by Ella James
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” I sob. “I don’t want to leave. I don’t know what to do.”
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. I’ll be right back.” And I run. I grab the keys, my clothes, and bolt back toward the kitchen.
I return to find his head lowered. Words are pouring out his mouth, so soft and frenzied.
“I’m sorry, Shelly. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.” He sobs.
“I told her. I told her.” He sprawls back on one of his bleeding hands, falling asleep or passing out. His eyes roll in his head. “Leah? Leah,” he hisses.
“I’m right here. Don’t pass out on me. Stand up.” I bully him to his feet, and he clings to me.
“We have to move.”
“I told her,” he is saying as we walk back through the foyer. “I told her about you. I told Mother…about you. I ruined your life.”
Out the door and down the stairs. It’s so cold as we walk to his car, and I get him in the passenger’s seat.
He yawns as I slam the door behind him. By the time I get around to the driver’s seat, he’s out.
*
Lucas
My hands hurt—really bad.
Leah is driving. Weird.
I’m shaking, I think. Teeth chattering. Because it hurts.
“Luke? Hey…are you okay?”
The car is twisting through the pink sky, going between mountains.
“Where are we?” I whisper.
“We’re going to the hospital. My sister Lana is going to meet us there. She’s a psychiatrist and a psychoanalyst, and she’s going to make sure we—”
“No hospital.” I look down at my wrists, and there’s blood all in my lap. I feel thirsty and I see some water in between us, but I don’t think my hands work. I can’t grab it. I’m so ashamed.
I’m still shaking.
I lick my lips and try to focus my hazy mind on Leah. “I can’t go. Can’t go. I’m sorry. I can’t go to hospitals.”
“Why can’t you, Luke?” We curve along the mountain road. “What happened at a hospital?”
I lean my face into my elbow. My hands hurt bad. I can’t stop shaking. There’s still glass in there. I can feel it. I groan a little and try to stay quiet.
Curves and curves. We’re going down.
And then we’re not. We’re not moving at all. I crack my eyes open and find us on a rocky shoulder. “Luke, please talk to me. I’m so worried about you, and I’m not sure what to do.” She starts to cry.
“Please don’t. Don’t cry. I’m sorry.” I reach for her, but she’s easing me away.
“Don’t move, okay. Don’t move. Baby, please.” She’s sobbing as she pulls onto the mountain road. “Just hang on. I’ll take you somewhere good. Somewhere they can help you. I’ll go with you. I won’t let anybody treat you bad. I’m sorry I’m crying.”
She looks just like Shelly.
Calm settles over me. Numbness. I feel so heavy. So detached. “It’s my fault,” I tell her. “It’s my fault you were taken.” I choke on the words.
“What do you mean?” She looks wild, pale and aghast, awash in tears and blood. My blood.
“I didn’t think she would do it,” I hiss. “She said you would be mine.” My body is so light now. My voice is barely audible.
“What are you talking about, Luke? What are you saying?”
“Shelly.”
I’m so tired. I just can’t stay awake.
CHAPTER FOUR
Lucas
I see Leah’s pale blonde hair, shorter now and moving in a streak around the room. It’s all blurry. Her face and body are blurry, like an over-pixilated photo.
My hands hurt.
My eyes sag shut as my heart pounds in my hands, but I work to keep them open. I know it’s her hair. I can’t really see her face, but Leah’s out in front of me. I want to touch her, but she doesn’t seem to know I’m here.
Leah.
My stomach clenches, like it’s hungry for her.
I watch her through the spikes of my eyelashes as she moves about the room. I don’t know what room I’m in, but I feel peace because she’s in it with me.
The needy, clenching feeling in my stomach turns a little sour as the pain in both my hands intensifies. I drop my gaze down to my hands, and find them propped on pillows, elevated out in front of me.
The sheets are white. I never buy white sheets.
My pulse trips as I look around and see a metal pole holding a plastic bag, and a thin tube running to the inside of my right elbow.
Oh, fuck.
I’m in a fucking hospital.
One of my hands lifts up on its own accord. The pain of it makes me want to moan. I lock my jaw and feel my body start to shake.
Leah…
I’m too tired to figure out how to say her name, but I can still see her. I hear a beep beep beep. She turns around to me and I remember seeing Leah drive my car. Why would she drive my car?
Maybe she’s going to tell me, because she comes over by the bed and peers down at me. One of her hands goes to my forehead; no, my eyelid. There’s a bright light, and my head hurts.
“Hi there.”
“Leah,” I rasp.
I don’t like this. Where is Leah?
I look left and right, swamped now by the awful pain in both my hands, struggling to think around the distraction of my roiling stomach. Then I hear a creek, I see a flash of pale hair, and I’m even more confused, because Leah is gliding toward me—the real Leah—with a baby monitor in one hand. It’s Echo’s monitor. For when he has nightmares. So I can see.
I shut my eyes because the lids are so heavy. Exhaustion drags me down, the kind that…isn’t real. It’s fake, with pills. I force my eyes back open, and am rewarded by the best sight in the world.
She leans down and kisses my cheek. Her face glows with love. Her hands stroke both my shoulders. Bare. I’m naked?
“Hi,” she says. She sits beside me on the white bedding, and I can feel her warm eyes on my skin.
I watch her reach over somewhere beside the bed. She smiles as she leans a little closer, and something cold slides over my ears. The world snaps into focus.
“Is that better? You had contacts, but…I got these for you.” She smiles a little soft smile.
Behind her, Other Leah watches. I wonder if she’s bad or good. Something is going on, but I can’t tell what. I’m so tired, and I can’t remember anything. What day it is, or where we are.
I look back down at my arms, and then at Leah. I try to touch her with my eyes, since I can’t with my hands. I feel so strange. Like I’m not really on the bed.
She puts her hand on my leg. “I hope you’re not too mad at me. I didn’t know what to do, so I called Raymond. Do you remember anything from Denver? From the hospital?”
“I don’t like hospitals,” I rasp.
“I know you don’t.” Her mouth quirks sorrowfully. “You weren’t there for very long. They did surgery on your wrist. This one,” she says, reaching toward my left wrist. “Then we had you flown to Vegas.”
“I’m in Vegas?” I swallow, despite the dryness in my throat.
“Yeah. Lana is treating you.”
Behind her, Lana raises her brows. Like Leah. Triplets. Aren’t we missing one?
I want to touch Leah, but my hands are so sore.
Leah’s still talking, but I can’t make out the words. She looks like she still loves me. She didn’t leave me. But she should.
I reach for her, despite the pain in my hand. “Leah…”
Her eyes meet mine, and they are filled with love. “What’s wrong?”
My throat closes up, so I look down at my hands. I can’t believe I fucked them up so much. I can’t believe Leah saw me lose my shit like that.
I try to move my hands to cover my face, but they hurt so much, I stop. Usually, I would do it anyway, but…
This time I just don’t. Too tired.
I turn my head away from
her and try to keep myself in check. It doesn’t work. I feel a tear roll down my cheek, drip off my jaw. Fuck. I was always like that. When I was a little kid, I would cry sometimes when I was tired.
I shut my eyes.
Her hands are on my cheeks and head. They’re so soft and cool. “Lana said you’ve got a fever,” she says softly. “How are your hands? I know they must hurt. Especially this one.” She touches my left shoulder.
She strokes my face. I should flex my fingers, because I deserve nothing but pain.
“Are you tired? You want to go to sleep? Lana can give you something if you need it.”
I peek my eyes open. “No.”
“Okay.” She sits closer to me and strokes my hair.
I know I should tell her. It would be smart to let her hate me.
But I don’t.
I let myself feel her hands on me. This is what I used to dream about. Leah, touching me. I used to wonder why I didn’t have more problems. Drugs or drinking. More than fucking. But it was always Leah holding me together.
I want to tell her that. To thank her. But I feel sick. Lying to her. I’m a sick person. She doesn’t know what kind of person I am.
My thoughts congeal, and in the next second, I can tell I’m going to be sick. I open my eyes. Grab a pillow, press it to my chest, and retch on the sterile, white fabric. Holding onto the pillow hurts my hands, which only makes me feel sicker.
“I don’t feel well. I want to stay with you, Shelly!”
“Not this time, Lukey.. I’m sorry…”
“You’re getting more pain meds,” Leah’s sister says. “You need to sleep, okay?”
I feel her move my IV line, and I lie still. What’s wrong with me? I don’t need medicine for pain. I just need pain. And yet, I don’t move as someone drags a towel over my neck and chest. A warm towel comes down over my face, and I feel the bite of moving air as some of the blankets piled on me are moved. My left hand shifts, and I grit my teeth.
“Sorry.” Brisk hands touch my left side. “We’ll need to re-bandage this.”
“I’m sorry…” Leah’s voice is near my ear. Her soft hand strokes my face.
Her sister messes with my hand. I try not to pay attention, but it hurts like fire, making my head and face and neck feel hot.
“You can…go,” I say between my labored breaths.
Silence swells up. “You know I don’t want to go.”
“Should.”
Her gentle hand on my bicep contrasts sickly to the pain in my left hand. “I love taking care of you,” she says. “I want to be here.”
Lana lifts my left arm at the elbow, and I feel the coolness of a pillow being pushed under it. “All done. Leah, keep me posted.”
I breathe deeply, with my eyes shut. I can sense her leaving: Lana.
When I open my eyes again, it’s just Leah beside me. The moment is such a freakish parallel with another one from my past. I feel almost dizzy thinking of it.
“Lucas, you’ve got no one. Is there anyone who cares for you?”
“I’m not leaving. Please don’t try to make me.” Her soft hand leaves my skin, and then I feel the mattress indent with her weight. Moving carefully around my right hand, still propped on pillows, she settles in beside me. We are hip-to-hip, shoulder-to-shoulder. I feel the fabric of her clothes against my fevered skin. Then her gentle arm around my chest. She rests her cheek on my shoulder and breathes my name.
Her body is soft and warm. Mine’s so cold I’m shivering.
*
Leah
Almost two years. That’s how long we shared the wall. I thought I knew so much about him. I was wrong. I see now, what he did. He collected facts about me, but he was greedy with the exchange of them. Because I knew his habits—because I knew his footfall and the feel of his hand, the softness of his hair and the rumble of his voice—I was fooled.
For Luke to have told Mother about me, he’d have had to’ve known me. Before her house.
It’s been two days since we left Mother’s house, and I’m still puzzling it out.
I’ve got quite the backdrop for my research. I haven’t told him yet, because Raymond suggested that I not until he was on the mend, but we’re at Luke’s own house. Not the club—his house. He’s got a house.
I’m standing in his kitchen now. A real kitchen with a corkboard countertop, black cabinets, and shiny stainless steel fixtures. In the refrigerator, there is key lime Greek yogurt and heart-healthy butter. Also, cherry Coke.
But the biggest surprise by far is a boy named Echo: Luke’s son.
Yeah. Luke has a son.
Echo is eight, and I’m pretty sure he’s not Luke’s biological child because his skin is dark. But Raymond hasn’t been here much, and Echo’s nanny, an elderly woman named Hally, doesn’t seem like the right person to ask—especially since Echo is usually with her.
I turn to Lana, who’s working on a New York Times crossword puzzle at the kitchen table.
“So that’s all they said? The manuscript?”
She nods, not looking up. “Yep.”
When I called Lana from the car the night before last, she came running, but I think she thinks I’m seriously insane.
“And you told them Ray would call them back?”
She nods. “Her. She said her name was Rebecca.”
I chew my lip, and turn back around to the oven cleaning kit I’ve been looking at. The oven’s pretty clean, but it could always be cleaner.
Lana looks up and gives me a smirk. “You, and oven cleaner? Do you want to talk?”
I shake my head.
“Well for God’s sake, don’t clean the oven. Didn’t Hally say the housekeepers were coming in just a few hours?”
“Yeah.”
Lana swats her hand at me. “Go walk around. Do some snooping. Rake leaves. Something.”
I check Echo’s baby monitor, wondering for the millionth time if Luke adopted him as a baby, and nod. “Okay. I’ll go.” I turn around in the opening between the kitchen and the den. “Lana?”
She looks up. “Yeah?”
“Thanks again. This means the world to me.”
She arches her brows, and like usual, I can’t read her expression. “I’m glad that I could be here for you, Leah.”
The house is big. Like big. A good six or seven thousand feet, I think. And everywhere, he’s in these rooms. Pieces of him I’ve never seen before. A guitar in the sunroom. Three desktop computers in a dusty pile in a guest room. A pipe in the bathroom, loaded down with half-smoked herbs. His room, I’ve never seen. Raymond had us put him in a seldom-used guest room. But I think it’s the one at the end of a long hall, because that’s the only room whose door has consistently stayed shut.
I wander into a cavernous library, filled with books to the ceiling. A huge desk, and a huge chair, like a king’s throne. There’s a laptop, notebooks, pens. I don’t dare open them. There’s a framed quote: “Have no fear of perfection. You’ll never reach it.” Wonder what that means to him. I write it in my iPhone’s notepad app.
I walk down the hall that leads to the bedrooms, ravaging the wall prints with my eyes, and peek into a half-opened door.
Just like I thought: Echo’s room. It’s decorated with old baseball prints, and filled mostly by a queen-sized bed with a navy blue bedspread. The rest of the space in the room is filled by a bookshelf, a large blow-up penguin, and a dresser topped by framed photos of Luke and Echo.
Wearing fly fishing gear. Smiling from the summit of a mountain. Sitting with a birthday cake. I examine Luke’s face in every photo. His smile is so relaxed. His cheeks look fuller. In the fishing shot, his hair is a little longer, blowing in a breeze.
A piece of paper on the desk has a sloppily printed name in the left-hand corner: Echo.
Did Luke foster him first? Did he want to try to save a child from his experience? I run my hand over the desk, made of cherrywood, and obviously new. Echo is very clearly loved. I bet Luke would do anything for him.
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I turn a slow circle, looking at the black and white baseball prints on the wall. The prints jog my memory, and I think of my Aunt Shelly. She fostered a kid for a while. I remember going with her to pick out some of his bedroom décor. It was baseball, just like this.
Heat starts in my chest shoulders, rising up my throat, into my cheeks. I grab for air as my head heats up. Tears sting my eyes.
My Aunt Shelly’s boy was named Lucas. I remember seeing him one time, as he and Shelly left the movie theater, and my sisters and I walked inside.
He had dark hair and hazel eyes.
I whisper, “fuck.”
I lie on Echo’s bed, push my face into the pillow, and cry.
CHAPTER FIVE
Lucas
I’ve been awake for a while, staring into the camera perched on a cardboard box at the foot of the bed, and no one has come. The pinch of the needle and tape in my inner elbow made me think of the hospital after Shelly, so I used my teeth to pull it out. After that, I’ve just been sitting here, waiting for my head to clear, and my hands to stop throbbing.
I can’t see the damage through the thick gauze bandages, but I think I remember someone saying something about surgery for one of them. It must be the left one. That one hurts the worst.
My hands are propped up on some pillows that look like they came from a hospital. I’m covered with white sheets, which also make me think hospital. But the room doesn’t smell, and the furniture around me looks kind of familiar, if I squint the right way.
I think it’s safe to say, I lost my contacts somewhere along the way.
A fucked up thought hits me: What if I’m in a psych ward?
I shut my eyes. Would Leah do that to me?
She might.
After what happened at Mother’s…
Shame tightens my stomach. I can’t believe that shit. How stupid was I, taking her to that room? I had this fucked up idea that I could make some better memories there or some such shit. I didn’t plan to fuck her there. I didn’t even think about my hand when I laced mine through hers.
But when we finished, and I saw the blood…
It reminded me too much of Mother.
