“Jess . . . Jess.” She coughed. Her lungs were on fire. Her chest was burning. “Jess, Darren’s still on the phone, you have to. . .” Then she realized she was gripping Jess’ phone. She held it like her hand was a vise, and it was the first time she realized her hand was clamped down so tight on the phone that her fingers were stiffening. “Oh . . . never mind. I’ve got. . .” She looked over at Jess. She was staring out the window toward the ocean with her head resting on the head rest. How the hell had they actually managed to land upright? “Jess? Jess?”
“Bailey!” She lifted the phone to her ear, realizing again that she’d still not responded to his screaming. She could hear sirens now, and the voices from outside the car were getting closer.
“Dare. We’re okay. I don’t know what hap—Jess?” She turned to Jess again, reaching for her hand, and when she shook her slack hand, it was as if a slow, creeping tendril of terror seized her body. It started on her skin, slowly working its way around her neck and squeezing the panic into her body as she gently shook Jess’ hand. “No . . . no,” she was whispering, and she held the phone up near her head. She could hear Darren trying to talk to her, trying to get her attention. The desperation in his voice didn’t compare to the desperation coursing through her body, and so she ignored him. “No, no, no, no.” Her voice was getting louder. It was panic. Her terror was turning to panic, blinding panic that left her gasping for air and unable to breath.
Bailey reached for her chin, pulling Jess’ face toward hers, and then she screamed. She screeched, and she fought, and she kicked, and she sobbed. Her mind started to swim in a heavy, murky sea of muck that seemed to fill her body and make her limbs heavy. This wasn’t her life. This was someone else’s life. This wasn’t happening. She started to fade, the weight of the murky muck she was drowning in was suffocating her into darkness, but even as her mind went black, she could hear Darren in the phone yelling for her, screaming in a hoarse desperation for a response. The sound of his terror mixed with the images of Jess’ lifeless, staring eyes looking at her from her blood-streaked face.
Now
“I saw Bailey.” He blurted it out at the dinner table a few weeks later. It was their routine to have Sunday dinner together either at his parents’ home thirty minutes outside Savoy or in Savoy at their favorite little hole-in-the-wall restaurant, Harry and Sally’s. All Darren ever thought of was Meg Ryan orgasming at the dinner table, and he’d never quite figured out why
the
Harry and Sally didn’t understand why it might be just a bit inappropriate to name their restaurant in such a way. But Harry didn’t even seem capable of exciting Sally, and frankly, Sally made good grits.
His mom dropped her fork, and his dad just held his breath; the vast majority of the other patrons in the quaint little restaurant stared for a moment at the loud clank of metal on porcelain, but then they returned to their own worlds, blessedly ignoring his. All Darren could think was,
Thank God he hadn’t told them what he’d done on the floor of her fucking house
. That would have earned him a hell of a lot more of a reaction than just that.
“Oh . . . well. . .” His mother, Jillian, didn’t have much more to say than that, and his father, Brent, said even less. They watched him, waiting for something more.
“A few times.”
His father cleared his throat. “So, when you called a few nights ago talking about that Attending position in Little Rock . . . I mean, is that why you’re suddenly so interested in talking to Arkansas Children’s Hospital? Didn’t they pursue you after medical school, and you rejected their offers because you wanted to be in Savoy?”
“I just think—”
“What about taking over my practice in a few years? Wasn’t that the plan?”
His father wasn’t being rude. He was just reminding Darren of the direction his life had been going until just a few weeks ago. But a few weeks ago had changed a lot of things in his mind. The first being how the hell he was going to survive his life in Savoy without going insane. The answer to that was he wasn’t. There was no chance he could keep seeing her and stay sane.
The ironic part of that conundrum was just how much he wanted to see her. It had been two and half weeks since he’d damn near fucked her brains out on the floor of her cottage before he could stop himself, and in that time, he’d not yet figured out exactly what the hell was wrong with his head. He’d fallen apart at her home. Or maybe he’d fallen apart earlier in the day at the parade when he’d come face-to-face with her. There was something about seeing her there, standing across the street staring at him. It was this bizarre reminder of just how interwoven their lives were. It might not have been the first time he’d seen her since she’d returned to Savoy, but it was the first time he’d truly understood that she wasn’t going away.
He’d almost choked seeing her in that damn T-shirt. It was like seeing
his
Bailey. The Bailey he wanted back. The Bailey who wasn’t responsible for drunk-driving his sister into an early grave. She’d been standing in his world again, merely watching a parade on the other side of the street from him. Her shoulders rubbed the shoulders of
his
people, in
his
world, in
his
existence. She wasn’t going away, and the hardest part of that was he didn’t want her to. He couldn’t handle that want. The want made him feel guilty, made him feel like a betrayal to his family. And the want felt good—good in a way he wasn’t used to anymore and that he no longer trusted.
When he felt good, it was usually followed by him waking up. It was about the only time he truly felt at peace anymore—when he was lost in dreams of a different world. Losing his sister and Bailey in one fell swoop had destroyed him, and even six years later, he was living a ghost life—unable to cope with the guilt, the anger, the utter confusion. Work was a good distraction. It was the tether that kept him anchored to his sanity, but he’d never found his happiness again, and he’d given up thinking he would—especially now.
“Things are different now. I just need—”
“Things have been different for
years
, Darren.” His mother’s voice was gentle, so perfectly gentle in the same way it had been at the hospital after the accident. Even through her own tears, she’d consoled him. None of it had mattered. He still felt guilty, he still blamed himself, and nothing his parents could say would change that. “Sometimes I feel as though I lost both my children that night. And I worry I’m never going to get you back.”
He didn’t respond. He simply looked out the window of the restaurant to the woods beyond. He’d expected resistance. Not because his parents wanted to keep him in Savoy forever, but because he knew they’d see down to the core of why he wanted to leave—better stated, why he wanted to run away. If they thought he was leaving for the right reasons, they’d support his decision, but they knew better.
“We’re meant to move past grief, Darren. Why do I feel like you’re the only one at this table who hasn’t managed that?” His father’s stern gaze met his as he looked back from the window.
He sighed, he shook his head slightly, and he gave up on the conversation. When he stood, his mother stood as well, and his father’s jaw tensed. “I have to go. I’m sorry.” He pulled his wallet from his pocket, but his father stopped him before he could fork over any cash for his meal with a terse shake of his head. He was still their child after all, and he hadn’t managed to pay for a dinner check yet. You’re never truly an adult to your parents after all.
He kissed Jillian on the cheek and nodded to Brent before he left his meal half eaten on the table and walked silently from the restaurant as their eyes followed.
Macy greeted him with a wagging tail and a slobbering mouth when he walked through his door. He set her loose to run while he paced on his back deck. And when he finally called her back inside, he collapsed onto the couch and stared at the high ceiling above. He had an overnight shift that night, and he eventually closed his eyes, determined to sleep for a while before he had to leave for the hospital.
He let his mind move to Bailey. It was both intensely and instantly satisfying and painful at the same time. The moment he let himself see her face, his body shuddered with an electric wave of emotion. He drifted to sleep imagining her smile. It didn’t exist in this world any more than his own smile did, but he knew her smile so well. When he finally fell asleep, it didn’t last.
He woke groaning and almost threw up before he could get to the bathroom, thanks to the horrifying place his brain had taken him. The vision of her smiles had turned sour fast, and his dreams had ended with her tears and pleas. He’d been looking down at her as she’d sobbed and begged him to stop. He’d used his body to invade, intimidate, and hurt hers. He’d watched as though apart from himself as he raped and tormented her, cutting his fury loose to destroy her.
Her voice pleaded, and he’d pounded until he knew her pain was severe. He’d cursed her, practically spitting his hate in her face. He didn’t need to hit her. His violent thrusts as he pinned her to the ground were all the pain he needed to inflict on her. But then she’d spoken “I love you”, whispered between his penetrations as she cried. And that’s when his eyes had flown open, and he staggered to his bathroom to leave his lunch in his toilet. He gasped for breath as he flushed his face in cold water afterward.
He had to get out of this place.
When he pulled the door open to leave, he came face-to-face with the very reason he was losing his mind, and he swallowed the sudden sour bile that was in his mouth.
“Hi.” She was just stepping onto his porch, and she looked nervous.
“What do you want?” His tone said,
Get lost
, and her gaze flitted away for a moment.
She cleared her throat, and when she looked at him again, she licked her lips. “I don’t want you to leave.”
“I have a shift at the hospital.” He brushed past her, running down the porch stairs to his car. She’d conveniently parked her bike behind his car. “See you didn’t get your license back.” His voice was an irritated mutter. She mistook the statement for an invitation to converse.
“Revoked for the time being. It’ll be reviewing in a couple years, depending on my parole status, and—”
“I don’t care. Just move it. You’re blocking me in.” He turned from her as her words still hung in the air as much as her mouth still hung open. She didn’t respond, and he looked back to her slowly.
She was staring at his feet, fighting the tears, swallowing over and over as she tried to rein in the emotion. She finally looked at him again. “I don’t want you to leave Savoy.”
He didn’t know why he suddenly couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t swallow, and his throat felt like sandpaper. And as he forced his face muscles to relax and his eyes to release the wide-eyed terror, his hands fisted at his side. He had to get away from her . . . but he wasn’t at all sure he could leave if she asked him to stay.
Six Years Before
A person hears a lot of things in the hospital, and only a small amount of it is actually meant to be heard. It was the longest and most agonizing eight hours of his life, waiting for his parents to arrive. He already knew his sister was dead, and they did too, but there were no planes to catch in Savoy, and so they had to suffer hours in the car until they could make it to Little Rock to catch a flight south.
She was brain dead. They’d explained it to him, and even if they hadn’t, he knew perfectly well what she was. The ambulance had been close to the scene, close enough in fact to make it there in time to keep her alive. Alive long enough to get her to the hospital before her heart was quiet too long, her lungs still for too long. Long enough for the organ transplant team to catch wind of the gold mine his sister had become. It was what she’d want. Another thing he didn’t need to be told but that the transplant coordinator felt the need to say anyway.
He sat by her side, listening to the machines keep her alive. He cried, he sat in a dead stupor, and he eventually stood and walked to the hallway. He was tired of looking at her. She looked too . . . alive. So incredibly alive. Head injury. Her head had slammed into the side of the passenger door as his car rolled three times before coming to settle on a rocky patch of beach. He couldn’t stand to see her like this, and so he left. He’d already heard that Bailey was going to be fine, so he needed to stay close to Jess. He sank into a bank of chairs in a small side hallway near her room, and he stared at the industrial tile floor.
The next time he looked up, it was to see a doctor standing at the counter with a man in a suit. The man had a badge on his belt, and they were looking at him. The man, a detective if Darren was guessing, was just watching him. He looked away. The detective couldn’t bring his little sister back to life, so Darren didn’t give a shit about the man.
He sat for hours. Different doctors walked in and out of Jess’ room. Darren knew some of them were transplant doctors. They were waiting for Darren’s parents to arrive, like vultures ready to pounce on the spoils. It was what Jess would want. Yes, it was, and some day he would wrap his head around the fact that these doctors intended to leave her body a hollow shell—her body that was still so alive, and yet was just a vegetable. Why vegetable? Why not a loaf of bread? A cut of spoiled meat? Vegetable just didn’t make sense.
People stared at him when they walked by, and after a while the detective returned. He was staying close. He was as much a vulture as any of them, but he stayed away from Darren. He left Darren in peace, but his focus kept shifting to Darren as though there was something to say, but he wasn’t ready to speak. The doctor walked out of the room a bit farther down the hall, and he handed the detective a slip of paper. His eyes scanned the slip before he glanced up at Darren and then back down the hall toward the door the doctor had come from.
Was it Bailey’s room? He wanted to see her; he needed her the way he always needed her when life fell apart, but she’d been driving his car, and he couldn’t figure out how to feel about that. It hurt to think she might have done something wrong to make this happen. It hurt to think she might be responsible. Not his Bailey. This couldn’t be her fault.