Sift

by L. D. Davis

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Nine days. I was unconscious for almost nine full days. I woke up with a partially shaved head and some skull bling—or staples. I had the worst headache known to mankind. A broken leg. A wrist fracture. A repaired collapsed lung. Battered ribs. Scrapes. Bumps. Bruises.

  The first familiar face I saw was my mama’s. I had no idea how extensive my injuries were, or that I’d been knocked out on my ass for nine days, but I felt such relief to see my mom that tears trickled out of my eyes.

  I was in and out of consciousness, but each time I woke up, I saw someone different. Daisy. Perry. When I saw my daddy, I cried again. Even McKenzie, who had never left Augusta County before, had come for me. Cherry, of course, was there as well.

  At first, my memories were foggy, but as the fog began to lift, a disturbing thought occurred to me even as my brain struggled to make sense of anything. My thought processes were moving at the rate of a sloth.

  “Caden,” I tried to say. I had to say it three more times, with Daisy’s ear practically at my lips before she heard me. “Where’s Caden?”

  At that time, I couldn’t quite piece together why I was so worried about Caden, but I was. I was terrified that something had happened to him, too, but Daisy belayed my fears.

  “He’s fine,” Daisy said soothingly. “He’ll come see you soon—if you want to see him.”

  As I began to drift off again, I wondered, why wouldn’t I want to see him?

  I slept most of what was left of the day as if I hadn’t already slept enough to last me for years. On the tenth day, however, I was more alert and less sluggish. My memories were falling back into place bit by bit. The more I remembered, the more I wanted to go back to sleep for another nine days.

  The accident. Caden. Connor. Connor…

  No one had said anything about him, but it felt like a ghostly version of him was there in the room with me. I could almost smell him, hear his voice, feel his touch.

  I finally asked my sister.

  “Does Connor know?” My voice was dry and raspy.

  Her eyes shot over to a large bouquet of flowers on the window sill. It was the biggest bouquet in the room.

  “He knows. He sent those,” was all she said before changing the subject.

  Later, I found out that there was a standard Get Well card attached to the flowers with Connor’s name printed on it and no other message. That was the most I’d heard from him since I’d left his house, and they weren’t even really his words.

  I thought that he must have really disliked me. That the flowers were just an obligatory gift to send to the woman he broke up with hours before the accident that nearly took her life. If he still loved me, still cared for me in the slightest, he would have come in the days that I’d been unconscious.

  I held onto the hope that he would come, though. Maybe he would come.

  It was almost impossible to get any real rest that day. I was poked, prodded, assessed, and put into claustrophobic machines. I wasn’t out of the woods by any means, but my prognosis was greatly improved.

  Only two visitors were allowed in my room at a time. They took turns in ones and twos, spending hours at a time at my bedside. Perry mostly watched television, which I was thankful for. Kenzie chatted about all of the perils and delights of being a new mom as she stood near the window watching the city below with wide eyes. It was her first time in a big city. I wished that I had the energy to be excited for her.

  At the beginning of the day, I had answered the questions of the doctors and medical staff in whispers, and later in a raspy voice, I recounted what I remembered of the accident to the police, which wasn’t much. That sickening crunch of my leg breaking. Pain in my head. I didn’t remember my truck flipping over like a toy.

  At the end of the long day, with only about a half hour left in visiting hours, the last of my family left for the night. My mama only left after reassurances from Daddy and the medical staff that I would be alright. I was glad that they had been there with me, but I was so tired. So tired of pretending that I wasn’t in pain, that I didn’t feel half dead on the inside. So tired of making my bruised and stitched up face form smiles to make them feel better. It was a relief to have them gone.

  Not even two minutes after they left another figure slipped inside.

  My eyes fixed on him, moved up and down his body and back up to his red-rimmed eyes. He’d been crying, and judging by the gauntness in his cheeks and the dark smudges under his eyes, he hadn’t slept either in those nine days, or eaten.

  He approached me slowly as if he were afraid of me. When he finally reached me, he pulled a chair up close to the side of the bed and gently touched my fingers.

  “I’ve been waiting for you,” I said to Caden, I said in my hoarse voice.

  He looked surprised. “Have you?”

  “Yes. I wanted to tell you that it wasn’t your fault. I know you very well, and I know that you blame yourself. But it wasn’t your fault.”

  His head dropped into his other hand. “It was. It was my fault, Dar.” He looked up as tears threatened to spill from his eyes. “If I hadn’t been chasing you. If I hadn’t hurt you in the house. If—”

  “If a woman hadn’t been drinkin’ all day,” I cut in. “If a woman hadn’t gotten behind the wheel of her giant-ass truck despite all the public transportation available in the city. If a woman would have paid attention to any drunk drivin’ commercial or sign. If, if, if. The ifs don’t count, Caden. It wasn’t your fault.”

  I’d waited all day for him so I could tell him that. Anything could happen over the next few days. I could die. I could fall back asleep and not wake up. The last thing I wanted was for Cade to go on thinking the accident was his fault. Everything else…well, I couldn’t think about that just yet, but the actions of one drunk wasn’t his fault.

  I saw it in his eyes that he still didn’t believe me, wouldn’t even dare to try. I did my part, though. I’d taken the blame away from him. The police had taken the blame away from him. And while my family probably still didn’t like him, I didn’t think they blamed him either.

  I didn’t talk any more that night. Even though it hurt, I lifted my fingers to Caden’s head and stroked his soft, golden hair as he wept.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  A week and a half after waking up, I was allowed to leave the hospital. Getting into the apartment I shared with Cherry wasn’t possible with a busted leg, so I had to stay in a hotel with my mom until I was well enough to travel. I was going to go home to Virginia. Not because I wanted to, but because I had to. I didn’t have a choice.

  My brain, while fully functional, was still recovering from the trauma it had received in the accident. Complications could still arise, and with a busted leg, I was a fall risk. I could fall and hit my head, and it could kill me. Seizures were possible, as well as many other nasty things. I couldn’t be left alone for long periods of time and Cherry had to work—and I wouldn’t have her spending her time watching over me anyway. Even with physical therapy, it could take anywhere from several months to a year—or more—for my femur to fully heal. Until then I had no income, and the hospital bills were mounting. Since the other driver was uninsured and I was very much underinsured, those bills were no one’s responsibility but my own.

  “I make good money, Darla,” Cherry had said when I told her I’d have to return to Virginia. “I can take care of the rent and bills until you’re able to work again.”

  I’d appreciated her offer, but I wasn’t her responsibility. I couldn’t do that to my friend. So, I would go, as soon as it was safe for me to take the ride.

  Cade came to see me every day. He stopped by in the mornings before he had to go into M.J.’s and sometimes at night if it wasn’t too late. He took me to some of my medical appointments, ran errands for us, and made sure we didn’t need anything. Mama didn’t exactly warm up to him, but she was at least cordial and grateful.

  I was grateful, too, but…

  I
had finally let myself think about the events leading up to the accident. Those events and the many fights and problems that had occurred over the past four years. It wasn’t possible for Caden to be sorrier than he already was, and while I still didn’t blame him for the accident, I couldn’t take away his accountability for so many other things. I still loved him no less than the day I had loved him when our lives changed irrevocably back in March. I loved him with every fiber in my body, but…

  But…but…but…There were so many buts. Too many of them.

  A few days before my brother was to arrive to take us back to Virginia, Cade came over as he usually did. I heard him and my mom in the living room for a couple minutes before she left for a couple hours. Sometimes she stayed when Cade was there, but on the days he was able to stay for longer periods, Mama always went off on her own or out with Cherry.

  When Caden walked through the bedroom door, I felt it. Something was different between us. A sense of resignation. I felt as if the ride we’d been on for four years was rolling toward the platform where we would disembark. Coasting closer to the end, we think, “Just one more time. Just one more time around.” But we’re sick to our stomachs, wobbly in the knees, and we’d already been on for too long, had taken too many turns, and next time the thrill might be gone.

  “Your mom is going to Starbucks again,” Caden said and kissed my cheek in greeting.

  I smiled. “She’s obsessed. I don’t even think she likes the coffee. I think she likes the idea of going there. She thinks it’s like Friends, even though that was New York.”

  He sat down on the edge of the bed. “How are you feeling? Do you need anything?”

  I shook my head. “I still feel like I got hit by a truck.”

  The little joke made him wince. He had seen the accident happen. He’d known a split second before I got hit what was going to happen and had been helpless to stop it. I could see that real-life nightmare playing over and over in his head through his sad, horrified blue eyes. He still blamed himself—he blamed the drunk driver, too, but he blamed himself just as much.

  “I can’t believe my life here is over,” I said softly, with a sad and fond smile on my face. “I didn’t mean to stay this long. I expected to be on the other side of the world by now, but still…I’ll miss this city life.”

  Cade reached for my hand and held it as firmly as he could without hurting me. He was trying to smile for me, but the smile was a little wobbly.

  “You’ll miss being jammed up in traffic on the Vine?” he asked.

  “And the Schuylkill Expressway. I’ll also miss the impossible cluster fuck around City Hall.”

  His smile widened a little. “I know you will miss the smell of hot trash in the summers and living on a street that never gets plowed after it snows.”

  “I’ll miss parallel parking into spaces just an inch bigger than my car,” I said.

  “And the idiots who do the Eagles chant at every event and at the strangest fucking places.”

  “E-A-G-L-E-S! Eagles!” we shouted out in unison and laughed.

  “I’ll miss everything,” I whispered after a moment. I met his eyes and squeezed his hand. “I’ll miss you most of all, Caden. I love you so much, so deeply. The love I have for you is embedded in my bones—it will never, ever go away. I love you, Caden Hanes, and I love who you are, but I don’t love who we are together.”

  Before the accident, our soft spoken words would have erupted into a screaming match. We would have pushed each other around, thrown insults as well as objects, but the accident changed both of us deeper than we realized.

  Cade swallowed once, and then again as his eyes glittered. His voice trembled, ever so slightly. “I told you before that I would never give you up, but…” He swallowed again. “You almost died on me, Dar. You almost died because I refused to give you up. I always made you come back or made you stay when it wasn’t really what you wanted. I was so fucking selfish. I know now that giving you up is the best fucking thing I can ever do for you, no matter how much it fucking kills me inside.”

  “I came back, and I stayed because I wanted to,” I said before he could say more. “I came back and stayed because I loved you, and because I didn’t know how to live a life without you in it. We were both selfish, Cade. We both kept holding on for the wrong reasons.”

  He shook his head. “I did horrible things to you, Dar. I hurt you so many times.”

  “We did horrible things to each other,” I said gently. “Remember the time I threw a frying pan at your head? A cast iron frying pan!”

  He snorted and rubbed the back of his head. “I am pretty sure I had an undiagnosed concussion.”

  “Someone recently told me that you and I got off on hurting each other. At the time, it infuriated me, but I’ve thought about it a lot lately. I think he was right. You and me, we’re like that song by Halestorm. You know the one. ‘I Miss the Misery.’ That’s us, or at least that’s how I feel when we’re not together.”

  Cade sighed heavily. “I have not been good to you, and I am so fucking sor—”

  I shook my head.

  “Stop. I don’t want your apologies, Cade.” I smiled heavyheartedly. “You’re always sorry. I don’t want you to be sorry. I want you to come sit next to me for the next couple of hours. I want to talk about our good times because we did have a lot of them. I don’t even care if you don’t want to talk, Cade. Just…just come put your arm around me. Hold my hand. Please.”

  He looked me over skeptically. “I don’t want to hurt you, Dar.”

  “You’ll hurt me if you don’t, Caden.”

  He took a sudden, deep and shuddering breath and then nodded. Carefully, he got on the bed on my right side. His arm went around me. I draped my good leg over his legs, and our fingers linked together.

  For four years, Caden and I had been each other’s brand of poison. That sickly, sweetness that made us high, euphoric, volatile, and unstable. We were dependent on it, always needed another dose, another drop, even though we hated it. As we held each other for the last time, I put my mouth on his and took my last hit, my last taste of a decadent and deadly dessert.

  Cade held my face, and though his eyes were wet, he did not cry. I held back my own tears, saving them for another time when I could cry alone.

  “I fucking love you, Darla,” he whispered on my lips.

  I put my hand over his heart, where my name was written. The piece of me that would be with him for forever.

  “I fucking love you, Caden.”

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  I was lucky, the doctors and my family had told me many times since I’d woken up. I could have died. I could have been a vegetable. I could have memory loss. I could have lost my leg or been crippled for the rest of my life. I was lucky, they said. Sometimes when you repeat a word enough, it stops making sense. Stops having meaning. Lucky became that word for me.

  The ride to Virginia was rough. I was uncomfortable, even with the entire backseat to myself. I could deal with the physical discomfort, though. It was the emotional pain that I was barely able to cope with.

  I had to leave my life behind in Philly. My apartment, my job, my favorite places, my independence, my best friend, and Cade. Like all that wasn’t bad enough, I also had to leave behind my hopes and my dreams. It was better to leave them there at the city limits than to carry them with me into Virginia and have them violently sucked out of me.

  Starting from scratch was a hard pill to swallow. The distance between me and the life I’d wanted had multiplied to a number higher than I could count. Whatever money I had saved up was as good as gone. My bills weren’t going to just go away, and I couldn’t work to make more money. Plus, I didn’t want to be a burden to my family. Daddy was very good with money, had saved a lot of it over the years and had no debts to speak of, but he wasn’t wealthy. He still had two small children to raise, and he wasn’t that young anymore. If something happened to him and he had to stop working, they’d need that money. I
had to take care of my own needs as much as possible.

  Between the lack of money and my slowly healing leg, there was no chance in hell that I’d be leaving the country to travel as I’d always wanted. Maybe I would have been able to live with that if I at least still had my independence and was back in Philly with Cherry, but I didn’t, and I wasn’t. I was going back to the small town that had always made me feel as stuck as a fly in glue. I couldn’t get any more stuck than I would be with no money and a busted head and leg.

  So, no. I didn’t feel lucky. I felt entirely unlucky. The closer we got to Craigsville, the darker my spirit became. By the time we arrived, the darkness and I were good friends.

  Chapter Fifty

  It was the same home I’d grown up in, the one I’d spent eighteen years of my life in. I knew every room, every hiding spot, every creak in the floorboards, and how the house smelled at all seasons. Chocolate and peppermint in the winters. Pine and honeysuckle in the spring. Summers always smelled like fresh cut grass and the lemons used in homemade lemonade. And Autumn always smelled like warm apple cider.

  I knew the sounds of my daddy’s electric razor in the mornings, and the crinkle of the newspaper as he drank his coffee. Even the sounds, smells, and sights of having small children in the house had become familiar and normal. It had always been home. Always. Except now.

  For the first time ever, as I carefully sat down on the edge of my old bed in my old room, with its familiar pink bedspread and white walls, I felt like a stranger. I felt homeless. Displaced. Like I didn’t belong. For the first time ever, my childhood house didn’t feel like home.

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Connor came the next afternoon. I was sitting in a chair in my bedroom, staring out at the backyard when I heard the noise of someone entering through the front door and being greeted by the kids and Daisy. I tuned the noise out, though, just as I had been tuning people out since I’d arrived.