by R. Linda
“It’s okay. It’ll be okay,” he said, his lips barely brushing mine as he spoke. “It’s okay.” He repeated the words over and over. Our breath mingled, and our lips grazed each other, but that was it. He didn’t try to kiss me, and I didn’t try to kiss him, though I wanted to. So bad. I was content. He was reassuring. “And your parents?”
“Dead, for all I know. Haven’t heard from them since that night. Uncle Johnny refuses to acknowledge that my dad is his brother and never speaks of him.”
Nate pressed a kiss to my forehead and tucked me under his arm again.
We sat and watched the waves crashing against the shore until the breeze cooled and the sun began to set. We’d not moved or spoken for hours, each of us lost in our own thoughts, and neither wanting to let the other go. I knew this because every time I shifted positions, Nate would tighten his hold on me, bringing me closer to his warmth.
“We should go,” he said and pressed his lips to my temple.
I closed my eyes and smiled. “Not yet,” I said, making no move to leave his embrace.
“Why?” he asked, dipping his head to my shoulder again.
“Because I like where I am right now. It feels right, and I don’t want to lose this feeling,” I said honestly, because against my better judgement, I was at risk of falling for Nate Kellerman.
Nate trailed his nose across the top of my shoulder and up the curve of my neck to the sensitive spot behind my ear and whispered, “I don’t want to either.”
I was wrong. I wasn’t at risk of falling. The figurative ledge beneath my feet had already given way, and I was falling. Hard and fast. It was out of my control now, and all I could do was hope to survive.
“But,” he continued. One word, and it was like a bucket of cold water was dumped over my head. I jolted in his arms and jumped to my feet, taking a step back. “You said it yourself. We can’t do this.”
I folded my arms and nodded.
Rejection wasn’t enjoyable. At all. Even though it was right, it didn’t feel it.
Nate reached for me, his fingers gripped my hips and pulled me to him. Leaning his head against my stomach, his fingers splayed on my sides, he spoke again. “The consequences. Brody. It’s not fair to him.”
I dropped my arms and threaded my fingers into his hair. Hearing him repeat my words was like a kick in the gut. Was that how he felt when I first ended things? Letting out a frustrated breath, I knew he was right. I was right. It just wasn’t fair. No one had made me feel this way. No one had made me care this much, not even Brody. Not the way I cared for Nate. I had never wanted anyone more than I wanted him, and I just wanted to say…
“Screw the consequences.”
Nate pulled back, his head lifting to meet my gaze. His eyes were dark, calculating as he chewed on his lip, contemplating my words.
“Harper…” he warned.
“Nate.”
He pushed me back gently, releasing his grip on my waist. “I’m going to hate myself for this. You’re going to hate me too. It can’t happen. It’s not right.” He stood and picked up my bag from beside his feet.
He was wrong. I didn’t hate him. I couldn’t hate someone for doing the right thing out of love, concern, and respect for another person’s feelings. But I could up my game and make him surrender. I wordlessly slid my hand into his, entwining our fingers, and walked beside him toward the parking lot. He opened the car door for me but stopped me before I climbed in. My back was hard against the window, but Nate leaned into me, his hips pressing into mine and one arm braced against the car while the other cupped my cheek.
“Thank you,” he murmured. “For trusting me and telling me your story.”
And then…
He kissed me.
I gripped his shirt and pulled him closer, but his mouth remained closed. Clamped shut. There was no movement. His tongue stayed firmly behind his lips. It was nothing more than his mouth on mine. It was a kiss that said everything. A kiss that said he wanted to kiss me but couldn’t. A kiss that said we were more than friends when we couldn’t be. A kiss that said he wanted me as much as I did him, but it could never happen. A kiss that said we were just friends, when neither of us wanted that. It was a kiss that felt like the end before it even began.
“Let’s go…friend,” he said and stepped back to let me in the car.
We drove in silence all the way back home, my lips aching and tingling to feel his again. My fingers tangled with his and rested on his knee. My heart held firmly in his tight fist clenching the steering wheel.
Chapter Eleven
Nate
I stumbled into the kitchen to make coffee. My eyes were dry, scratchy, and burning, and my lids were heavy. I was exhausted. Lack of sleep did that to a person.
“What the hell, man? You’re a wreck,” Brody said as he threw the paper down on the table on Monday morning.
I ran my hands over my face and fumbled with the coffee machine. I didn’t want to talk about it. I was tired, cranky, and needed coffee.
“What’s going on?” he pressed and came over to put his breakfast dishes in the sink.
“I didn’t sleep well last night.” I grabbed a mug from the cupboard and almost dropped it.
“It wasn’t just last night. Was it?” Brody leaned against the counter and watched me.
“What do you mean?”
“Thin walls. I hear you tossing and turning at night, when you get up for a drink, when you watch TV. I hear everything, and you’ve been doing this for a week now.”
I shrugged. So, I hadn’t slept in a week. Big deal. I’d sleep when I was ready.
“You see it, don’t you?”
“Hmm?” I tried to sound vague as I opened the fridge for the milk, act like I didn’t know what he was talking about, when in reality I did, and he was right.
“The fire. Audrey. Hear the screams.” His voice was quiet, distant, thick with emotion. He saw it too.
“Yeah.” I cursed and punched the fridge. “Every time I close my damn eyes. I can’t sleep. I don’t want to. I always end up back in that house.”
“I get it. I do. You need to talk to someone, though.”
“I’m seeing a therapist. Not allowed back at work until she deems me fit for duty.”
“Good.”
“Seen her twice already. And it’s just making it worse.”
“Keep going. You’re not going to be fit for duty until you get some sleep.”
Brody folded his arms and looked at me curiously as I finished making my coffee. I wondered how he seemed so calm and mostly unaffected by the whole thing. He was sleeping, eating, drinking like normal. I was living on coffee and sugar to keep myself from crashing.
“I’m going to see her today,” he said softly. “I need to.”
“Who?”
He hesitated. “Audrey.”
My eyes widened, and I stared at him. He wasn’t serious. “Why?”
“I need to see for myself that she’ll be okay.” He paused and gauged my reaction. “You should come with me. It might help.”
“No.” I slammed my coffee cup down on the bench, pulling my hand away when the hot liquid splashed over my skin. I was fine. I didn’t need to see her.
I ran the cold water over the burning. Nothing compared to what Audrey was feeling. The pain. The helplessness. I couldn’t see her. I couldn’t walk into that hospital room and see her bandaged from head to toe, unable to move, unable to speak from the pain. I couldn’t do it.
“If I had just got there sooner, she might have been okay.” I didn’t even realise I’d said the words until Brody clapped his hand on my shoulder.
“Don’t do this. You can’t blame yourself. There’s nothing you could have done. If someone had called it in earlier, you might have got there sooner. If the air conditioner didn’t have a fault, it never would have happened. You didn’t do this.”
He was right. Rationally, I knew he was. It wasn’t my fault. I did everything I could, but it wasn’t enoug
h. No one could have predicted a fire would break out. But it didn’t change the fact that there was a young girl lying in a hospital bed, with third degree burns to sixty percent of her body, who’d just lost her entire family in an instant. I couldn’t imagine going through something like that. I didn’t want to.
My thoughts drifted to Harper. Again. Like they had multiple times a day since I saw her last week. Harper had had a tough upbringing. Her family life was a nightmare, but she survived. She was strong. Independent. Happy…enough. She didn’t let what her parents did, what happened to her brother, destroy her. It didn’t send her spiralling out of control. She made something of her life.
And maybe Audrey would too.
“Okay. I’ll come,” I told Brody before I’d even really made up my mind to go with him. Just once. Just to convince myself that if nothing else good came of that day, at least we saved one girl.
***
I hated the smell of hospitals. They reeked of sickness and death. And the sterile white…everything did nothing to make it better. I followed Brody down the hall. Monitors beeped in every room we passed. Nurses rushed from one place to another as Brody came to a stop outside a closed door.
My steps slowed, gradually pulling farther and farther from Brody, until he turned around and noticed I wasn’t behind him any longer, that I was leaning against the wall, staring at the ceiling. The two-and-a-half-hour drive to the city hadn’t prepared me enough to see her. Not yet.
“Want me to go in first?” he asked. Geez, I felt like such a wimp. Man up, Nate, and get in there. It can’t be that bad.
“Nah, I’ll go.”
Taking a deep breath, I followed Brody into the room and stopped at the edge of the bed. The first thing I noticed wasn’t the girl completely covered in bandages. It wasn’t the machines, or the tubes attached to her. It was the emptiness of the room. No flowers. No teddy bears. No balloons. Not even a single get well card.
I rubbed a hand over my chest to ease the ache that occurred the moment I realised this girl truly had no one. Where was her family? The aunts and uncles? Grandparents? Cousins? Her friends? Why hadn’t anyone been to visit? Not even a god damn neighbour? No…but they were all out on the street watching as the house burnt down around her.
Brody was silent as he pulled up a chair and sat beside the bed. His head in his hands, he whispered, “I feel helpless.”
I nodded. There were no words for this situation. This girl was all alone. She had nothing.
“I’ll be back,” I said, taking a step back and almost tripping on my own feet.
“Where—” I was out of there and running down the hall before Brody could finish asking his question.
I wasn’t losing the plot. I wasn’t running from the room, or my fear, or my guilt. I was on a mission. I needed to do something for this girl. For Audrey. I needed to show her it would be okay, and she wouldn’t be alone.
I followed the blue signs on the walls until I came across the gift shop. The woman behind the counter stared at me in shock when I asked for the teddy bear behind her. It was four feet tall and about two feet wide. I grabbed flowers, not knowing anything about Audrey. I just picked four bunches of the most colourful flowers in the store. Balloons, two more small teddy bears, and a pink and purple blanket—not that she needed it, but it would make the room feel less like a hospital when she woke up.
I could barely carry it all back to the room, needing to stop every so often to readjust everything in my arms so I didn’t drop it.
I finally made it back to Audrey’s room and nudged the door open with my foot. Brody almost fell off his chair when he saw me walk in with my arms loaded.
“What are you doing?”
“Look at this room. It’s empty.” I shook my head sadly and handed Brody the flowers so I could put the bears down. “I can’t let her wake up alone and in pain to nothing.”
Brody clenched his jaw and swallowed. If I wasn’t mistaken, I’d have even said his eyes glazed over before he cleared his throat and stood. “Right. Good. I’ll just go and find something to put these in.”
He walked out and left me alone to stare at the girl. She was asleep. On so many medications. They didn’t want her to wake, not until she started healing. I wondered what would happen when she woke. Would she remember what happened? Would she block it out like Harper had? Did she have any family anywhere? Where would she go? The thought of her having absolutely no one and getting lost in the system didn’t sit well with me. It wasn’t fair.
Brody returned a few minutes later with four jugs of water to put the flowers in.
“Where is everyone?” I asked him.
“What do you mean?”
“Her friends and family.”
Brody tucked his hands into his pockets and dropped his head. “As far as they know, there is no one. She has no other family. They have no one to contact.”
“How can that be?”
“I don’t know.”
We sat silently for a few minutes just watching her sleep. At least her room finally looked as though someone cared and wanted to be there for her. I’d hate for her to wake up to an empty room and realise no one had been to see her.
“Ready to go?” Brody asked.
“Yeah.” It was getting to me then. I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. She was consuming my thoughts, and that was the last thing I needed, since she already plagued my dreams so much I couldn’t sleep.
We didn’t speak much on the way home. The weight of what we’d seen settled on our shoulders.
“We have to help her,” Brody said.
“How?”
“I don’t know, but like you said, the thought of the girl waking up alone and scared and in pain isn’t right…I’m going back. I’ll keep visiting her and try to find out whatever I can about her situation, see if there’s anything we could do.” He nodded as though he was talking himself into it.
I wasn’t sure I could handle seeing her all the time. The guilt would gnaw away at me and destroy me.
“Hungry?”
I shook my head, the same time my stomach rumbled.
“I’ll take that as a yes.” He laughed, and against my weak protests, pulled into the roadhouse. The last place I wanted to visit.
It was late. We’d been gone most of the afternoon, and the sun had well and truly set. I hesitated, not wanting to get out of the car in case I saw Harper. The chances were pretty high. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to see her. I did. I just didn’t want to see her around Brody. Things were awkward enough as it was after last week.
“Dude?” Brody called to me when I sat frozen in the front seat.
Rolling my eyes, I got out and followed him inside the empty diner. Julie was behind the counter like always.
“You boys take a seat. Food won’t be long.”
“Thanks, Julie,” I said and wandered over to a booth. It was pretty bad that we didn’t even have to order anymore. We walked in, and she fed us.
“How’d you go with the ice machine?” Brody asked, spinning the salt shaker on the table.
“What?” I frowned in confusion.
“Julie wanted you to look at the ice machine last week.”
“Oh, yeah…” I snapped my fingers and pointed at him. “That’s right. Uh, nothing. False alarm. It was fine.”
Brody narrowed his eyes at me. I thought it was a good lie.
“What?”
“Nothing.” He smiled up at Julie when she delivered our food.
Halfway through eating, Brody’s phone rang.
“Damn. I gotta get this…Hello? Yeah. Really?” He listened as the caller spoke. “Okay. No, that’s great.” Another pause. “Yeah, I’ll bring her down. Thanks, man.” He hung up and wiped his mouth clean before standing up.
I raised my eyebrows in question. Where was he going halfway through a meal?
“I, ah, gotta go. That was a buddy of mine at the police station.”
“The police station?”
&
nbsp; “I had him check into Chace after he showed up at the uni last week to harass Kenzie, and he’s got some info. I’m going to take her in to chat with him.”
“Okay, sure.” I took a sip of my chocolate milkshake that only Julie knew how to make.
“You coming?”
I went to stand but thought better of it. “No. I’m still eating.”
“You right for a lift home?”
“Yeah, I’ll be fine. I’ll call Linc.”
“All right,” he said and walked off.
I finished my meal and leaned my head against the back of the booth.
“You look like shit.” I peeled my eyes open to see Johnny standing above me with the elastic from his hairnet cutting into one eye.
“Thanks,” I grumbled and yawned. And before I could stop myself, I asked, “Harper upstairs?”
“Depends.”
“On what?”
“Whether you’re going to go up there only to tell her you can’t be friends or something stupid like that again.”
“No. I…” I couldn’t argue with him or tell him I’d never do that, because I basically told her that last week, that we needed to keep our distance. But right then, I really needed a friend, and not just any friend. I needed Harper.
“You’ve been warned.” He pulled his spatula out from nowhere and put it against my neck like a knife.
“Got it.” I raised my hands in surrender.
Johnny grunted and walked off, so I dragged my feet to the stairs that led to Harper’s room.
Chapter Twelve
Harper
The words were blurring together. Stretched out on my stomach on my bed, I’d been reading this stupid text for so long, I was sure my eyes would be permanently crossed. Earphones in my ears, my entire playlist had repeated twice. It was almost the end of the semester, and I had an exam on Friday to study for. I didn’t understand why our uni ran on a different schedule to most that had already finished for the year, but it did. Country towns, I guessed. I was looking forward to the break.
