Wraith

by Edie Claire

  I gulped. "Was she… I mean, did he hit her?"

  The doctor smiled crookedly. He cocked his head in the direction of a small flower arrangement which sat near the window. "No, he didn't. Though the poor woman feels so guilty I imagine she wishes he had. She sent those flowers herself. She's been calling almost every day to check up on him."

  At least someone has, I thought. But I was glad the woman was all right. Zane had worried about her; he would be happy to hear it.

  I would be happy to tell him.

  "What kind of injuries—" I asked haltingly, unable to talk coherently, for all my racing thoughts. "I mean, besides the coma, does he have… broken bones? "

  "Surprisingly few, for a crash so violent," the doctor answered. "What could have proved fatal—and would have, in nearly anybody else—were his internal injuries. He lost a tremendous amount of blood at the scene, before he could be removed from the car."

  I winced. Unwelcome images shot through my mind, an involuntary moan escaped my lips. I squeezed the limp hand firmly in mine.

  "He suffered head injuries as well," the doctor continued, "which is why none us were surprised by the coma—at least at first."

  The doctor cleared his throat. "The truth is, Miss Thompson, that almost no one on that trauma team expected this young man to come out of the ER alive. The fact that he kept on breathing… well… it says a lot about him."

  I allowed myself a smile. Anyone could tell how much Zane loved life. I had always believed that. No matter how bad things got.

  "But what happened next was a bit of mystery," the doctor added, invading my reverie.

  I looked up at him questioningly.

  "Once he survived the initial assault, all that remained was to keep on healing," the doctor explained. "All signs were that his body was doing great. But when he should have regained consciousness, he didn't, and none of us could figure out why. This boy fought like a tiger to live—but then he wouldn't come back to us."

  The doctor sighed. "Some of my colleagues would laugh at me for saying this, but I don't believe his failure to thrive had anything to do with our medicine—or lack thereof. Never in my life have I dealt with a patient this young who didn't have a single person at his bedside. We found out he had no family, but still, a kid like this—I figured he had to have friends. There had to be somebody who cared about him. But we couldn't find a soul. And I think that matters.

  "So I had the staff talk to him. Put it in the orders and everything. I wanted them to encourage him, tell him he was missed and wanted, urge him to wake up."

  The doctor chuckled a little. "Of course, I found out just now we were all calling him by the wrong name, weren't we? I'm sure that didn't help. But maybe it wouldn't have mattered anyway. What patients who survive coma tell us is that what did matter was their loved ones. They hear their voices; they know they're there. They feel loved, and it gives them something to live for."

  A strangled sob rose in my throat. I'm so sorry, Zane, I pleaded, clutching his hand tighter still. I didn't know…

  "At the worst of it, his brain activity was nearly stagnant," the doctor continued, leaning over to extract a tissue from the bedside, then extending it to me. "He just wasn't with us at all, and I was beginning to believe he didn't want to be. But then something happened."

  I blew my nose. The doctor's tone had changed. "What happened?" I asked.

  He shrugged. "I haven't the faintest idea. We weren't doing a thing differently on our end. He got moved to long-term, but his treatment was the same. He still didn't have a single visitor. But the nurses thought they saw something. They couldn't quantify it—maybe his color was a little better, or his hands felt warmer. But they seemed sure he was improving, and so yesterday I ran some more tests. Sure enough, they were right. Over just the past couple days, his brain activity's got back to near normal. About as near to normal as you can get and still be in a coma. Which I'm not entirely sure he still is."

  My heart began to race again. "The last… few days?" I repeated.

  The days when he was fading…

  The doctor nodded. "Yesterday seemed to be the turning point. I've been expecting those green eyes of his to pop open any minute ever since. And now that you're here, holding his hand, looking at him like that"—he smiled at me broadly—"I believe I'd put money on it."

  I stared at the still face on the pillow. I moved my hand to feel his pulse again.

  He was coming back. All the time he had been fading away from me in Oahu, all the time that both of us had thought he was dying… he was actually growing stronger. His memories were reconnecting him—the pull he had felt was his own body, calling his spirit back into itself, trying to be whole again.

  Of course.

  The day I had met Zane on the beach, when he had seemed so solid—it was then that he was closest to death. Just like the old man, who I was sure now would get exactly what he wanted—and might have already.

  "I'll leave the two of you alone, Miss Thompson," the doctor said gently, retrieving his chart and turning away towards the door. I made no effort to hide my steadily dripping tears; he made no effort to call attention to them. "I'll tell the nurses to let you stay as long as you like."

  Once his words sunk into my already overflowing mind, I opened my mouth to thank him. But he was already gone.

  I touched Zane's hand once more to my cheek. My other hand stretched out to his face, brushing a curl from his forehead, lightly tracing the strong curve of his cheekbone, his jaw.

  I wanted desperately to kiss him. But the Sleeping Beauty imagery was just too much. Besides which, it seemed there was something vaguely wrong in taking liberties with an unconscious person.

  I contented myself with a kiss on his hand.

  I let go of him just long enough to pull up a chair, then sat where I could lean my head and shoulders on the mattress beside him, his hand cradled snug against my cheek.

  "I want you to wake up, Zane," I ordered, even as the relatively comfortable position, combined with the overwhelming emotional relief—and unmitigated joy—I now felt to the tips of my toes made my own eyelids wonderfully, contentedly heavy. "You've been playing around in your precious waves long enough, you hear me? It's time to come back to the rest of us mortals. All those things you think you did? Surfing the pipe, jumping off airplanes, heck—even managing that arabesque on a shortboard—well, guess what, my friend? They weren't real. And if you want to do them for real, you have to get your act together. Now. You've got to go that last nine yards. You've got to come back to me."

  I sniffled a little more. Then I laughed. "In fact, you have to come back to me, because I need you to teach me how to swim. You can fulfill that promise now, you know—and I'm holding you to it. In fact, I'm making you teach me how to surf."

  I cuddled farther into his side; my words became stream of consciousness. I went over every day we'd spent in Oahu, reminding him of the fun we'd had, laughing at the antics he'd been so proud of. A New Jersey boy! I thought with near hysterical giggles. Had he ever even surfed a wave more than waist high?

  I told him about my journey back—about the old man, my mother, and Tara and Kylee. I told him how much it meant to me that he'd cared enough to extract the promise—a promise I still intended to keep.

  I told him everything I could possibly think of to tell him.

  I even, I'm pretty sure, told him that I loved him.

  Then I fell asleep.

  Chapter 26

  I was vaguely aware that my back hurt. But I didn't particularly care. I knew that I was warm and safe, and that something fantastic had happened. Both the soul-wrenching sadness and the sickening fear that had weighed so heavily upon me were gone now—lifted, unshackled, flung to the winds. I toyed with the idea that I was dreaming, but my heart rejected that. Repeatedly. The warm, solid hand that I held against my cheek proved it, and I felt that hand again, for reassurance, every time my wandering, drifting brain tried to doubt.

  He is to
o real. See? He's right here.

  The cycle repeated itself, endlessly, for however long I dozed. I had no concept of the time. Time had ceased to have any meaning long ago, high over the waves of the Pacific.

  What woke me was the feather touch on my hair.

  My eyes opened. I pressed Zane's hand to my cheek for the three-thousandth time. Still there. Good.

  I started to drift away again. I felt the sensation once more. It was as if someone was lightly stroking the top of my head.

  I thought about that for a moment. Then I rose from the mattress with a jerk.

  Zane's eyes were wide open. He was looking at me.

  "Sorry," he tried to say, his voice gravelly with disuse. "Didn't mean to scare you."

  Hoarse or not, it was the most wonderful sound I'd ever heard.

  "You can go back to sleep," he insisted. "Don't let me stop you."

  "Zane," I whispered, my own voice far from steady. "You're awake."

  He looked at me for a moment, his gaze oddly studious. I found myself mildly disturbed. Something was… not quite right.

  "I've been awake," he answered.

  His gaze was piercing; his brow knitted into a frown.

  I felt a sudden bolt of terror.

  "Who are you?" he asked.

  The terror turned to paralysis. I could see it in his eyes; had seen it from the beginning.

  He didn't remember.

  "Don't get upset," he said with an effort, trying to effect the same gentle, husky tone that never failed to weaken my knees. "I'm a little fuzzy in the head, that's all. I'm sure it'll come back to me. What's your name?"

  I wasn't sure that I could speak. A part of me wanted to break down, right here, right now, pull out every hair from my head, and scream. He didn't know me. I had worried whether he truly cared or not… now I was no better than a stranger. He had come back—but not to me. He didn't know me at all.

  "Kali," I squeaked, my voice nearly as raspy as his as I mechanically spelled it out for him.

  "That’s a beautiful name," he responded, smiling. "It sounds… Hawaiian."

  His words filtered through my anguished brain, bringing with them a sudden, warm blast of sunshine.

  Déjà vu, anyone?

  My frozen heart started to beat again. I felt myself smiling back.

  It was all right. Really, it was. He might have a bit of amnesia, but he was alive. Who was I to complain if he had not come back completely unscathed? He had survived; his physical wounds would heal. That miracle alone was enough. He was still the same Zane. He would always be the same Zane.

  Whether or not he was mine.

  I realized, with sudden embarrassment, that I still held his hand captive in my own. Flustered, I returned it to his chest and released him.

  To my surprise, he lifted it—albeit unsteadily—to my face, and brushed a stray shock of curls over my shoulder.

  Bittersweet memory threatened to crush me.

  He could do it, now. He had tried so many times—

  "I'm sorry, Kali," he said slowly, arduously, turning the full force of his liquid eyes onto mine. "You do seem familiar. I just don't remember why."

  "It's okay," I said immediately, my hopes brightening a bit.

  "Why can't you swim?" he asked.

  I blinked at him stupidly.

  "Before you fell asleep," he explained, his voice still a croak. "You said I promised to teach you. Why didn't you ever learn?"

  I put a hand to my mouth, stifling the half laugh, half cry that erupted from inside me.

  He was the same Zane.

  The same.

  "You heard all that?" I stammered, disbelieving. "But I went on forever… and you didn't even know who I was!"

  He grinned at me. "I had no idea what you were talking about, true," he interrupted. "But it sounded like fun."

  In the depths of his eyes, I saw the twinkle. That same, indefinable spark of life-loving, carefree good nature that had made me love a dead guy so much it hurt.

  With an effort, he collected both my hands into his own. He held them, somewhat awkwardly, as his green eyes looked questioningly into mine.

  "Do-over?"

  ***

  Author's Note

  Wraith is my first YA novel. If enough people enjoy it, I would love to follow it up with a sequel, so if you'd like to see another, please recommend it to your friends! I'd also love to have you visit my Wraith Facebook page, where you can check out my pics of Kali's Oahu and tell me what you'd like to see happen in the next book!

  In the meantime, you might also enjoy my classic romantic suspense novels: Long Time Coming (also a ghost story, about a girl who dies in a tragic car accident shortly after her senior prom), Meant To Be (about an adoptee rediscovering memories of her lost childhood), and Borrowed Time (wherein a woman is haunted by memories of what she did one horrific night when she was seventeen). If you like your mystery with a touch of humor, check out the Leigh Koslow mystery series: Never Buried, Never Sorry, Never Preach Past Noon, Never Kissed Goodnight, and Never Tease a Siamese.

  To find out more about my books, including my comedic stage plays for youth and adults, please visit my author website or send me an email. Thanks so much for reading!