first time I said it.” He looked down at me and kissed the tip of my nose. “How you doing, babe?”
“I can’t complain, I suppose.” I smiled broadly up at him.
I found myself wondering where Melissa had seen Miranda on the night Wesley was attacked. If I had heard him correctly, his ex was at school nearby.
“I’m sure you can find something to complain about.” Wesley gave me a playful smile and I melted.
“Nope, I’m happy just being right here with yo
u.”
Good Lord, was I being sappy?
“Well, I’ve got a ton of movies upstairs and enough popcorn to put us in a coma.” He looked toward the field behind his house and then suddenly back at me.
“What is it?” I asked, turning my head to look as well.
“I thought I just saw… oh, Hell, forget about it.”
He kissed me deeply and a warm heat started taking over my body. After he released me he glanced at the tree line one last time, then led me inside, securing the lock behind him.
We entered the kitchen hand in hand. Mr. Jensen was standing at the stove, stirring a big metal pot with something bubbling inside. He looked pleased to see me.
“Dawn!” he exclaimed, coming over and giving me a big hug.
For some reason, after my mother and I found Wesley in the woods his father had become increasingly huggy. Not to mention him and my mother seeming to have become inseparable. I didn’t believe my mother would just string him along. I was sure there was something more to it. Probably something to do with Greta. Yup, that was probably it right there.
“Hello, Mr. Jensen.”
I giggled as he swung me around in a circle.
“Oh, honey, I’ve told you, it’s Greg. Your two mothers were too close for me to be just Mr. Jensen.” He put me down and patted Wesley on the back. “I’m about to head out to your place, as a matter of fact, Dawn. Your mom said she was craving some chili, so I made her some of my award-winning recipe.”
I glanced at the stove.
“And she will be happy to know that I found the sketchbook.” He patted a hard cover book and suddenly looked sad.
“Melissa home?” I asked as we turned to go.
“No, she went to my sister’s for the weekend. The place is all yours tonight.” He winked at us both. “You two are being safe, right?”
Wesley’s face instantly paled and I gave a nervous laugh. Wesley cleared his throat.
“Of course, Dad,” he stammered.
“I just want to make sure. You two are still young, with so much ahead of you. A baby could really complicate things.” He looked at me. “Has your mother talked to you about birth control?”
I swear I was about to faint. All I could do was nod.
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