by Julie Cross
She sniffled and wiped her eyes. “It’s not that … it’s just … stuff like this makes me miss you … the other you. The one who was going through the same thing as me at the same time … and then it just … makes me really sad because now I know what it was like for you … after I was gone.”
“It was awful,” I admitted. “I felt like part of me died, too.”
Courtney wiggled out of my arms, scooted back, and sat up straighter. “You’re right, Jackson, we’re here now. Let’s figure out how to make the most of it.”
I nodded slowly, and the sadness of giving up swept over me.
“But you know,” Courtney added, “Emily would never have showed you what she showed you if there were absolutely no hope of fixing it.”
“Yeah, I know.” I closed my eyes, drawing in a deep breath. I had thought of that already, but how many people would we have to lose while trying some long-shot plan that had almost no chance of success? How many hours, days, or months would we waste on this mission, whatever it was? How many days did Courtney even have left before the cancer would take her life all over again? Probably two or three months at best.
I opened my eyes again and stared at my sister, letting her see the resolve written on my face. “What’s the first 2009 thing you’d like to do?” I asked, attempting a smile.
“Go home,” she said immediately.
“You and Holly both.” I paused for a second, thinking. “Do we even know what the status of our building is and everything?”
“Dad went there early this morning,” she said. “He thought you might be there. I don’t know if it’s exactly how you remembered it in 2009 but we still live there, so…”
“Good enough for me.” I stood up and held out a hand for Courtney. She grabbed on but when I pulled her to her feet, she wobbled and nearly fell over. I caught her with one arm. Her eyes squeezed shut and she held her breath. “What’s wrong?”
Her forehead stayed tightly wrinkled and her breath came out jagged as she shook her head, then leaned against me, face pressed into the front of my T-shirt.
I shook her shoulders gently, panic hitting me again. “Courtney, tell me what’s wrong!”
I watched her fingers curl up around my shirt, gripping it tight. “Dizzy,” she sputtered. “Head … hurts…”
“Helpless” was the best word to describe how I felt in that moment. My sister had tumors all over her brain and all I could do was stand there and keep her from falling over, unable to take any of the pain away. Her head pressed harder into my chest and her hands tightened around the fistfuls of shirt locked in her grip. The pain was getting worse. “I’m gonna pick you up, okay? I’ll find someone to help.”
“Just go and come back.”
I took two seconds to think that over, recalling the image of her convulsing on the floor of the forest and decided against leaving her alone. “I’m sorry, I have to.”
She groaned as I lifted her into my arms, her eyes still shut tight. I jerked the door open and rushed into the hall, spotting Mason at the end of the corridor.
“What happened?” He was already running toward us, concern filling his face.
“Go get Dr. Melvin!”
Courtney’s fingernails dug into my chest, her hands squeezing around my shirt. Mason didn’t turn around to run toward the lab where I assumed Melvin was. Instead, he flung open a door closer to the far end of the hallway.
“Bring her in here!” he shouted, and for some reason I actually listened to him. The room was large and cold. After scanning it quickly, I recognized it as an operating room. “Set her down on the table.”
I laid Courtney down on the cold metal table and watched her curl up in a ball on her side right away. “Go get Dr. Melvin,” I snapped at Mason, who seemed to be busy digging through a supply closet.
What the hell! Is he planning on operating or something?
“He’s at Lenox Hill Hospital.” Mason snatched several bags of pills from a shelf and stood in front of Courtney.
“What the hell is he doing across town?” I blew out a frustrated breath as Courtney’s breathing got more jagged, indicating that the pain was getting even worse. “Go get my dad, then! And maybe Kendrick?”
“They’re all the way up on the ninth floor.” Mason leaned close to Courtney, pulling her hand away from her face. “How bad does it hurt? On a scale of one to ten?”
“What the fuck, Mason? Go get someone who can tell us what’s wrong with her.” I reached out to pull him away from Courtney, but he moved quickly out of reach.
Mason glanced at me for a second before returning his eyes to my sister. “Scale of one to ten?” he repeated.
“Eleven,” Courtney said with a whimper, then after attempting a deep breath, corrected her answer, “Nine … it’s a nine.”
He stepped away from the table and sifted through the bags of pills he’d removed from the closet. He took two round orange ones from a bag and held them in his fist. “Do you feel nauseous?”
Courtney gave a tiny nod and Mason looked through the bags again, removing two longer brown pills. Part of me wanted to shove him out the door and force him to get some real help but the fact that he seemed to have some kind of specific plan caused me to stay rooted to my spot near Courtney’s feet as I gripped her ankle, wanting to stay connected as long as possible.
Mason found a paper cup and filled it with water before lifting Courtney’s head and getting her to swallow four pills at once.
“You better know what the fuck you’re doing,” I said as the pills entered her system.
Mason ignored me and began digging in a drawer, removing two tennis balls and a package of those hospital footie socks. He stuffed the tennis balls into the sock and then tied it tight at the end. When he put them on the operating table and then laid his hands on my sister to roll her onto her back, I almost yanked him away from her. But curiosity stopped me. I had no idea what the hell he was doing but it seemed like something very specific. The sock of tennis balls rested behind her neck. He lifted one of her hands, massaging the space between her thumb and index finger. His other hand landed on her forehead and he turned to glance at me. “There’s a red button behind the door. It should set off your dad’s cell phone and tell him to come down here.”
I stared at him in disbelief. “Now you tell me.”
After the red button had been pushed, I returned to holding Courtney’s ankle while Mason massaged both her forehead and hand at the same time.
“The pain meds are sixty percent muscle relaxers,” he said gently to Courtney, using such an intimate tone that it caused my anger to spike. “If you can do some of that relaxing on your own, you’ll get some instant relief. Mind over matter, right?”
Courtney visibly tried to relax and the wrinkles in her forehead smoothed out.
“Good, just like that.” Mason’s fingers continued to move over her face. “This is what Dr. Melvin meant last night when he said you needed to take the pain meds all the time. You have to stay on top of it or it’s not going to be tolerable, okay?”
“Dr. Melvin examined her last night?” I asked.
Mason nodded, his eyes staying on Courtney. “He did an FMRI, too, in order to see the progress.”
“And…?”
Courtney inhaled and then slowly released the air from her lungs before saying, “Two months.”
I suddenly felt dizzy and disoriented hearing the truth spoken so bluntly. And seeing Mason holding it together, calm and in control, not even hesitating for a second at the idea of getting close to Courtney. As much as it killed me to admit it, Mason couldn’t really be held to the label I’d given him—hormonal flirt with the sole mission of getting in my sister’s pants. Because honestly, who would do that with a girl who only had two months to live?
Unfortunately, my desire to kick his ass hadn’t faded a bit.
He pressed more firmly into the space between her thumb and index finger. “Better?”
Courtney took a few breaths and then sighed
with relief. Tears escaped her eyes, rolling down the sides of her face. Mason quickly wiped them away with his fingertips.
“How’s the nausea?” he asked.
“Tolerable,” Courtney whispered, lifting a hand to touch Mason’s face. “Thank you. I’ll take the pills from now on, I promise.”
“What did you give her?” I asked, deciding that I needed to acquire whatever knowledge Mason had so I could help her next time.
Mason opened his mouth to answer but the door burst open and Dad, Stewart, Kendrick, and Emily charged into the room. Mason glanced over his shoulder at them and then held a finger to his mouth. “Keep the volume down, she’s fine. Just learned an important lesson in pain management.”
Dad stalked over to the table, causing Mason to release his grip on Courtney’s hand and back away. Kendrick lifted the plastic bags one at a time, reading the labels. “You gave her forty milligrams of the oxycodone, right?”
Mason nodded.
“And the promethazine?”
“Yes,” Mason answered, rolling his eyes.
“Good boy.” Kendrick gave him a smile and then patted his head. “And the tennis ball trick, somebody got an A in home remedies.”
Dad pulled up a chair beside Courtney, taking one of her hands and squeezing the pressure point like Mason had. “Just try to relax, sweetheart,” he said. “You’ll feel better in a few minutes.” Dad glanced at me for the first time since entering the room. “Was it only pain? No seizure?”
“No seizure,” I answered. “I think she got dizzy first and then the headache.”
Courtney nodded her agreement and then wiggled her eyes open. “Dad, I want to go home.”
My hand froze around Courtney’s ankle. Kendrick still held the bag in her hand, having only zipped it halfway closed. Emily stood near the door, her eyes on me, and Mason held the paper cup of water above the garbage can, obviously distracted by this request.
Dad lifted Courtney’s hand to his face and closed his eyes briefly. “Okay.”
“Really?” Color finally started to creep into Courtney’s cheeks again. She had gone completely white since her episode started a few minutes ago. She squeezed her eyes as if hit by another wave of pain.
“Let’s wait until the medicine kicks in,” Dad said.
“She wouldn’t have to go through this if she’d let us put in a central line,” Kendrick said.
Mason glared at Kendrick. “She said she didn’t want one. Quit bringing it up.”
Kendrick just shrugged. “She also said she didn’t want pain meds last night so I thought maybe her opinions had changed after this episode.”
Courtney opened her eyes again, looking at me then Dad. “Please don’t let her put a tube in my chest … please, Dad … Jackson…?” Her look of desperation hit me right in the gut. And she and I had just established the fact that we were going to spend our time doing what we wanted to do. Not necessarily what was the best thing to do.
I cleared my throat. “It should be her choice, Dad.”
This confession would have been noble had it not been my only action since Courtney started suffering some pretty intense level-nine pain.
Dad’s gaze stayed focused on the wall behind the operating table. “Yes. It’s her choice.”
Courtney sighed with relief. “I can’t wait to sleep in my own bed.”
The entire room froze again and I figured out right then why this had happened the first time. I took a breath that cut through the silence and caused everyone to look at me. Maybe this would be my contribution since I hadn’t been able to help Courtney before.
“Courtney…” I waited for her to look at me. “Um, your room isn’t … I mean, it’s not how you remembered it. It’s not your room anymore. It’s empty now.”
Her face fell but she nodded slowly. “Right, yeah, that makes sense. But everything else is still there, right? It’s not, like, completely different?”
I attempted a smile. “It’s still home.”
* * *
“I just don’t get why you like this movie so much. It’s the most depressing story ever.” I tossed a few pieces of the popcorn Courtney had barely touched at the TV screen as poor Jack’s frozen corpse was released into the ocean.
“It’s romantic,” Courtney muttered from her spot on the couch in our TV room.
“Rose could have made room for him on top of that piece of debris. Kind of selfish of her, don’t you think?”
Courtney laughed. “You’re not even watching, are you?” She pointed at the stack of books on the coffee table and then the one currently spread across my lap.
The whole situation earlier had freaked me out so much that I asked Kendrick for some medical books to read. I didn’t know how much I could comprehend but I did have that photographic memory thing going for me. Not to mention the motivation of not allowing Mason Sterling to be more valuable to Courtney than me.
“All right. I’m taking a reading break.” I closed the book and set it on the coffee table. “What should we watch next?”
“I think I should start working through the list of movies that came out after April of 2005,” she said with a yawn. I didn’t move or speak and finally Courtney rolled her eyes at me saying, “Stop it. You said we we’re going to do bucket-list stuff so let’s get on with it and cut the crappy I’m-too-sad-to-enjoy-myself faces.”
“You’re right.” I stood up and began searching our extensive shelf of DVDs for movies released after early 2005. “Looks like we’ve got two Harry Potter movies to tackle.”
She still looked exhausted and possibly in pain but her face lit up. “Perfect.”
As I was putting the DVD in, Courtney sat up halfway, angling herself to face me. “You met Eileen, right?”
“Yeah, kind of. She took those memory drugs after so it wasn’t exactly a two-sided meeting.”
“What is she like?” She returned to curling up on her side, eyes on the TV again. “I mean, we were an experiment to her…”
“She’s different from everyone else in Tempest,” I said, thinking carefully about what words could best describe the woman who was sort of our mother. “I think she’s as selfless as Dad, and that’s saying a lot.”
Courtney pulled the blanket off the back of the couch and spread it over herself. I grabbed the ends and helped cover her feet. “I think you’re pretty selfless, too, Jackson.”
I shook my head. “Not like her. Not like Dad.”
“I bet he misses her.”
The menu screen had popped up on the TV, playing the familiar Harry Potter theme song. I hit PLAY before saying, “I know he does.”
I made it through about an hour of the movie before falling asleep sitting up, wearing nothing but gym shorts, my hair probably sticking up from the quick post-shower towel dry I had done prior to watching Titanic. I vaguely recalled Dad’s lifting a sleeping Courtney off the couch and carrying her out of the room.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
DAY 3: 2009. 2:00 A.M.
After what felt like several hours of sleeping upright in a less-than-comfortable position, I woke up when I felt the weight of someone sitting on my lap. I peeled my eyes open, secretly hoping I hadn’t dreamed the soft hair tickling my cheeks. Sure enough, Holly was seated on top of me, her mouth dangerously close to mine, one knee placed next to each of my hips.
“Hey,” she whispered. “You know, I think we should just be friends.”
My brain was too fogged with sleep to absorb the shock of this situation. I rested my hands on her lower back, feeling the exposed strip of skin above her jeans. “This is friendship? Sure, I’m in.”
My vision finally cleared enough to look into her light blue eyes and watch the mischievous smile spread across her face. “Repeat after me … Sweetheart…”
Her fingertips landed on the sides of my neck and I closed my eyes again, letting out an involuntary sigh. “Sweetheart…”
“Baby…”
“Baby,” I repeated.
�
��Honey…”
“Honey.” My hands slid higher until I reached her hair and tangled my fingers in it. “Is this a new game all the kids are playing?”
“Is this room really soundproof?” she asked, leaning in closer.
“Okay, I’m totally down with this game.” I opened my eyes again, wanting to see if she was still real. “And yeah, it’s…”
A conversation I’d had with 007 Holly came tumbling back to me right then. We had been right here on this exact couch, her feet in my lap, her eyes fighting to stay open while a movie had played on the TV.
“The surround sound is really loud,” 007 Holly had said. “Don’t the neighbors complain about the noise? It is an apartment building…”
“This room was made for media,” I had said. “It’s soundproof.”
007 Holly had lifted her head and raised an eyebrow, probably wondering if I’d taken advantage of the soundproofed space with anyone else.
The Holly currently seated on my lap also arched a blond eyebrow. “I figured out something this morning before you left my house. Things you say and certain places and objects are triggering the visions. I walked in here and I remembered the soundproofing conversation and then I thought maybe we could experiment. Since we dated, I figured you must have called me something—some corny term of endearment—but nothing triggered any memory.”
I shifted her hair to one side and rubbed the back of her neck. “I’m sorry, did you say something? I’ve lost the ability to concentrate on anything besides your current position on top of me.”
She rolled her eyes. “Grow up.”
“Unlikely.”
She laughed. “Okay, fine. I’m not really here, you’re dreaming.”
“That sounds about right.” I dropped my hands to my sides and allowed myself to get real about this odd wake-up call. “What are you doing here, Holly? I thought you were going to stay home with your mom?”
She ignored my question and her nose touched my cheek and then the side of my face, causing a shiver to run down my spine. “You must have shaved yesterday. Whatever you use to shave, I remember the smell. Aftershave or shaving cream?”
