“Good morning, Mr. Whitewater,” I say with a yawn.
He looks like he has been awake for hours. His hair is perfectly groomed and coiffed, and his suit is starched and ironed, or whatever one does to suits to keep them wrinkle-free.
“Mr. Wild told me that you will be leaving this morning. I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Yes, me too,” I nod. I am sorry. I wish this weren’t happening.
He doesn’t say another word, doesn’t make a move either. I stare at him. What’s wrong? Slowly, his eyes tilt down. I follow them to the floor and see a light pink box.
“Oh, what’s this?” I ask.
“I’m not sure. But it’s for you,” Mr. Whitewater says. He quickly takes a step back and turns away from me to give me some privacy.
I examine the box carefully in my hand. The cardboard looks old and smells a bit like cake. I carefully open the flap and peek in. It’s a book! A book?
I pull out the book and let the box drop to the ground. Oh, my God. My heart starts to pound. Is this really what I think it is?
A first edition of Jane Eyre!?!?
The book is rather small and weathered, but otherwise it’s in excellent condition. I open it and run my hand along the smooth spine. I flip through the pages until I get some resistance at the very front. The pages are thicker here. Carefully, I flip the pages one at a time until I get to the title page and discover a note. It’s written on perfumed paper, the kind that you see in expensive paper stores. There’s a delicate floral design gracing each of the ends.
I open the note.
It’s from Wyatt. I see his name written in beautiful, careful script on the bottom. The W is elongated and flowery, the y is elegant and the two sets of t’s are defiant and proud.
* * *
Dear Brielle,
I’m sorry. For everything.
You deserve a lot better than me, of course. But please give me another chance.
* * *
Yours,
Wyatt
* * *
Yours. I like the sound of that. I’ve never had anyone who was mine, in that way. My heart skips a beat again. And then another.
Mr. Whitewater clears his throat, and I remember that he’s still here.
“I think I need a moment, Mr. Whitewater,” I finally manage to utter. I go back into my room and close the door.
“Oh my God,” I whisper. “A first edition of Jane Eyre!”
I press the hardback book to my breasts and inhale its beautiful musty smell. This book has been around for hundreds of years, and now it’s mine. It belongs to me.
But can I accept it if I decide not to stay here? I want to. He owes me an apology, and this was a marvelous apology.
My thoughts drift back to Wyatt. Suddenly, I remember the softness of his lips and how they danced with mine to a tune that only we heard. I remember how hot I felt in between my legs and how much I wanted him to push up my taffeta skirt and let me wrap my legs around his strong, powerful torso.
He wasn’t alone in feeling what he was feeling. I was there right along with him. We shared a chemical and electric connection. I was drawn to him as if he were a magnet, and I had trouble pulling away as well. I loved how hard his cock felt pushing into me, pressing me to the wall. I wanted to rip off his clothes. I wanted him to rip off mine. And then it was just too much. In a split second, it was suddenly too much.
* * *
I don’t know what I should do. I want to stay, but I also want to go. I want to stay to get to know Wyatt more. And I want to run away from this place and its games.
The sound of a startled horse scares me, and I walk over to the window. I lift the window and open the shutters. I didn’t notice it last night, but there are stables to the right of me. The horse makes another piercing cry, sending shivers over my body.
“It’s okay, Sebastian. It’s okay, guy,” Wyatt says. I can’t see him, but his voice is firm and commanding, and I really believe that it’s going to be okay.
Suddenly, they emerge. Wyatt is dressed in jeans, a pair of brown boots, and a simple white t-shirt. He’s tan, and his sweaty body glistens in the sun. His hair looks wet, either from sweat or water. He’s riding a tall black horse with a thick black mane that flies up with each gallop. They are moving as one. I look closer, and I see that the horse is not wearing a saddle. Wyatt is riding bareback!
The horse and the rider dance together for a few moments in a circle. The horse kicks up swirls of dust, which in the sunlight look like periwinkle. Then suddenly, the horse shifts his weight and raises his front legs in the air.
“Oh wow,” I whisper in awe. Wyatt remains in place on his back holding on by nothing but his powerful thighs. It looks like the horse is going to land on his front legs and morph into a trot, but he doesn’t. Instead, he lands hard on his front hooves and lifts his back hooves up high in the air. Then he does it all again.
My smile fades quickly after I realize that something’s going wrong.
“Oh my God,” I whisper and bring my hands to my face. “No, no, no…”
But it’s too late. The horse bucks one last time, and this time, Wyatt doesn’t hold on. I see him flying through the air. He misses the chain-link fence by less than a foot and lands flat on his back.
“Oh my God!” I scream. My voice echoes around the room, but Wyatt doesn’t get up.
“Get up! Please get up,” I scream, but he doesn’t.
For a brief second, I consider running to the back of the room, down the long hallway, down the winding staircase, out of the front door, and around the entire 10,000 square foot house, but then I see a simpler way down.
“What are you doing?” Mr. Whitewater enters my room.
I’m already hanging out of the window, half of my body is on the roof of the patio.
“Wyatt is hurt, call 911!”
I climb down the post of the patio, jump into the orange grove below and run toward Wyatt.
I finally reach him. His face is so pale that it’s the color of those white Mexican plates from dinner. All blood has drained from his face, and his lips are blue.
“Wyatt? Wyatt?” I scream. I want to shake him and bring him back to life. But I’m afraid he has broken something in his body, and that will make it worse.
“Wyatt? Wyatt? Please wake up. Please, please, please,” I shout cradling my arms around him.
Mr. Whitewater runs over.
“How is he? Oh my God. He’s unconscious.”
I nod. I don’t know what else to do.
“I just called 911, but they won’t be here for some time.”
“What, why?” I demand to know.
“Twenty minutes at the earliest,” he says and puts the receiver back to his ear. “They say that we shouldn’t move him until they get here. He might’ve broken his back.”
The world fades to black with those words. ‘He might’ve broken his back’ is all I hear in my head over and over again. The paramedics arrive sometime later. They have to scream at me to get out of the way. I don’t move. I don’t even know if I can move. Someone pushes me out of the way, and they take Wyatt away. They strap him onto a gurney and roll him to the ambulance.
I can’t go along. No one can. They tell me and Mr. Whitewater that we can follow along behind the ambulance if we want.
I’m in a daze. I don’t know what to do. I follow Mr. Whitewater to his car.
“Are you sure you want to come? I thought you wanted to leave this morning? You still can, if you want to.”
I stare at him. All thoughts of leaving have all but dissipated. I don’t even know what he’s talking about. All I know is that I can’t leave now. I don’t know what’s wrong with him, and I can’t leave until I find out. What if he needs my help?
* * *
Twelve hours later.
I’ve spent the last twelve hours in the hospital looking at magazines and mindlessly reading books that I did not understand on my phone. I read the words, but they don’t make an
y sense. I don’t know who wrote them or for what reason. The only thing that makes sense to me is the pictures. I leaf through the celebrity magazines and pay close attention to which movie stars have lost and gained weight. Which ones were pregnant. Which ones got engaged and which ones got divorced. It’s all things that I used to find interesting, but now none of it makes any sense.
This hospital reminds me of the one back home, where I waited for hours for my mom to get out of her various surgeries. Time stands still here. It’s as if the waiting room is some secret time travel chamber in which I can go into and not age for hours and days and months. I age, of course. I noticed it whenever I went into to the bathroom and looked at the horror that was my face, but I never felt time passing. Not even one second.
Breathe, I say to myself. Breathe.
I take a deep breath. And then another. And another. I feel a little better, but as soon as I look around, all of my thoughts and concerns and regrets creep back in.
A doctor who is in charge of Wyatt and his condition comes out from behind the double doors with a smile on his face.
“Wyatt’s awake now,” he tells Mr. Whitewater. “He’s one lucky young man. Even though both of his legs are broken.”
Broken legs. I sigh. He is lucky.
“Wait here,” Mr. Whitewater tells me. I have no right to go see Wyatt. I’m not really anybody to him. Barely an employee. Still, I hope that I can go in to see him.
“And he doesn’t have any brain damage?” Mr. Whitewater asks the doctor.
“No, not that I can tell. But it’s too soon to know for sure.”
I wait for what seems like a century for Mr. Whitewater to come back. Now time is positively moving backward. I wonder if it’s 1993. Finally, he comes out.
“He’d like to see you,” Mr. Whitewater says.
“How is he?”
“Fine. Definitely all there.”
I smile. A wave of relief sweeps over me.
Chapter 10 - Wyatt
Brielle walks into my hospital room carefully and cautiously. It’s as if she’s walking on eggshells.
“It’s okay,” I say. “Don’t be afraid.” I sit up in my bed, trying not to look so sickly and powerless, even though I have a pounding headache.
“How are you?” she asks sheepishly.
Her hair falls into her face slightly as she walks, and she pushes it aside without much regard. Her lips look soft and exquisite even under the harsh fluorescent lights of the hospital room. Her skin is tan, and her cheeks are full of color. Brielle is wearing a long sleeve hoodie, and she wraps her arms around her shoulders as if she is trying to hold on to the entire world.
“I’m good. Fine,” I say confidently. It’s almost true. I want it to be true. I’ll act like it is until it becomes true.
“Broke both legs,” I say nudging at the cast. “Imagine the luck.”
“It could’ve been much worse, Wyatt,” she comes closer. I love the sound of my name in her mouth.
“Nah,” I wave my hand. But she slaps it away.
“No, I’m serious. It could’ve been much, much worse. I saw you out there. You passed out. You were unconscious. I thought you would go into a coma and never wake up.”
“Hah, like you’d care. You’d just be happy that you got off the hook,” I joke.
She stares at me and raises her hand to slap me again. This time across the face. But something stops her.
“Fuck you, Wyatt. Fuck you for even thinking something that terrible.”
That was a pretty shitty thing to say. I shake my head. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. I was just trying to make you laugh.”
“How would that make me laugh, exactly?”
“I don’t know. I’d shrug, but my shoulders hurt too much.”
This one does make her laugh. She opens her lips just a bit and lets out a small, willowy laugh. The world is alright again.
* * *
“How did this happen?” Brielle asks after a few silent moments.
“That’s what you get for riding a four-year-old stallion bareback,” I laugh.
Her face turns white. “What do you mean? Are you joking again?”
I shake my head no. Then suddenly, something comes over me, and I tell her something I never would otherwise.
“I was really upset that you were leaving. That I did that to you. Disrespected you like that. But I want you to know that it was really an accident. I must’ve not heard you or something. I would never keep going beyond what you said was okay. I’m not that guy.”
I stop and look at her. She waits for me to continue.
“So I was really angry with myself over the whole thing. Over what I did. Over the fact that you were now scared of me. And leaving. That’s the last thing I wanted. So this morning, I went for a walk and ended up in the stables. I saw Sebastian. He’s a powerful thoroughbred. But he’s not broken yet. He’s wild and crazy, and I felt wild and crazy at that moment. It was like we were breathing the same air and feeling the same energy. I opened the gate, and he let me get on top of him. I really thought we were connecting, and we wanted the same thing. But I was just feeling crazy. He ignited something within me, some long forgotten feeling of hope and love and wildness. And so I urged him outside of the stable. And that’s when it got bad. He started to buck, and he wouldn’t slow down long enough for me to get off. And then I just flew off.”
“You remember it all?”
“I remember every single moment.”
“And what about afterward?”
“No,” I shake my head. “Once I hit the ground, I don’t remember anything.”
She looks at me. Tears well up inside of her eyes. One large tear breaks free and rolls down her cheek. I reach out and wipe it off her face.
“I was so scared, Wyatt. You were just laying there. Motionless. Unconscious. I wanted to shake you so much, but I was afraid something was broken. And then…”
Her voice drops off, and she looks out of the window. A tiny sparrow dances on a branch. We both watch the sparrow for a moment before she turns back to me.
“And then?” I ask.
“And then I thought that maybe it was even worse than that. You didn’t wake up Wyatt. Not for a long time.”
I nod.
“You scare me, Brielle,” I finally say.
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know, exactly. But I feel something for you, and it scares me.”
“Don’t be silly,” she waves her hand and smiles. “How can I scare you?”
I try to shrug again. Again I feel pain.
“Come here,” I say and wave my index finger to get her to come closer to me.
“What?” she leans down.
“You scare me,” I whisper and press my lips up to hers. I lift my body a bit toward hers and my neck throbs in pain.
I sigh in pain when I pull away.
“Are you okay?” she says with a smile licking her lips.
“No,” I shake my head. “But it was worth it.”
* * *
That evening, the nurse gives me some morphine, and I fall asleep quickly. When I wake up in the morning, my back is throbbing, and I find Brielle half asleep in the chair.
“Hey, you’re awake,” she smiles at me.
“What are you doing here?” I ask. “I can’t believe you slept the whole night here.”
“Oh, I just dozed off. It’s no big deal.”
“No, it is,” I say. “Thank you.”
“I’m going to get us some coffee,” she jumps up to her feet.
I’m jealous of the spring in her step, and I wish more than anything that I could jump as well. I’ve only been in bed for one day, and the thought of not being active for another two months scares me to death.
“Brielle…”
She turns at the door. Her hair leaps one last time before landing softly around her shoulders.
“Yes?”
“I was just wondering…” I don’t know how to phr
ase the question exactly. She waits for me as I try.
“I was just wondering if you were planning on going back home today?”
“No,” she shakes her head. A wave of relief sweeps over me, but I’m not sure if I have been clear enough.
“And tomorrow?” I ask.
Suddenly, it hits her what I’m asking. She walks back to my bed.
“I’m not going home for awhile, Wyatt. But under one condition.”
“What's that?”
“If you promise me that we will be friends. Just friends.”
I thought about that for a moment. Just friends was better than nothing. “Okay,” I nodded.
Chapter 11 - Wyatt
How do you know if you truly love someone?
There was a time a time in my life when I never believed in love. I grew up in a world of privilege. My two brothers, Gatsby and Atticus, and my sister, Ophelia, were raised by our nannies and had everything we ever wanted. Our parents had houses in Los Angeles, New York, Montana, an apartment in Paris, and another one is being built in Dubai.
When we were little, the family had more cars than I could even count – our father, Dr. Wild – is an avid collector. We each got a new car of our choosing as soon as we turned 16, and each one of us promptly crashed it soon after. I think it was O – we’ve always called Ophelia O – who kept her first car, a brand new Mercedes, the most expensive class of that year, the longest. Six months, I believe.
My mother never cooked, but every night that we had dinner at home, we always had a delicious gourmet meal prepared by our personal chef. Our birthdays were lavish and expensive. Each one probably cost as much as a regular couple’s wedding. They were extravagant, with different themes and costumes and close to 400 guests each time. That doesn’t sound like a fun birthday party for a five-year-old, but the entire school was invited so most of them were.
Our exclusive private school didn’t have a school bus to get us to school, and the responsibility fell to our nannies to deliver us there and pick us up after each of our after school activities. O did theater. Gatsby and I played lacrosse. Atticus was in the band.
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