by C. R. Jane
“Jensen Reid?” The voice was firm, but kind. I lift my head up to look at the doorway. A petite brunette woman walks to the other side of the hospital bed and reaches out her hand to shake mine. “I’m Dr. Rickland. I’m one of the doctors taking care of Ariana.”
I nod. I don’t want to waste any words, any energy. I’m ready to collapse. Dr. Rickland moves further into the room. She moves smoothly, as if she’s walked the same path of tiles over and over, every single day. It’s an odd thing to notice, but I guess I’m in an odd place right now.
“I know the ER team already spoke to you earlier, but can you answer a few questions for me? We want to make sure we get a handle on what happened.”
What happened? Even I wasn’t completely sure. I open my mouth to speak, but the words don’t come. I swallow and clear my throat. “Sure.” It was all I could manage to say. She nods and takes the seat across from the foot of Ariana’s bed. She pulls a notebook from her pocket and smiles gently at me.
“You were the one who got to her first, correct?” I listen to three beeps from the machines before I answer.
“That’s correct.”
“And you started CPR and put pressure on the wounds, correct?” My mind flashes back to that moment, to when my lips touched hers. Our lips had touched a million times before, but only this time to deliver life, not affection. There had been so much blood.
“Yes.”
“Do you know who shot her?” This question had already been asked a half a dozen times. The first time it’d been asked, I had lost it on the police officer who was preventing me from getting to the hospital. I feel a little bad about that. Now that I’ve calmed down, it was slightly easier to give an answer.
“It was her ex-husband.” She nods. “Do you know why he would do that?”
I drop my head, cradling it in my hands. The moment I’d heard the shots and seen her fall had felt like a blur, a dream sequence. Holding her limp body against mine hadn’t felt real. It was a moment I couldn’t forget.
“They’re in the middle of getting a divorce. He was very abusive during their marriage and she had only recently been able to escape. He had been stalking her since she joined the tour with us. We found out last night that our band manager, Miranda Hutchins, had been helping him behind the scenes in the hope that it would scare Ariana and make her leave the tour.”
I think back to the moment when Miranda had come into the room where the police where interrogating us about Gentry. There had been mascara running down her cheeks and she had been a far cry from the perfectly put together manager that I had become accustomed to.
“I’m so sorry,” she cries as she stands in front of Tanner.
“Can we talk later? We need to finish talking to the police so we can get to the hospital,” Tanner snaps at her, trying to gently move her out of the way.
“This is all my fault,” she whispers.
“Miranda, what are you even talking about?” Tanner said. “We don’t have time for your theatrics right now.”
“I’ve been helping Ariana’s ex send her things,” she continues, still whispering, her whole-body trembling.
The whole room looks at her in shock. “What?” said Tanner with a growl. The words vomit out of her lips. On and on about how she had fallen in love with Tanner and was just trying to get rid of Ariana so he would notice her. How she hadn’t known it would go this far. How Tanner had to forgive her.
It had taken three police officers to get Tanner’s hands off Miranda’s throat.
“Do you know how long she stopped breathing for?” the doctor asks, bringing my attention back to the present.
That moment is ingrained in my mind, the moment when I felt her chest go still. I should know all the details but I’m pretty sure my brain stopped functioning when that happened.
Before I could tell her as much, she continued. “Was it as long as a commercial break? Or longer?”
I rewound my brain to the moment. I had desperately started pushing on her chest, trying to do anything I could to get her heart to start beating again, to get air in her lungs and to her brain. I remembered before that, to when I had first gotten to her. As I’d neared her, I’d seen the look of utter peace on her face, eyes open, her face relaxed. She’d looked ethereal.
I remembered bits and pieces: the screaming and shouts around me, the ambulance arriving and the paramedics trying to get to Ari, Tanner and Jesse pulling me off because I wouldn’t let go of Ari. I remembered frantically checking for a pulse even as the paramedics took her away. I remembered finally being pulled away from her and then watching as she disappeared from sight.
“Jensen.” The voice was faint, pulling me out of the memory. I whip my head to the hospital bed, but Ariana’s eyes are still closed. My name was said again, and I turn my head to the doctor, likely looking at her with renewed grief.
“It was probably less than a commercial break. Or, I don’t know.” I rub my hands through my hair in frustration. “Maybe longer? I don’t know.” The doctor regards me for a moment.
“You saved her life, Jensen.” I look at her; pen paused on the paper in her hand. “If she has any chance of making it through with any semblance of the Ariana that she was before it will be because you kept air going through her body.”
The doctor’s voice was soothing in some way, but it wasn’t the voice I wanted to hear the most. I laughed, the sound lacking warmth. “Not without help,” I said while gesturing at the ventilator that was wrapped around her face.
“She’s in a medically induced coma. We need the swelling in her body to go down to help her systems to heal.”
Despite this doctor’s words, the last doctor who was in here had already told me that brain damage is likely. They just didn’t know the extent. I tell her as much.
“‘Likely’ is not a word I like to use. It’s not very scientific, and I’m a scientist. I go on facts, not assumptions. So have some faith.”
“Faith is not very scientific either, Dr. Rickland.”
That earns a small smile from her. “No, it’s not.” She stands up and tucks her notepad into her coat pocket. “But her chest x-rays look surprisingly good for someone who was shot three times, and her blood pressure is stabilizing. The scientist in me feels optimistic at her recovery. You should too.”
She walks to the door and stops, spinning elegantly on her rubber soled shoes. “And I want an autograph after she’s up and running,” she says meaningfully before leaving.
I heave a sigh at the ridiculousness of what she just asked considering the situation, and then bring my attention back to Ariana.
She looks peaceful, with her hands resting on her chest, her red nail polish chipped. Her eyes are closed, her long lashes resting upon the pale skin that looks bruised under her eyes. There were bruises elsewhere on her body from falling to the ground, and I know that under the blanket, her torso was riddled with three bullet wounds. I didn’t know what to do with the rage that simmered just under the surface. It bubbled and spilled over, made me think, act, feel irrationally. The energy rippled through me, over and over, but there was no way to let it out. Gentry was still out there. Even if Ariana lived, he would keep coming after her until the job was done.
Five days pass like this. Jesse is in and out of the room with red-lined eyes, but Tanner stays in the waiting room. I know that I should probably go and talk to him, try to assuage the guilt he was carrying with him thanks to Miranda’s actions. Guilt that was even worse because evidently, he had been hiding from Ari and the rest of us how much Miranda had been hitting on him behind the scenes in order to try and protect Ari’s feelings.
But I didn’t have the energy.
Everything in me was dedicated to the gorgeous girl in the bed next to me. I would leave briefly to shower and grab some coffee, but other than that I stayed in a chair next to her. After all, how could I go far when she was holding my heart hostage, and had been since the day I met her?
Today I had brought a b
ox with me. It was a box that I hadn’t shown anyone. It was a box that was meant for her. I pulled off the lid and looked at the stack of letters, two hundred and sixty letters. Letters that I wrote her every week that we were apart leading up to the week before she had appeared at that concert. I had told her a lot of lies in the beginning, like that it was easy to forget her.
The letters were proof that forgetting her had been impossible. I probably would have written her letters for the rest of my life if we had never reunited. She had always been the person that I could tell my secrets to, that I could bare my soul to. Without her, I had been lost. The letters had been a way for me to pretend like she was there listening to me. They were a way for me to get my thoughts out before they overtook me.
I open a few up and read through some of them. The early letters were pained and angry. They were full of heartbroken betrayal and regret. There was one letter where the only words were the lyrics to Hate Me by Blue October. It had been one of our favorite songs and the first time I had heard it on the radio after I lost her, I was a mess for the whole day. I guess that was all I could muster to write that week.
Some of the letters raged at her. They called her all sorts of terrible names that would make her cry if she read them. I flinched when I opened one letter and saw “Bitch” written in large red letters at the top of the page. As time went on, and the pain wasn’t as fresh, I could pretend that I was just writing to her while she was away on a trip. The letters talked about what was going on, the songs that I was writing, the stupid things the guys had been up to. They were written like I was just talking to her, and they always ended with how much I missed her.
I got to the last letter that I had written her before she had stormed back into my life. I start to read it out loud even though I know she can’t hear me.
My dearest love,
It feels good to say that word. There have been very few people that I have loved in my life. But none of them have compared to what I have felt for you. I miss you every day. There’s not a moment where I’m not wishing you were here or wondering what you are doing. It’s been five years and I don’t think I’ve really lived a day of those years, not really. I’ve been stuck in the past, hoping that things will change. I’ll never tell you this, but I went home a month after you told us goodbye. I had to see you, had to make sure that you were alright. I went by your trailer and your mom answered. I asked where you were, and she went on and on about how you had run off with some guy that you had met and she hadn’t seen you since. I didn’t believe her but when I went to look in your bedroom, everything you owned was gone.
I went home and burned every picture I had of you.
I finish reading the letter with a choked voice, and then I finally look at Ariana. I grab the hand that’s not connected to the heart monitor and the iv, and I lay my forehead gently against it, finally letting all the pain of the last few days...of the last few years out as I sob. A series of beeping startles me and I quickly take a look at the heart monitor. The lines are jumping all over the place and I quickly press the call button to let the nurse know something was going on.
All of a sudden, the hand I’m gripping moves, and it almost feels like she had squeezed my hand. I look out the door anxiously, hoping that a nurse would come by soon.
“Jensen.”
My heart stops in the moment it took for me to look from the door to the bed. Ariana’s golden eyes stare back at me.
“Hi,” she whispers.
(To Be Continued)
Author’s Note
Book 2 is done! This book has been the hardest that I’ve written so far because of some health issues. But I made it through! We’re going to have a lot to cover in Book 3, but I’m so excited about the journey these characters are taking with us. Book 3 will be Tanner’s book, but it will also be about Ari’s growth. She’s come so far since the beginning and I can’t wait to see how she ends up.
I once read that authors have a theme that they use in every story. I think mine would be the question of whether the past is ever really as good as you remember. For Ari and her guys, the question is whether a high school love can translate into an adult life able to withstand the pressures of the everyday.
I think that Ari and her guys can.
I’d like to thank my Beta Team: Nichol, Caitlin, Jess, and Tiffany. They are always willing to let me bounce ideas off of them and they tell me when my teasers are too long (haha).
I’d also like to thank my Arc Team. You guys are the bomb. Your reviews literally make me tear up and I’m so thankful you are all willing to jump in and suggest my books and promo me. You are the best!
We’ve got a fantastic year ahead of us. Can’t wait to hear what you all think!
Sneak Preview
Keep reading for a sneak preview of Bound, my cowrite with Mila Young that comes out April 19, 2019.
Get your copy HERE!!
Bound
C.R. Jane and Mila Young
Chapter 1
Liar!
“I didn’t steal the money,” I whispered to Greg to avoid the customers in the diner from hearing our conversation. Biting back the fury that danced through me, I curled my hands and stuffed them into the pockets of my skirt, concealing them. How dare he accuse me of theft after I’d worked here for the past year and covered every necessary shift, stayed to midnight to close up many nights, and even cooked dishes when we were short on staff. I stared at my boss in disbelief. He may only be five foot three and sporting a shaved haircut to cover his receding hairline, but he reminded me of a bulldog with his squished nose, chubby cheeks, and downturned mouth. His brown eyes squinted in an accusatory manner.
“You were responsible for the register,” he barked, not caring who heard as he raised his voice.
My cheeks burned, and I opened my mouth to respond, but no words formed. I was the only waitress on hand today because Sandy called in sick, again, and was most likely having a full day of sex with her new boyfriend. Lucky her. The cooks couldn’t have touched the cash, so that left me.
I exhaled loudly. “I know it looks that way, but it wasn’t me. I give you my word, Greg. You know I wouldn’t do that to you.” I wished he’d installed cameras as I suggested months ago.
Greg huffed, his shoulders rising and falling. “The lost money will come out of your wage.”
“No!” I reached out for him, but he batted me away, scrunching his nose as if I were no better than a fly.
“That’s fucking wrong, man,” Cherry’s voice came behind me, slicing through the tension. My best friend meant well, but this would only go sour and fast.
I turned toward her and shook my head, mouthing the word, don’t.
She ignored me and climbed out of the nearby booth located right behind the register, and strolled toward us in her stilettos, “She’s innocent until proven guilty. So you can’t dock her pay without evidence.”
Greg stood tall, his hands gripping his wide hips, his name badge sitting at an angle across his heart, and the corners of his lips twitched. “My diner. My rules. You don’t like it, both of you can leave.” His voice climbed and the diner had fallen silent, listening to our argument.
“Well,” Cherry began but I stepped in front of her.
“It’s fine.” My heart raced at losing my job when I was already living paycheck to paycheck. “I’ll cover the missing money.”
Cherry exhaled loudly behind me, while Greg grinned.
“That was never a question.” He turned and marched into the back office.
“Fucking ass,” Cherry murmured and snatched my elbow before dragging me to sit in the cushioned booth. “He can kiss my ass, that dick is lucky to have you working for him.” She pushed over her half eaten vegetable fries and I helped myself, deciding I might as well drown my sorrows in food. But the food wasn’t sitting well in my stomach when worry churned through me. It also didn’t help that I remembered how real french fries tasted, and this “healthier” version couldn’t comp
are.
“I’ll lose half my pay, and after paying rent, I’ll have nothing left to live off this month.” I looked outside the diner window to the blue sky, dotted with clouds, and the encroaching storm, rolling closer. Grandma had always warned me that thunder was an omen, but I’d never given much weight to such supernatural tales. Not when my life was work, earn enough to pay my rent, and save enough for a car. But now, I had my doubts I’d ever get ahead. My intentions weren’t to work at the Cinnamon Diner forever. I took the job twelve months ago as a quick fix until I found something that paid better. But this town rarely had opportunities and if they did, they filled up fast. A quick glance over my shoulder, and Greg was back at the till, shaking his head, counting the money again. Asshole. As if I’d steal the money. He probably took it and forgot.
I pop two more fries into my mouth and regretted it at once as my stomach riled up.
“Are we still on for tonight?” Cherry said, examining her long red nails nonchalantly that she obsessively wore as a tribute to her name.
My birthday. Right. It was easy to forget about things like that with how my life had been going lately. Or maybe it was how the world seemed to be going lately. Every since they had taken over. Staring out at the sky again, I saw a jet fly by, a long electronic sign shooting out from behind it reminding us all about registration, as if we could forget.
