by Marie Hall
Her father gestured for all of them to take a seat. Once they did, he said, “Lori’s in there with him now. He’s sedated. On some pretty heavy pain meds. Only one of us can go in there at a time.”
No sooner had he finished saying that then Elisa spotted Lori walking out of the room closest to the waiting room. Shooting up to her feet, she rushed to Lori’s side and gave her a big hug.
Their mother seemed so frail, almost nothing but skin and bones. The garish purple sweater made her already pale skin seem more washed out than normal.
“Thank God you’re here. He was asking for you all morning,” she said.
“Can I go see him?” Elisa glanced at the door, the tension of waiting to go see him was almost too much to handle. She nibbled on her lower lip as her nerves chewed her up from the inside out.
“Yeah. I’ll walk you in. He’s still asleep, but I know if he were awake he’d tell me to bring you in. Just don’t freak out when you see him, okay?”
Stomach sinking to her feet, she nodded and wiped her sweaty palms down the front of her snow-white sweater.
“Just tell me one thing first.” She tapped Lori’s hand before she could walk away. “How are his hands?”
Lori smiled softly. “He was wearing riding gloves and a helmet, all things considered, it could have been much worse.”
First thing Elisa noticed when they entered Julian’s room was the gentle hum and swishing sound of medical equipment.
Steeling her nerves, she finally looked at him.
Julian didn’t look as bad as she’d feared. Which immediately helped to ease the worst of the adrenaline rush. She’d seen pictures of victims in car accidents and had expected to see his face swollen to twice its size and crusted over with blood.
His face wasn’t swollen, and apart from a vertical scratch that went from the bottom of his left eye to his mouth, there wasn’t a mark on him. His injuries were obvious, though.
His right leg was propped up in a black brace and looked like it belonged on Frankenstein’s monster and not him. There were bolts and wires everywhere. His toes were a hideous shade of mottled purple, almost black in some spots. The brace extended from his foot all the way up to his thigh.
She covered her mouth. “Oh my God.”
Lori shook her head. “That asshole almost ripped his leg off. From what the medic said, Julian was dragged under the back of the van for about a minute before being released.”
Just the thought of it brought tears to her eyes. That he wouldn’t have been able to scream, to tell the person to stop. That he’d been trapped and caught like a freakin’ caged animal enraged her. “What kind of monster would do something like this?”
A laugh that sounded more like a sob escaped Loribelle before she shuddered and knuckled a tear from her eye. “That boy is gonna be the death of me.”
Placing a hand on Lori’s shoulder, Elisa patted her gently. “Go get some coffee or something, I’ll stay here with him.”
She nodded and then opened her mouth and Elisa could have sworn there was something she wanted to say, but instead she simply turned on her heel and walked back out.
With a heavy heart, Elisa studied Julian.
They had placed a cannula in his nose, and apart from a few minor scratches, his face was pretty much as it’d always been. His skin tone was a little paler than she remembered, but that could just be because of the fact that it was now winter.
“Oh, Jules, what’s happening to you?” Walking over, she sat on the chair beside his bed and grabbed onto his hand, tracing the thick veins that extended down from his knuckles.
His right thumb had an angry red burn on it, and there were rashes on both palms, but the wounds were superficial and would definitely heal in time. She shuddered in relief. These hands were his only means of communication. What if it had been his hands and not his leg that’d been chewed up?
What then? What would he have done?
Jaw trembling as she fought back the tears, she brought his hand to her lips and kissed it with all her heart. Then turned it over, opened it up, and brought his palm to her cheek.
Quivering under his touch, even though she was the one forcing him to touch her.
She’d been so happy to be at college, so happy to get away from the things Julian made her feel, if she’d lost him she would never have forgiven herself.
“Julian, if I lost you again. I don’t know—” Her nostrils flared and the words died on her tongue as the sobs came harder.
He was her family, would always be her family, and it was stupid to think that a little time and distance could ever dull that. She was just so relieved that he was going to be okay.
Moving the chair even closer, she lowered the side panel on Julian’s bed and pressed the pedal to bring the motorized bed low enough that she could lay her head on his lap. Just for a minute.
She only meant to close her eyes for a second, just long enough to gather herself, but the sleepless night coupled with the anxious drive suddenly overwhelmed her and before she knew it she’d fallen asleep.
She moaned when the soft glide of fingers moving through her hair woke her up. Confused about where she was, she was slow to blink her eyes open, only to realize that it wasn’t Thomas rubbing her head, but Jules.
His familiar sea-green gaze hypnotized her. Now, with his eyes open and alert, she could see what she hadn’t seen before.
Julian was becoming a man.
He’d lost a lot of the softness in his face. His lower lip was pierced, and, just like Roman, he had whiskers. His hair still hung longer than normal in that familiar skater style that she’d always secretly adored.
Feeling suddenly hot, she cleared her throat and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, hoping she hadn’t drooled on him.
“How long have you been here?” Julian signed.
“Umm.” She turned to glance over her shoulder at the clock mounted on the wall. Elisa rubbed at her stiff neck. “About an hour,” she said, and then remembered that she’d neither signed it nor looked at him while saying it.
Turning back around she signed it quickly. “Jules, what happened? Why were you on your bike in December?”
His jaw clenched then, and he glanced down at his leg. She noted the lines shading the corners of his eyes and mouth and the faint sheen of sweat dotting his forehead.
He was obviously still in a lot of pain.
She tapped him, only talking once he looked up. “More medicine?”
Shaking his head, he said, “No.”
But she refused to give up. Anytime he’d so much as move, he’d wince. “You’re in pain. You need medicine.”
“Can’t.” His teeth clenched.
“Why not?”
“Because then I’ll fall asleep.”
She sighed. “That’s good. You need sleep. You’ll get better quicker.”
Brushing her fingers away, he shook his head harder. “No, because then I won’t be able to talk to you.”
Oh.
She sat back on her chair as her heart beat a galloping rhythm in her chest.
He looked away after he said it, glaring down at his leg and then signed, “Not my fault. Dumbass came out of nowhere. I looked three times before I crossed that intersection. Cops said he was speeding.”
She grabbed his fingers and brought them to her lips, wanting to touch him even though she knew she had no right to do so. His mouth opened just slightly and his breathing hitched when she kissed him.
Then trying something she’d seen done in a movie a few weeks ago, she placed his open palm against her throat and said, “You scared me.”
“El…e.” He didn’t sign that, he spoke it.
And she cried to hear that broken sound because she knew it’d come from the very bottom of his heart.
For just a moment she allowed herself to forget that she was nineteen going on twenty in another five months and he basically seventeen, or that she had a boyfriend that she was wild about, because this was
her Julian and he was safe and the world was a better place because of it.
Placing a knee on the side of the bed, she tried to be as careful as possible when she wrapped her arms around him and pressed her ear to his heart.
The steady beat soothed her frazzled nerves. But his grunt of pain made her pull quickly away.
His face was shiny with sweat as he signed, “Don’t pull back.”
“God, what am I doing?” She didn’t sign it or speak it to him, because she needed to remember that she did have a boyfriend and Julian was like a brother to her. Not to mention how much younger he was. “What the hell am I doing?”
But she must not have been careful the second time around, because he signed furiously at her. “Don’t leave me, Smile Girl.”
Tears shimmered in her eyes. “I’m here for Christmas break, Jules, and then I have to go back.”
His lower jaw jutted out.
And it was so bizarre to see him, looking so much like a man, but acting so much like his age. She wanted to cry and laugh and run away all at the same time.
“Don’t pretend like I don’t exist.”
She frowned. “What are you talking about? I’ve never pretended—” She stopped what she was saying when the door opened.
It was Lori, she glanced between the two of them before signing, “I’m calling a nurse, Julian, you look like hell.”
His grunt of dissent landed on her ears only as Lori had already turned and walked back out.
Realizing that so long as she remained in the room Julian would refuse the medication that could help him get better, she held up her hands. “I’ll be back.”
“Smile Girl?”
The hurt was evident in his gaze, and it was everything she could do to steel her heart against it.
She walked out of that room feeling as though she’d been sliced right down the middle. Like she was walking away from something that was vital and crucial to her well-being. Her heart.
Glancing at her parents, she motioned toward the elevators. “Let’s go home, Julian needs to rest.”
She didn’t return again that night. Or even the next one. Her thoughts and emotions were so confused that she didn’t know what to do and when Thomas called her the next night, she knew she’d blown it big time.
It was obvious that her one-word answers weren’t going over very well with him, that he could sense the last thing in the world she wanted to do was be on the phone with him.
Because even while she was holed up in her room, her mind was constantly in that hospital.
She hated herself, knowing that her absence was hurting Julian, but she didn’t know what else to do.
Only when her mother hugged her later that night and told her she needed to stop ignoring Julian and remember that no matter what her personal problems were they weren’t bigger than his did she realize that hiding out was definitely not the right answer.
Still completely confused but determined to put it behind her, she drove back to the hospital. Today they’d be releasing Julian, and it also happened to be the triplets’ birthday.
She felt like an idiot picking up a rose from the flower shop for him; as far as birthday gifts went, it was pretty awful. Not to mention she’d gone in with the high hopes of finding white, but there’d only been reds available.
By the time she’d finally made it up to his room, Julian was already in a wheel chair and surrounded by not only his family, but a nurse ready to wheel him out. His black brace stuck straight out in front of him, he didn’t look comfortable at all and she suffered another pang of remorse for not coming to visit him more often.
Everyone stopped what they were doing and saying when she walked in. Julian didn’t look happy to see her at all. His eyes were narrowed into thin slits and his lips pressed tight.
She cleared her throat. “I thought I’d come and see you home, Jules.”
He turned his face to the right.
Christian and Roman pretended like they weren’t embarrassed for her by clearing their throats and glancing down at their feet, which only made the humiliation worse.
Lori tried as best she could to save the day. “Oh, Elisa, thank you for coming. And look at that rose, isn’t it lovely, Julian?” She signed it in such a way that he had no choice but to see it.
Then with a fake but cheery smile on her face, Lori turned to the nurse. “Can she push?”
“What?” Elisa frowned.
Lori nodded. “Mmhmm. You push. It’s his birthday—”
“Hey!” Roman and Christian piped up. “It’s ours too, butt turd seems to have forgotten that.”
Julian’s glower grew deeper.
“Oh shush.” Lori waved her hand. “You guys are seventeen now, stop acting like such babies. Elisa, come.” She gestured her forward.
Feeling more than stupid, and with cheeks flaming a heated crimson, she marched over to Julian’s side. He still wouldn’t look at her.
The male nurse dressed in Scooby-Doo scrubs stepped back. “If you guys are ready to go, I’ll show you the way down.”
She felt like an ass. And that was only putting it mildly. Of course she deserved the silent treatment. But why did things have to get so complicated between her and Julian? Why couldn’t it have stayed the way it had with Roman and Christian?
By the time they got to the handicap minivan Lori had rented for the duration of Julian’s rehab, Elisa was in a crappy mood.
It wasn’t his fault he was mad at her, she deserved it, but that also didn’t mean that she liked it. She hated it.
Hated. It.
It took about twenty minutes before Lori figured out how to lower the lift so that Julian could be wheeled on it. Those twenty minutes had been some of the most awkward of Elisa’s life. Her thoughts had vacillated between an obligation to stay mingled with the need to run away and hide from him like a chicken.
Only through sheer force of will did she stay put.
She heaved a mighty sigh of relief when Lori finally lowered the lift. Once Julian was settled in, Elisa saw her chance to make a break for it.
Running away wasn’t the answer, and yet that was exactly what she meant to do.
“And just where do you think you’re going, young miss?” Lori asked with an arch to her thin brow.
Elisa hooked her thumb over her shoulder. “I brought my car, I probably should—”
“Yeah, good try. That boy is driving me crazy. He’s in a horribly pissy mood and now, seeing you, I’m pretty sure you both have some talking to do.”
“But my car.”
“Can be driven home by Roman or Christian, we are neighbors, remember? And you guys need to talk. I’m serious. Do not throw years of friendship away over nothing.”
Nothing?
Couldn’t she realize what was happening? Didn’t she realize that the way Elisa viewed Julian was beyond inappropriate? Why did she continue to insist on pushing them together?
Elisa had been fine back at college. Things had been normal and getting great. She was going to have sex for the first time with a boyfriend she loved. A guy that was just about perfect in every way but one.
He wasn’t Julian Wright.
Roman stuck out his hand. “Give me the keys, Lisa. You know you can’t win when she gets like this.”
Giving him a hard side-eyed glare, she yanked her keys out of her pocket and thrust them at him. “Take care of it.”
“Oh, whatever. I’m stopping by the Grease Burner to pick up some food. I’m starving.”
“Yeah, right.” Christian laughed. “You just want to go flirt with Diane.”
Roman snorted and gave a carefree shrug.
And then heaving a dramatic sigh, Christian said, “Diane Thorn, goddess of Bay High. Hey.” He jerked, trotting after Roman, who’d already started walking off. “Wait up, I’m coming with you.”
“Take care of it—I’m serious you, guys!” Elisa cupped her hands around her mouth.
They never even acknowledged her.
Lori was already sitting behind the wheel of the car when Elisa reluctantly climbed in. Sitting beside an entirely too broody Julian wasn’t going to be fun at all.
“You guys fix this,” Lori commanded, and then, turning on the radio, proceeded to ignore them the rest of the trip home.
The first few minutes that ticked by were agony for her. With a frustrated growl, she smacked Julian on the shoulder.
Which caused him to groan and immediately she was horrified because she’d completely forgotten about his injury.
“Oh, Jules, God, I’m such an ass. I’m—”
His lips stretched into a wide smile.
Balling her hands into fists, she realized he’d just played her for a fool. “You’re a jerk, Julian Wright,” she signed at him furiously.
Finally, finally he looked at her. And even though the ice had been broken, she could see that he was still irritated by what she’d done.
“I’m sorry, okay. I’m sorry.” It was hard not saying the words aloud as she signed them, but this conversation was just for her and Jules.
“You said you’d come back.”
“Julian, you don’t understand.”
“What, Smile Girl? What don’t I understand?”
This was getting way too deep. Moving into places that she really didn’t want to go. What was going on between them, it had a lot more to do with the heart than just an annoying miscommunication.
“You set me aside.” He signed it.
She frowned. “What the hell are you talking about? I wrote you every week. I sent you pictures.”
“Yeah.” He snarled. “Pictures of you with that dickhead.”
Crossing her arms, she gave him a mutinous glare.
“Why would you do that to me?”
She shook her head. If she said anything, hell, if she signed anything right now, she knew she would regret it.
“Answer me!” He grunted.
Her gestures were full of fury. “He’s my boyfriend and I love him. I wanted to share that with you because I love you too, you’re my brother, we share things.”
That was clearly the wrong thing to say. He didn’t get angry, but he stopped talking. And no matter that Lori wanted them to fix it, Elisa knew things had only gotten a million times worse.
