“You had your moments,” Kimberly says as she draws on my cast. “And you always defended us. No one dared attack while the machine queen was there with her icy stares.”
Machine queen. Ice princess. Robot. Without emotion, I’d been hollow. A shell of myself...
“You were worth waiting for,” Linnie tells me with a fond smile.
My thoughts jump to Mercedes. She was worth waiting for, too, and I want her back. “Have you guys spoken with Mercedes?” I can’t help but ask.
“We have. Believe it or not, she’s been nice to us,” Linnie says. “At lunch one day, Charlee Ann told Robb the world would be a better place without him, and Mercedes went off. Like, she had a legit hissy and said she and her group weren’t better than everyone else.”
He nods the entire time Linnie speaks, and even the memory seems to leave him a bit shell-shocked. “It was pretty awesome.”
Oh, Mercedes. Sister. Like me, you’ve changed. But why? She wasn’t in a coma. And even if she had been, there’s no way our minds could create the same alternate reality.
“What about Clarik?” I ask.
“You mean the brand-new slice of beefcake?” Kimberly pauses her artwork long enough to wiggle her brows.
My beefcake! “The very one.”
Linnie fans herself, but there’s a guarded look on her face. “He’s, uh, good. He’s good.”
“What’s wrong?” I insist.
“Do you have a crush on him? I’m guessing yes.” Kimberly sets the marker aside, revealing a skull and crossbones. “I think he had a crush on you, too, but...since your accident, he’s been hanging out with Mercedes.”
My stomach sinks. “Are they dating?”
Linnie licks her lips before admitting, “No one knows for sure.”
Disappointment stabs me, a quick jab, jab that leaves me bleeding on the inside. I knew things would be different when I returned, but this is... Wow. This hurts.
The old Jade wouldn’t have cared—much. She would have gone numb. What she wouldn’t do? Hurt every time she spotted Clarik and Mercedes together. But I am New Jade, and I won’t go numb. If they are together, well, I’ll just have to find a way to deal. I love them both, and I want them in my life—in whatever capacity I can get them.
We chat a little longer, until my head begins to fog and throb. Ugh. It’s time for a pain pill. Which means it’s time for a nap. I won’t be able to fight sleep any longer.
I don’t want my friends to go, but asking them to watch me sleep is too much, and creepy, so I hug everyone goodbye and settle into the covers. Giggles curls into my side.
“Planning to protect me or kill me while I’m defenseless?” I ask him.
Amid his purrs, I drift off to sleep and dream of Clarik.
* * *
Two days pass. Two days of homework and physical therapy, but the two people I most want to see never visit me.
Why are Clarik and Mercedes staying away? I know they don’t remember our time together—why would they? It never really happened. But they came to see me while I was in the hospital. Why not now, when I’m at home?
I need to make things right with Mercedes. Her friendship is a lifeline. And I want Clarik in my life. Want to hold his hand and lean against him, the way Fiona leans against my dad. I want to hug him and kiss him. I want to calm him if the rage comes—
Did I make up his background, or did he talk to me while I slept?
Most of all, I want answers.
When I’m cleared for active duty—meaning I can leave the bed for more than potty breaks and physical therapy—I perch on a bar stool at the kitchen counter while Fiona warms up hamburger casserole, and beg her to let me drive to Mercedes’s house.
“You’re still taking pain meds, honey,” she says. “You can’t drive.”
“You drive me to Mercedes’s house, then.”
“I don’t know.” She chews on her bottom lip. “I don’t want to overtax you. Let me call your dad.”
He’s currently at work, making up for the time he spent at the hospital. I don’t want to take a chance that he’ll say no. “Please, Mom. Please.”
Everything about her softens. “All right. Yes. But only if you sit down while you’re talking to her.”
“I will. I promise. Thank you, thank you, thank you.” I stand, hiding a grimace as weight settles on my foot, and close the distance. For the thousandth time since my return, I hug her. These hugs...they aren’t just for others. They help me, too. And they are like medicine to me. Better than admiration! When I’m in her arms, or my dad’s or my friends’, I’m cocooned by love.
In life, there are no guarantees about who will live long and strong and who will go early. There’s going to be loss. Loving people doesn’t make their loss unbearable; loving people just makes dealing with their loss worth it.
Fiona puts our leftovers in the fridge. “When do you want to—”
“Now,” I interject. “Please, please, please.”
She sighs. “Very well. I’ll get my keys.”
Chapter 18
If you want a different life,
you have to do something different.
—Jade Leighton,
today
Nerves threaten to get the better of me as I knock on Mercedes’s door. Nadine is still at work, but I know my sister—my hands curl into fists. She’s not my stepsister, not here. But...
We could be sisters-by-choice. I choose her. Will she choose me?
I know she’s here. Her car takes up prime real estate in the driveway.
Knock, knock. No response, but a shadow moves along the bottom door crack.
From the car, Fiona calls, “She’s not here, hon. Let’s go home, rest for a few hours, and I’ll bring you back, I promise.”
With the lift of my index finger, I ask for another minute. “Please, Mercedes.” I knock again. “I know you’re in there. What I don’t know is why you’re avoiding me now.”
Finally, the door swings open, hinges creaking. She stands before me, pale hair tangled, dark circles under her eyes. Despite the evening hour, she’s still wearing pj’s. A Star Wars tank and short set.
“Jade Leighton.” She crosses her arms over her middle. “What do you want?”
There’s no affection in her expression or tone, and the lack is like a dagger in the gut. I’d been so hopeful some part of her had grown to like me; I just hadn’t realized it until now.
“May I come in?” My heartbeat springs into a wild race. “I’d like to talk with you.”
Panic flares in her eyes, gone before I have time to wonder about its source. “Fine.” She waves me in.
With a glance over my shoulder, I tell Fiona, “I’ll text you when we’re done, if you want to go home.”
“I’ll stay here in case you need me,” she responds. “I brought a book. But don’t take too long, okay?”
Darling woman. She is a precious treasure!
Mercedes leads me into the living room, where every wall and every piece of furniture is white. There isn’t a speck of color. Everything is sleek and modern, like Nadine herself.
Mercedes plops onto the couch, where multiple bags of potato chips await. Crumbs dust the cushions around her. On the coffee table, empty soda cans are stacked in what looks to be a house.
“So.” She stretches out and palms a remote, flipping channels as if she’s alone and bored. “What do you want?”
“What’s wrong with you, Mercedes?” Concern gets the better of me. “Are you sick?”
A bitter laugh escapes her, but she never offers a reply.
Before, I might have left then and there. Actually, I never would have approached her. But this isn’t before, and I’m not the girl I used to be. I stand, limp to the coffee table, swipe the remote, switch off the TV and knock the cans to the floor. I s
it in front of her, forcing her to face me.
“Thanks a lot. You ruined an hour of hard work.” She scowls at me. “What are you doing here, Jade? Seriously.”
“You came to visit me in the hospital.”
“Yeah. So?”
“So. You care about my well-being, and you can’t deny it.”
Her gaze slides away from me. “Or,” she says with more bite, “I felt guilty that you took a hit meant for me.”
“That’s something at least.”
“Be honest. You’re here to tell me to stay away from Clarik.”
No. If they want to be together, I won’t stand in their way. I love them both too much. “I’m here for you, because I care about you, too. Because I regret telling you I didn’t want to be your friend the day you and Nadine moved out. I want to be your friend.”
Some of the animosity drains from her, and she peers at me with something akin to hope. Hope she dislodges with a single shake of her head. Her expression hardens. “I don’t like Clarik romantically. You don’t have to worry.”
“Oh, thank goodness.” The words leave me in a rush, unstoppable.
“You care about me, huh?”
Sheepish, I say, “I won’t deny I’m happy to hear you two aren’t dating, but even if the answer had been different, I would still care for you.”
“No, you wouldn’t. Not about me.” The words are thrown at me as if they are weapons. “You never have, and you never will.”
All right. Now we’re getting somewhere. Such feeling. “I should have fought to stay with you. I’d lost my mother, and I feared losing someone else I loved, so I shut down and pushed everyone away. I can’t go back and change what happened, but I can change how I act today. And today I’m here. I’m ready to fight for you and our friendship.”
“Just...screw you, Jade. I mean, why now? Huh?”
“I learned firsthand how short life can be. Learned I need to value the things I have, or I’ll lose them.”
“And you value me?”
“I do.”
Ashen, she anchors her elbows on her knees and rests her face in her upraised hands. “I have something to tell you, but I don’t want to. You’ll laugh.”
“I won’t, you have my word.”
One minutes bleeds into another, but she says nothing more.
Finally, I crack. “Tell me! I’m staying here until you do, moving in if I need to. Tell. Me. Telllllll meeeeeee. Come on, Mercedes. Woman-up. Show off your ovaries of steel. Tell me, tell me, tell me.”
She looks up, her gaze spitting fire at me. “You want to know? Fine. I... Jade, I dreamed about you. The entire time you were in a coma, I dreamed we were living a secret life. It was you and me against the whole world. A world gone Goth. Crazy, right?” A laugh that borders on hysterical fills the air. “Everyone I know and love betrayed me, except...except...”
“Me, Linnie and Kimberly,” I say softly. She was there. How? How is that possible? How was she pulled into a reality created by my unconscious mind? Unless...
No. Absolutely not. But...what if I did see my mom’s ghost before Bobby’s car hit me?
“We hated each other at first,” I say, even as a lump grows in my throat. “But things began to change when you accompanied me to my grandmother’s house.”
Her eyes are wide as saucers as she says, “Grandma Beers. How intoxicating.”
A jolt slams through me. How intoxicating. The same words she used in the CPR.
Impossible, my mind screams.
Still, I continue. “You made friends with Linnie and Kimberly. You would have made friends with Robb, but he’d died right before our arrival.”
She looks entranced as she nods. “Charlee Ann and Bobby were unkind to me. And at the end at...
“Fright Night,” we say in unison.
“He lured you into the boys’ locker room,” I say, “and stole your clothes.”
A hand flutters over her mouth. “You were there.”
Impossible...and yet probable.
“You were elected class president, and everyone adored you. You found out your mother had killed herself and—” She winces before pressing her lips together. “I’m sorry, Jade.”
I give her a nod. “It’s all right,” I repeat. “My sister helped me deal.”
“Sister,” she echoes, and a tear cascades down her cheek. “Since you woke up... I’ve been in mourning. I loved you, but I lost you again. The dreams just stopped. You weren’t my friend anymore. I couldn’t sit in your bedroom and talk to you, couldn’t lean on you.”
“You can always lean on me.”
She reaches over to take my hand, linking our fingers. Suddenly, I’m unable to speak; a sob is too busy rising from deep inside me...escaping. Then Mercedes and I are holding on to each other, both of us crying.
For some reason, my mind is flung back to the day my mom died. She sits behind the wheel of her car. Over and over she glances at me, her eyes wild, her hair a mess. But there, at the end, just before we soar over the railing, she looks at me and smiles.
“It’s going to be okay, sweetheart. Everything is going to be okay now.”
Our car hits the railing. Impact jars me, and the air is sucked from my lungs. I experience the sensation of falling, of flying...my seat belt is the only thing keeping me from dropping onto roof. I want to scream, but I don’t. Momma said everything is going to be okay, and I believe her.
Boom! Another impact, this one more forceful, accompanied by a macabre soundtrack: grinding metal and crumbling cement. My head thrashes around as if I’m a rag doll—or nothing is attached the way it’s supposed to be. I’m afraid to look down. What if my seat belt has split me in two?
Then everything goes still. My mom is lying on the dash, her head twisted so that she’s facing me. One of her eyes has been gouged out, a thin piece of metal in its place. Her clothes are ripped, and there’s blood everywhere. A metal spike protrudes from her torso. Bones protrude from her collar, her arm and both legs...one of her feet is severed.
Death isn’t beautiful. Death is ugly and horrifying. Death is loss and regret.
Death is the enemy.
Momma. Momma. I scream for her. When she doesn’t respond, I scream louder and louder, and try to fight my way free. I’m stuck. And I hurt. Oh, do I hurt. I’m cut and bruised and broken, and I’m hanging upside down, my blood dripping onto my mother, blending with hers.
At some point, though, I go still. I stop fighting. I stop crying for the mother who doesn’t respond. My mind is what split in two—the girl I used to be, and the girl I am now. The one who can look at the carnage, as if it’s a scene from a cartoon or a page from a coloring book, rather than real life.
Now, in the present, those two parts of me are reconnecting, finally weaving back together. Like a bone that’s been reset. I cry harder. My entire body shudders. The tears are so plenteous and scalding that they soon make my cheeks feel like raw meat. All the while, Mercedes clings to me, her warm breath fanning my tearstained face, silky strands of her hair tickling my overly sensitive skin.
She doesn’t tell me to be quiet, or to calm down. No, she tells me, “I’ve got you. I’ve got you, and I’m not letting go. Not ever again.” But eventually she does let go to reach for her cell phone.
At some point, Fiona comes in and hugs me. Sometime after that, hinges squeak and footsteps sound, and then...new arms wrap around me. Stronger arms. A familiar scent fills my stuffy nose. Chocolate, cinnamon and vanilla. Familiar heat envelops me.
“I’m here, Jaybird.”
Clarik? He’s here, and he remembers me, too?
I clutch the collar of his shirt and cry even harder. As strong as he is, he lifts me onto his lap smoothly, then rocks us forward and back.
I almost died before I ever had a chance to live.
When I’m too
drained to shed another tear, my burning eyes too puffy to open, my nose now too swollen to breathe, I sag against Clarik’s chest.
Mercedes tells him something in hushed tones, then leads Fiona away to the kitchen. The only words I can make out are “real” and “knows.”
His hold on me tightens. Against my ear, he says, “Jade, I dreamed of the Goth world, too.”
He did? My fingers clench and unclench before pressing against his chest. His heartbeat races in time to mine.
A memory...something he said to me after our first kiss. This feels like a dream. I don’t want to wake up.
“We dated,” he added, “and I had more fun with you than I’ve ever had with anyone else. You smiled and laughed with me, and I felt like I was king of the world.”
Maybe the CPR was more than a CPR. Wait. No maybe about it. It was. How else would Mercedes and Clarik have dreamed of me, of our time together, with details perfectly matched to my experiences...experiences that never really happened?
Clarik kisses my temple. “While you were in the coma, Mercedes and I ran into each other in the hospital. I heard her talking to you, telling you what was going on. I admitted the same thing was happening to me. After that, we met every day at lunch to discuss our dreams.”
No wonder people had assumed they were dating.
“I wanted so badly for the dreams to be real,” he says. “I was falling in love with you, Jaybird. I know, everyone is going to tell me it’s too soon, and it happened too fast. But it’s true. I love you. I love the sound of your laughter—how it was rusty at first, but by the end had become natural. I love your wit, and your capacity to forgive those who have wronged you. I love the way your eyes crinkle at the corners when you give me the smile I’ve been craving. The smile very few people get to see. I love your kindness toward a new boy at school, your willingness to help whoever needs you, even without being asked or appreciated.”
Well. The well of tears hadn’t dried up, after all. Another drop slides down my cheek. I want to tell him all the reasons I love him. And there are many. But exhaustion invades every muscle and cell in my body and I slump against him, no longer able to hold myself up in any way. Eyelids the weight of boulders close and the lights dim in my head. I drift away.
Oh My Goth Page 23
