Forgotten Promises (The Promises Series Book 2) (27 page)

THE LINE IS silent as I wait for him to speak. I can hear him breathing faintly on the other end, and my heart is in my throat as I anticipate what he’s calling about. I’ve left Brie in my room and come into my mom’s bedroom to take Ethan’s call. The moment I hit the accept button and he didn’t say anything I knew this needed to be a private conversation.

“I shouldn’t have called you,” he finally murmurs into the receiver and I can barely decipher his voice from the faint sound of the traffic behind him.

“Baby, you can always call me. What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

“I suppose, yeah…no, I’m outside the hospital. Something is going on with my dad. We were talking, well, he was talking, but then he started having trouble breathing, and the staff tossed me out of the room to work on him. I didn’t mean to call and upset you or anything; I just needed to hear your voice.”

His voice sounds so lost and I clutch at my chest; it aches so badly for him and I wish I were there to comfort him in person.

“I’m so sorry, Ethan, that’s terrible. I’m sure the doctors will be doing everything that they can. Did you get to speak with him for long?”

“Only enough time for him to tell me that he’s sorry he resents me but it’s kind of my fault. Oh, and he loves me!”

Disdain is dripping thickly from his voice and I actually feel my jaw gape.

“What? How is it your fault that he dislikes you? Oh my gosh, what an ass. I could kill him!”

The words escape me before I can register what I’ve just said. I’m a moron. Why can’t I exercise my filter like an ordinary person? Who tells their boyfriend that they could kill his dad, when he’s in a hospital, possibly dying!

He lets out a sarcastic huff. “I remind him of my real mom, that’s why he’s an asshole with me. Apparently vying for his attention when I was younger just pissed him off even more. He wanted to ignore me, and I never let him.”

Wow. How do I even respond to that and attempt to lift his spirits?

“He said that?”

“More or less. He had just enough time to tell me that he still loved me though, before he lost consciousness. I know this is bad, Princess, but I’m mad as hell he said that and it might be the last thing he gets to say to me. He has no right.”

Brie surges into the room wearing my ‘Mathlete’ t-shirt; it’s knotted at the front, underneath her boobs, displaying her whole midsection.

“This is cute, can I borrow it?” She twirls and then stops in front of Mom’s mirrored closet before she notices me trying to kill her with my eyes in the reflection.

“What?” she mouths innocently.

“Sorry, Ethan one second,” I tell him before hugging my cell to my chest so he can’t hear.

“Brie I’m on the phone!” I glare, and she stands there unmoving. “And why are you wearing my clothes?”

“It looks cute though, right? So can I borrow it?”

“Ugh…fine, yes you can borrow the shirt. Now can you please wait in my room for me? This is kind of an important call.”

“Wow, someone’s grouchy today. Missing your boy toy already?” she sings as she walks out of the room like she’s strutting down the runway for a fashion show.

“Ethan, you still there?”

“Yeah, still here. Listen, I need to go. I’ll text you later,” he says sounding distracted, or maybe annoyed. Here he is spilling his heart to me and I make him hold while Brie talks about shirts.

“I’m sorry for the interruption. Brie’s here and she just burst in. I’ve gotten rid of her now. We can carry on—”

“No, it’s fine, honestly. I need to go anyway.”

“Oh, um, yeah okay then. It doesn’t matter what time it is; I’ll be here. In case you want to call and talk some more. I love you.”

I listen to him inhale loudly before he tells me he loves me too and disconnects the call. I hate that he’s hurting, and I’m not there. I sit on the end of my mom’s bed and stare down at my screen, willing him to call back, but he doesn’t.

I walk into my room in time to see Brie flash me her thong-clad ass as she’s shimmying into an old pair of vintage Levi cut-offs. I feel like I’ve entered some weird alternate universe.

“What are you doing?”

“Oh, hey…I was bored. You know, you have some seriously cool pieces of clothing. These are awesome,” she says, jumping up and down while hiking them over her butt and fastening them.

I laugh nervously because this is just too weird.

“Do you usually go to people’s houses and try on their clothes when they’re out of the room?”

“Yeah,” she deadpans.

“Ha, okay, that shuts me up then. They were my mom’s; they’re my favorite,” I tell her motioning to the shorts.

“You’re mom’s got awesome taste.”

“Yeah, she does I suppose. She’s originally from Texas. She knows how to rock a pair of cut-offs and cowboy boots.” I smile then dig through the bottom of my closet before I pull out a pair of old tan boots.

“Please tell me that they’re an eight and that you’ll let me steal these too,” she squeals snatching the boots from me.

“Actually they’re an eight and a half, but sure, you can borrow them if you want.”

“Really? Eek! I’m totally going to pull a Daisy Duke on Jackson’s ass. He’s not gonna know what’s hit him,” she smirks and I laugh.

“Wait, are you wearing my clothes to try and get lucky with Jackson? Oh my gosh, ew! In fact, no. Do. Not. Answer. That!”

I shudder, and she swats at my arm.

“So, who was on the phone? You looked all moody and intense when I walked in. Wasn’t interrupting anything important, was I?”

“It was Ethan, and it kind of was important, yeah.”

She arches her brow no doubt waiting for me to confide in her, but it’s never going to happen, and she seems to realize this as I return her wide-eyed stare.

“Ugh, You really need to learn to gossip more,” she says, dropping my shorts and stepping out of them. I have no idea where to look. It seems that Brie is completely body confident and has no issue prancing around in her underwear in front of people.

I busy myself leafing through one of Em’s journals sitting in the box at the foot of my bed, while Brie changes back into her own clothes. I’m conscious of her jabbering away but I’ve completely tuned her out as I stare down at the purple handwriting. I didn’t think I’d ever see it again. The last things I read that Em had written were the letter and bucket list. I haven’t looked at them since the night before the accident. I’m not sure if I’ll ever be able to complete that list for her. In some ways it’s the cause of so many bad things, yet I can't help but be thankful that she wrote it. Ultimately it’s what led me to Ethan. Sure, I would have still been paired with him for his math tutoring, but if it wasn’t for the need to cross off Emily’s requests, I probably never would have gone to the party at TJ’s with him, which was the starting point to the chain of events that led to us being together.

I read the first couple of lines on the page I opened to in her journal and then slam it shut quickly. I feel like I’m intruding on something that nobody was ever meant to see. They are her thoughts, dreams, worries and aspirations. She wrote them in complete abandonment, without any intention of them seeing the light of day. I place the journal back in the box, not quite ready to read it and I feel a little more downhearted as I do. I miss Em, and there’s nothing I can do to take away the ache I feel when I think of her. I make a mental note to take some Gerberas to her grave and tell her how much I wish she were here right now.

“Who pissed on your cereal?” Brie asks, looking at me like maybe I’ve grown two heads.

“That’s an awful saying. You sound like TJ, and that is definitely not a good thing.”

“Low blow, Blair. I do not sound anything like TJ, but seriously, you look like you’re about to cry…if you don’t want to lend me the clothes, it’s fine.”

“No, it’s not that. I couldn’t care less about the clothes. I just miss Em; I went to see her parents today, and I’m in a bit of a funk, and then the phone call you walked in on with Ethan. He’s having a rough time at the moment and his dad is in a really bad way, I guess I’m just letting everything get on top of me, and I feel completely useless, which I hate.”

“You know what you need, right? You need a girls’ night. Let’s call Casey and we’ll go to the movies and catch a rom-com, then go out for ice-cream, the real stuff though, none of this low fat, frozen yogurt bullshit. I’m talking Cherry Garcia, whipped cream and chocolate sauce. Whadaya say? You in?”

“You had me at Cherry Garcia…call Casey.”

THE ONLY THING worse than having to spend time in a hospital is having to spend time in a hospital visiting with someone that you know can’t stand you, and the feeling is mutual. The doctors have managed to stabilize Dad for the time being. His lungs had filled with fluid; apparently that’s a byproduct of him having pneumonia, and no muscle control in his chest. He’s still out cold, I’m not sure if he’ll even come around again before visiting time is over. My mom’s on edge; she doesn’t know what to do or say to me and I can tell she feels horrible, it’s written across her weary drawn face. The truth is, I don’t know what to say to her, either. I feel so disconnected from everyone at the moment that I don’t even know which way is up anymore.

The call to Blair didn’t help my mood; it just made me wish I were home with her instead of here.

“Do you think he’s going to die?” I say out loud, and watch as Mom continues stirring her cheap, crappy-tasting instant coffee, the type that tastes burnt no matter how you prepare it. It’s the only stuff that they provide in the family room. She seems to be off in a world of her own, staring out into space.

“Hmm…what was that, honey?”

“I said do you think Dad is going to die?”

She sighs and looks down into her mug.

“I think that’s a strong possibility, but I don’t underestimate your father. He’s a fighter.”

Yeah, and don’t I know it. I lean back in the ratty old chair and rest my feet on the coffee table. I’m sick of this room already.

“The doctors don’t sound too hopeful that he’s going to make it through the surgery he needs. What if he does though, what do we do? Will he come home with us, or does he need to be in some sort of facility or care home? Who’ll look after him?”

I know it’s pretty shitty timing to ask, but it’s been bothering me. It’s one thing to have to exist in the same house as the asshole, but an entirely different ball game to have to become his nursemaid too.

“I haven’t thought that far ahead, Ethan. I don’t know what will happen, but we’ll figure something out. I don’t want you to be worrying about this; you’ll be off to college soon anyway, so you needn’t worry. I’ll handle everything.”

“I just don’t see how you would cope. You need to work, and you can’t be a full-time caregiver and hold down your job. You’d need to pay for someone to look after him, and that’s not cheap.”

She rubs her hands down her face and I know she’s worrying about this too.

“I know Ethan, but at the moment, we just need to focus on getting him well enough so he can go through with the surgery. Once we’ve crossed that bridge, we can worry about what happens next.”