Life After (5 page)

Opening my door I look left and right, the hall appears empty. I breathe a sigh of relief and head into the living room. There’s a note taped to the refrigerator letting me
know Jenny and Andrew aren’t home. I’m not going to lie; it is a bit of a relief to be alone.

Walking into the living room I place a pillow on the couch and prop my head on it. Grabbing the remote I turn the TV on, flipping through the channels I finally find some reality show about jersey girls and hair cutting. It’s thoughtless.

Something I can watch to take my mind off my depressing thoughts. The drama on this show is amazing, who knew there was so much of it in a hair salon? While the girls on TV are pulling out each other’s hair. I find the show blurring and instead of being on the couch I’m back in the car at the accident.

Bright headlights are coming at us. “
Dad watch out!” I scream as the semi careens towards us. Knowing it inevitably is going to crash into us time seems to slow down. I hear the crunching of metal. I feel the stickiness of blood, covering me like a blanket. Why is there so much of it? Looking to the front of the car I realize there is no front. The front is smashed into the backseat. The front seat pins my leg down. My dad covered in blood, his body is mangled and lifeless. I look to my left and feel my sister brushed up against me. Her seat belt came undone and her neck is twisted at an odd angle. Her thigh is pressed against mine.   I’m about to be sick. Oh God! I’m going to be sick.   The panic takes over and it’s hard to breathe. So hard. It feels like someone is sitting on my chest. Turning my head I look out the window. Why is no one stopping to help us? “Help!” I scream into the darkness, knowing no one can hear me. “Help!” I cry again. The silence was so loud once everything stopped moving, waiting for someone to help us was the worst feeling in the world. Being stuck in the seat with no way out was one of the most unimaginable feelings of helplessness. The seatbelt was locked and there was no use hitting it because it was so mangled. Looking into the lifeless, blank eyes of my sister next to me I scream and scream, until I eventually pass out.

Strong arms grip me, holding me tightly to them and bring me back to the present. My heart is beating so very fast that it feels as if it could jump right out of my chest. I keep waiting for the
pain, when it doesn’t rebound like elastic being stretched; I struggle to open my eyes, afraid of what I will see.

For some reason I expect to be in a hospital bed
... instead, I see a tattoo covered arm, with a black bungee bracelet hanging from the wrist. Swallowing I sit up pushing my hair out of my eyes. Looking into those eyes I immediately recognize who is it and gasp. It’s the guy from the house with the green eyes. He is so utterly drop dead gorgeous that all I can do is stare at him with my mouth open. I shake my head having to do a double take because of how much he resembles Adam Levine. His eyes are such a bright green color, reminding me of grass on a spring day.  He has closely cropped black hair and so many piercings. I’ve never seen so many on one person; he must have taken out some when he was at my house. My eyes dart to the fact that he’s still holding me. I’m somewhat, no not somewhat…I’m shocked that it doesn’t even dawn on me until a few minutes have passed that I don’t even really know this person, other than his name and that he’s hot. He could be a serial killer or something. Okay I supposed he isn’t a serial killer I mean they usually wouldn’t bother comforting someone but seriously you never know. Gosh Hadley you watch way too many scary movies.

Avery arches an eyebrow, shooting me a dubious glare. “You think I’m a serial killer?”

Blinking I look at him and realize oh Jesus, I said the serial killer part out loud. Awkwardly I avert my eyes and glance at the TV trying to kill the awkwardness. It doesn’t. “No, I was actually just thinking that and you threw me off balance after I woke up and sometimes I say thinks I’m thinking out loud instead of keep them in my head.”

Okay, so this isn’t embarrassing at all.

Looking at him swallowing my embarrassment, “You helped me when I needed it so, you’ve proven you’re one of the good guys.” I mutter, hoping that’s enough for him to leave the room.

Clearing my throat I surf through the channels but his eyes are still on me. Reaching to grab my crutches, thinking to myself
If he doesn’t leave me alone so I can face my embarrassment by myself I’ll just leave, I end up almost falling face first into his lap. Jesus. Why can’t I do anything right? Face burning bright red I make another attempt to grab my crutches and fail a second time. This is beyond extremely embarrassing. I go from being able to do anything to being reliant on crutches unable to freaking walk without falling. Maybe I should hope he is a serial killer so he could put me out of my misery.

Huffing I sit down giving up on leaving the room and getting away from him. His mouth turns up
, “I could assume the same thing about you, but I caught you earlier at breakfast and well we met at your house. You’re Hadley and you’re living here now because–”

I cut him off with a smirk. “We both know why I’m here and I don’t want to talk about it.”

He looks at me like I’ve grown a third head, holding up his hands out in front of him he looks at me sadly. “Got it, lips are sealed.” He makes a locking motion with his hands over his lips. Great, just what I don’t want, his pity. Groaning, I decide to stay put since I’m unable to go anywhere fast. Turning back to the TV, I try and ignore him the best I can. Unfortunately, he doesn’t make that easy. He won’t leave me in peace. I can acutely feel how close we are to each other. I can smell his cologne and it smells so good. Why do guys always smell really good?

I want to move closer to smell it but that would be very weird, although I think I may have already passed the weirdness factor for the day, sniffing him might put me on his crazy list.
Pausing the show I tap my fingers on the remote. “Okay, I can’t do this anymore. Tell me about yourself or something to get this awkwardness gone.” Glancing over at him chagrined I add, “Please.”

He stretches out his legs and puts them on the coffee table shoes and all crossing feet and puts his hands behind his head.

“Comfy?” I ask him drolly while crossing my arms over my chest.

Nodding he grabs the remote and starts flipping through channels.

“Okay, I’m Averdeen Pope, but you can call me Avery, Aberdeen’s a family name and not one I really shout out that I have. I’m nineteen and I’ve been living here for about a year.  Andrew’s my brother. I’m going to school to be an EMT and I work at a coffee shop part time. Um what else? This is random but I like to fish, I know I don’t look like one of those guys that fish but I take it pretty seriously.”

I scrunch my nose up. Up until last week I had barely seen Jenny, and I didn’t know about Andrew. “You’ll have to forgive me for thinking the worst of you. I’m not myself lately. And thanks for catching me…earlier

“You really think I look like a serial killer?”

I shrug lifting myself up onto the crutches and head to the kitchen.  Leaning on the counter I cover my face with my hands.
Gosh, I’m so flustered I can’t believe I talked to him that way. Grabbing a soda from the fridge I open the cabinet looking for a cup and find all of them on the top shelf.

Hearing footsteps behind me, a
well defined tattooed arm crosses my vision and pulls down two glasses, I shiver at his close proximity. At five feet I’m vertically challenged; add the crutches and this may as well be an Olympic sport. 

Clenching my fist I
hold back hitting the counter, I’ve embarrassed myself back in the living room and wanted to get away from Avery but he had to follow me into the kitchen. I’m not incapable of getting a drink or a glass. Not that he would know that since I’m like a bumbling idiot around him, but whatever. The point is I am not an invalid.

Avery opens the fridge and pulls out the
soda and pours it into both glasses, gently pushing one glance my direction... I’m still standing there like an idiot with my mouth hanging open trying to think of something to say anything for that matter. Taking the glass I thank him begrudgingly. “Look, I’m sorry for being rude. That’s not me at all. I haven’t been myself lately but my mama didn’t raise someone that acts like that and she would be disappointed in me today.”

He shrugs, “It’s no biggie. I get it.”

“You do?”

Nodding, he joins me, leaning against the counter and doing a once over of my features. 

“You have no idea.” He grimaces and we stand there in awkward silence. “So do you want to talk about why you were screaming?”

Looking away I squirm. What I really want to say is,
Hell no I don’t want to talk about it,
however I refrain, biting my tongue, hard.

“Look I appreciate you trying to help but I don’t want to talk about it period.” There I went again from zero to bitch in ten seconds flat, Geez Hadley chill the heck out. Twirling my ice in the cup and watching it swirl it gives me a minute to gather my thoughts. “So what’s up all the black?”

He seems flustered and I can’t help but feel triumphant. Good. Take that. Now you know how I feel, it makes me somewhat proud of myself that I turned the questions off of myself. After taking a drink he takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly.

“Black is a good color.”

I was the rub the smugness off his face, or mimic him. “If you’re nineteen why did you move in with your brother instead of getting an apartment?”

“I had my reasons and they might be closer to yours than you realize,” he says, his tone resembling frost on a windshield. “If the Spanish inquisition’s over I have things to do today.”

Obviously I pushed some of his buttons. Putting the glass in the sink he tells me he’s going out to the garage..

Before he leaves, I call, “Hey Superman? Thanks for all the saves by the way.”

He stops in his tracks and whirls, cocking his head to the side and grinning.  “Superman?”

I can’t help the heat shading my cheeks. “Yeah you’ve saved me like three times now. You should get some frequent saver thing in the mail soon or something.”

Laughing he averts his attention to the ceiling.  “It’s all part of the job, sweetheart, all part of the job. Thanks mostly to the performance you put on before I did the saving, most of my saves are boring.” He winked, turning on his heel before I could pipe up with a retort. Damn him for getting the last word.

Pouring my drink in the sink I watch as the dark
liquid goes down the drain and head back to my quiet bedroom. My stomach tightens knowing my pills are in there and no one is in the house to care how many I take. Except Avery, who would most likely show up with his cape on and Heimlich maneuver them out of me.

Shutting the door I run my hands over the covers of my bed smoothing them out. I grab my mom’s pillow and hold on to it for dear life as I inhale the sc
ent. I take in the silence and let my memories run through my brain. Reaching over I pick up the pill bottle and lay there with it. Gripping the orange bottle tightly in my hand I open the bottle and stare at them and pour them into my hand gripping the small white pills tightly I lift my fist containing them to my mouth and close my eyes. Opening my hand the pills rain down on my face, my mouth staying shut. Curling up I clench my hand around the empty bottle and fall asleep.

Several hours’ later Jenny walks in letting me know that dinner is ready and if I want to eat I better go now.
Sitting up and stretching I feel little rocks under my hand lifting my hand up I realize they are pills and not rocks. Oh Crap. Hurriedly I scoop them up from the various places they landed on the comforter and thank God that Jenny didn’t walk in and see the scattered pills. Taking a deep breath I take a few minutes to compose myself before heading out to dinner.

While at dinner I learn
I’ll be meeting with the new doctor on Monday, to have the stitches in my face removed. Joy. Have I mentioned how much I love doctors? About as much as I would like to have a tooth removed. They start talking about Thanksgiving next week and I tune them out.

***

After dinner I walk outside to the wooden deck off the kitchen and sit down at the patio table with my notebook. Staring hard at the notebook I contemplate burning it or throwing it away, it holds so many memories. My hands are shaking as I open the book, I flip the pages until I reach the one entitled Bucket List. Staring at the list I run my fingers across the ones I completed reading the list I see all the ones I have yet to complete.  Trepidation fills me remember my dad and I were supposed to go Jet Skiing a week before they died to fulfill one of these goals. We obviously never made it there and I haven’t added to the list or even looked at it since. Breathing deeply I sit there without a sound contemplating whether to continue with the bucket list or not when I hear footsteps behind me. Twisting around I watch as Avery walks towards me oozing his own brand of masculinity in a quiet sort of way.

“Mind if I sit here
?”

My eyes widen and I shake my head quickly closing my notebook and watching as he sits down.

“So how have you been? You were kinda quiet at dinner.”