by Rachel Kane
He was talking to Marcia and his dad. Animated, describing our adventure. I guess I could have listened. Could have taken part.
I put my head against the window and watched the world fly by, my stomach full of worry.
17
Jacob
I needed a minute with Eli. Alone.
It was starting to look like that wasn’t going to happen.
The ER didn’t seem too busy, but we’d been sitting here waiting for a while. Marcia was between us, politely turning to Eli to ask him questions about himself, before turning back to me and getting personal. Pop had gone back home, after Marcia and I had both ordered him back to bed with that cough. People are sick enough in the ER without you adding to it, she’d told him.
Now she turned to me. “It’s the calm before the storm,” she said.
I made eye contact with Eli. “I’d be a hell of a lot calmer if they’d see us and let us go.”
“You know what I mean. The police are going to want to talk to you about the crash, the insurance men, reporters… You survived. Everybody’ll want a piece of your time.”
“Finally, I’ll be famous,” quipped Eli. “Maybe they’ll make a miniseries out of us.”
I started to make a joke. It’ll have to be on one of those channels that allows nudity. But I froze. I couldn’t say that in front of Marcia.
She was smiling at Eli. She seemed to like him okay. But of course she did; she had no idea what he was to me, although I’d seen her glancing over at him, questions in her eyes.
Maybe it was just because guys like Eli didn’t come to town much.
I still wished she would give us a minute alone. We had to make plans for what happened next. Shit, I didn’t even have his phone number.
(Both our phones had lit up simultaneously as the plane grew closer to town. I had several frantic messages from Marcia, while his sister had left him a single voicemail hoping he was having a good time camping.)
“Before anyone makes a movie of you,” she said to Eli, “you need to get your head examined. Literally.”
He touched the dirty bandage around his head. “You’d be surprised how many people have told me that.”
“Hey, would you do me a favor?” I asked her. The idea had just occurred to me.
“Of course, Jake.”
“I’m dragging here, and the day’s just going to keep going on. Would you get me some coffee?”
She tilted her head and gave me a sympathetic look, then a little pat on my knee. “Sure thing. Anything for you, Eli?”
“Half-caf latte with a triple vanilla shot?”
“Cream and sugar it is!”
When she was out of earshot I leaned over her seat. “I’m sorry about all this,” I said.
“What, why? She’s charming. I can totally see why you wanted to woo her.”
“Not just her…all of it. All the stuff we have to do now that we’re back. I think it’s going to keep us busy for a while.”
“The real world does that. I’m not worried.” Then he peered at me. “I shouldn’t be worried, right? You haven’t changed your mind about things now that you’re back home?”
“God no. But it feels like everyone’s going to be watching us, and—”
“And you don’t want your Terrible Gay Secret to come out. That’s fine. Look—”
Before he could finish, a nurse came out. “Mr. Groom?”
Eli stood up shakily. I stood too, and helped him up, because he looked like he might fall.
“Sorry,” he said. “I guess after the adrenaline wore off…”
“It’s fine,” I said. I turned to the nurse. “Can I come with him?”
“Are you family?”
“No, but I—”
She shook her head. “Family only in the rooms. Come on back, Mr. Groom.”
I stood there alone by the chairs, watching the door close behind him.
What if they have to keep him here? That shakiness had been scary to see. But he hasn’t eaten much these past two days, maybe it’s blood sugar. Or maybe it’s the head wound. Or…
I was pacing when Marcia returned, two cups in her hand.
“Did they get him?” she asked, and I nodded.
The coffee was hot and bitter, cutting through my exhaustion, but not able to cut through my worry over Eli’s health.
Or my worry over when I’d get to talk to him next. He’d been trying to reassure me, and I knew eventually he’d come out again and we’d talk.
I slumped into the chair, my head whirling like I was the one with the injury.
“He seems like a sweet guy,” she said. “Maybe I’ll drink his coffee though, since he’s not here.”
“He’s…yeah. He saved my life, you know.”
“Did he? He doesn’t seem like the saving type.”
I wasn’t sure if there was a hidden message to her words. She wasn’t looking at me when she said it, but glancing over at the TV they had in the waiting room, the volume turned down. I realized they were showing footage of the crash.
“Holy hell,” I said.
“You’re definitely going to be busy soon. Better enjoy the quiet while it lasts. The reporters are probably on there way to the ER now.”
I need to tell you something about me and Eli.
No. Not here.
Eventually, yes. I think Marcia would be the first person I’d want to tell.
I didn’t know how she’d take it at all. Our conversations about our break-up were brief and matter of fact. Not sure she wanted to hear a lot of soul-searching from me about it. She’d accepted me back into her life as her friend…but I wasn’t sure she would accept me as part of a couple with Eli.
Later. Worry about it later.
A nurse came out, a different one. “Mr. Marks? Jacob Marks?”
I didn’t want to think about how much this was costing me. The IV bag of fluids dripping into my arm was probably a thousand dollars’ worth of salt water. Tetanus shot too. A pill for any bugs I might’ve picked up drinking the water, like there was anything unclean about that perfectly clear stream.
They looked in my eyes and ears, listened to my chest, thumped my belly. “I’m fine, I really am,” I told them. “It’s my friend I’m worried about.” But nobody would tell me anything about Eli.
“Can I walk around at least?” I asked.
The nurse looked at my IV bag. “Just lie still for a while. It won’t be too long. They want to check the x-rays before they let you go.”
I put my head back on the pillow. “I’d know if I’d broken any bones.”
Was he okay? Did it mean anything, that they wouldn’t tell me a word about him? It was probably hospital policy, but I couldn’t help worrying. This was the hospital my mom had died in. I know it was the cancer that killed her, but I’d never been able to shake the feeling that the place was dangerous. Now they had Eli and wouldn’t let me see him. What if there really was a fracture in his skull? What if there were other injuries?
I think you would’ve noticed anything else. You certainly spent enough time exploring his body.
That was true. Aside from some scrapes and bruises, I hadn’t come across anything else on him that looked like an injury.
I settled back, thinking about him on the bank of that stream, naked, sweating, hungry for me. I hadn’t felt that wanted…ever. His hands, his mouth, they were so eager for me. Even his thighs were sexy, the way he’d tightened them against my cock, the closest I had gotten to really fucking him.
Um, you might want to tone it down, unless you want all the nurses to see your big hard-on.
Chuckling quietly, I tried to clear my head of visions of Eli.
I wish I could’ve found some humor in thinking about the future, though. Back in the woods, it seemed really obvious. We’d be together, and that was that. No labels, no obligations, just seeing where things went.
How was that actually going to work here, though? With Marcia and Pop? They knew my habits, knew I was like
clockwork. They’d know the second I started doing anything different, and there would be questions I wasn’t ready to answer.
What about Eli? He’d left a troubled family situation behind, and now he was going right back into it. How was he going to manage seeing me, without it causing him a lot of problems too?
I’d never been so relieved as when the nurse and doctor came back in.
“All I can say is, if I’m ever in a plane crash, I hope you’re the one flying,” said the doc. “You’re a damn lucky man.”
“I am.”
“Nothing broken, blood panel looks good. Grab something to drink on the way home, because you’re a little dehydrated, but nothing surprising there. Any dizziness, fainting, vomiting, anything out of the ordinary, give us a call.”
Eli was waiting for me when I came back into the waiting room. A fresh new bandage encircled his head, bright white. “I’m going to have a scar,” he said happily. “I’ll look like a gangster!”
Marcia patted him on the shoulder and looked at me. “They gave him some painkillers, so…maybe no driving for Eli right now. But his sister is on her way.”
“Good old Amanda,” he said. “You know they tried to keep me here, but I told them no. I’d rather sleep in my own bed.”
I’d rather you sleep in mine, I thought, but I realized something was a little off about him right now. His pupils were tiny, for one thing. The painkillers must have been pretty strong.
So much for getting a chance to talk to him right now. I doubt he could be coherent.
The need to take care of him was so palpable it made my heart hurt. I didn’t want his sister to come. I wanted him to come home with me, I wanted to put pillows under his tired head.
When the news van arrived outside the ER, Marcia was the first one who saw it. “Damn, guys,” she said. “Life’s about to get complicated.”
“I’m ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille,” said Eli.
“No you’re not,” I told him. I grabbed his arm. “Let’s see if we can escape through the front.”
“It’s like a hostage trade,” said Eli from the back seat.
Marcia looked at him through the rearview. “Your sister texted back. She’s coming here instead of the hospital.”
We were in a motel parking lot, several blocks away from the ER. We’d passed the news van again on our way over here. I wasn’t ready to talk to anyone about this, and Eli needed rest.
A familiar car pulled into the lot, and I said, “That’s her.”
“Oh my god, Eli!” Amanda said as soon as we were all out of our cars. She gripped him tightly in her arms.
“Ow,” he said. “I’m injured. Quit that.”
She held him at arms-length and looked at him, then asked us, “Is he okay?”
“He’s loopy from the medication,” said Marcia. “But he should be fine. There are some instructions in that bag, what to look out for, when to call the ER back.”
Now Amanda looked at me. “You saved his life.”
“Nah,” I said. “That was luck.”
“If you knew anything about Eli—”
“Jake knows a lot about me,” said Eli. “For instance—”
“All right now,” I said, patting him on the shoulder. Come on man, the last thing I need is your drug-addled confession about getting it on in the woods.
“I guess I need to get him home,” she said. “But I can’t thank you enough, Jacob. I know he’s going to want to talk to you later, when he feels better.”
I’d somehow pictured us parting in a different way. Like maybe this first night, he would stay at my place, and then tomorrow morning we’d know it was almost time to get back to normal life, but we’d sleep in, holding each other. Promising that just because we had to part, it didn’t mean we were parting for long. Arranging when we’d talk next, when we’d meet, both anxious for it to be sooner than it could possibly be.
I didn’t picture it like this, with me helping Eli into his sister’s car, him waving at me sleepily once the door was closed.
With him being driven away, out of my world, leaving a gaping hole inside my heart.
“All right, big guy,” said Marcia. “Let’s get you home too.”
18
Eli
“They’re not going to start anything,” Amanda said. “I told them that if they say a fucking word about the fight, I’ll never speak to them again.”
I was staring at my stitches in her bathroom mirror. They were black and prickly, and it hurt when I touched them.
Once the pills had worn off, everything hurt.
“Do we have to see them?” I asked.
“They’re our folks. You nearly died. Yeah, I think you’ve got to see them. But it’ll be okay, I promise.”
“Can we get some more of those pills before we go?”
“Just what you need, a big addiction.” She was looking at my reflection in the mirror. “Are you okay, though? You said some things yesterday…”
I winced. “Nothing embarrassing, I hope.” I couldn’t remember much of anything after checking in to the ER. Jake’s ex had brought me a coffee, right? Why didn’t I remember drinking it?
“You asked where Jake was. If he was coming to see you.”
I walked out of the bathroom. She’d brought me a change of clothes from my apartment, and I slowly pulled my shirt over my head, careful not to touch the stitches. I wasn’t sure how to ask the next question, without giving everything away.
“And…um…what did you say?”
She laughed. “You really were out of it, weren’t you? Mom and Dad wanted to come over last night, but it was all I could do to tell them no, to let you sleep.”
If I’d said anything humiliating, she would’ve let me know, right? Amanda wasn’t the kind of sister who held back.
I couldn’t let it rest though. “What else did I say?”
“Don’t worry about it. You were out of your mind.”
“Oh god, it was awful, wasn’t it? Go ahead and tell me, I don’t want to be in suspense.”
She sat on the edge of the bed. “Well, you asked me what I thought about Jake. And I said I thought he was pretty nice, and you said something like You don’t even know.”
I swallowed. “Yeah, that sounds like the kind of thing I’d say.”
“You’re not… I mean, you don’t…”
“I’m the one with the head injury, and yet you’re the one not finishing your sentences.”
She gave me a wry but sympathetic smile. “I just don’t want you setting yourself up for heartbreak.”
One of my shoes was on the floor, but I wasn’t sure where the other one was. I looked around the room for it. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.
“Don’t be coy,” she said. “First you decide to run away from the big crisis happening, then suddenly you’re asking my opinion of Hot Pilot Guy? Come on. I’m telling you, now is not the time to throw yourself at straight boys.”
If you only knew, I thought. There was my shoe, sticking halfway out from under the bed. But when I knelt to pick it up, I suddenly felt dizzy. I sat back on the bed and tried to catch my breath.
Maybe it was the head wound talking, but I realized that if there was anyone in the world I could tell about this, it was Amanda.
The more I thought about it, the more it made sense. Hiding it from her would just be stressful and weird.
“So, about that,” I began.
“I don’t even want to know your sick fantasies. Leave the poor man alone,” she said. But I could tell she was listening closely.
“He’s not quite as straight as you might think.”
“Eli, you didn’t.”
“I did! Many many times.”
She fell back on the bed laughing. “Are you kidding me? You and him? Together?”
“He’s so hot,” I said. “I can’t even stand it. I’ve been apart from him one night, and I miss him so bad I can taste it. All I want to do is get on the phone
with him right now.”
“Okay, but slow down.”
“Oh no,” I said, “not the big sister tone.”
“You slept with him.”
“Yes, I know, I was there.”
“Eli, that was such a bad idea. Don’t get me wrong, I applaud your taste in men. But this isn’t the right time for you to be diving into something.”
“Crashing into something, technically.”
She sat up on the bed. “Be serious for a minute. Because crashing is exactly what you did. That’s traumatic, Eli. A pretty big fucking trauma, and coming right after your book bombing, and your fight with our folks. And now you’re mooning over a guy you’ve only known for a couple of days. I know you, little brother. You’re in dangerous territory.”
“I’m a big boy. I can take care of myself.”
Her eyes narrowed. “That bandage on your head says otherwise. Look, all I’m saying is, I know you. I know you like to rush into stuff. Don’t rush into anything here. You’re going to get hurt.”
“Jake’s not going to—”
“It’s not about Jake. It’s about you. You’re trying to fill up your hurt places with a shiny new boyfriend.”
I stood back up. “I can’t believe you’re doing this,” I said. “I thought you’d be happy for me.”
“I’m happy you’re alive. I’m happy you survived an experience that might’ve killed you. But no, I’m actually a little worried if you’re telling me you’re falling for a straight guy right now.”
“First off, he’s not straight—”
“Does his girlfriend know that?”
“She’s not his girlfriend—”
“Does she know she’s not his girlfriend?”
“Fuck, Amanda, I’ve got a goddamned head injury, would you stop giving me the third degree? Can’t I just like someone without there being a lot of fucking drama about it?”
She threw up her hands. “Fine. Okay. I’m sorry I pried into your business. Do whatever the fuck you want. Get hurt. I don’t care.”
