Crash (12 page)

. . . to find Jackson sitting on the front step, two steaming cups of coffee beside him.

“You wouldn't let me sleep over. You wouldn't let me run with you—” When I start to interrupt, to explain yet again, he shakes his head and keeps talking. “No explanation needed, Miki. You need to be able to trust that whatever gets thrown at you, you're strong enough to deal. I get it. I don't agree with it. I don't like it. But I get it.”

There isn't much I can say to that. I'm not sure if I love it or hate it, the way he reads me so well.

“So what I was going to say is, you wouldn't let me do anything else for you, but you can't turn down coffee.” He gets to his feet and hands me a cup. “Skinny latte.”

“Thank you.” I lead him inside.

“So here's the thing,” he says when we get to the kitchen. He leans one hip against the counter and sips his coffee. “I gave you what you need. Independence. Your
turn to give me what I need.”

I watch him warily over the rim of my coffee cup as I take a sip. “Depends on what you need.”

His mouth curls in a slow, sexy smile. He takes a step closer and curls his free hand around my waist, drawing me in until I'm flush against him. “A whole lot of things, Miki Jones. But most of them will have to wait for another time.”

I push against his chest. “Um . . . Does the word
disgusting
mean anything to you? I've just been running for an hour and have yet to shower.”

“Don't care,” he says, refusing to let me go. “Unless you mean that as an offer to let me watch.”

“Watch me run?”

“I want to watch you shower,” he whispers in my ear, then nips the lobe lightly.

“Do you, now?” I whisper back, borrowing one of his favorite phrases.

He's too close, too warm, too real, too safe.

I pull away and can't miss his reluctance as he lets me. I set my coffee down, busy myself pouring bowls of quinoa cereal, and say over my shoulder, “So you were telling me that it's my turn to give you what you need . . .”

He goes to the fridge, pulls out the carton of milk, sets it on the counter, and lifts his glasses so I can see his eyes.

“I need to feel like I'm doing something to help. I'm not great at standing on the sidelines.” He pours the milk into the bowls. I grab the bag of marshmallows, but he pulls it
from my hands before I can get it open and lobs it into the trash. “Never again,” he says. “Eating those was right up there with oysters.”

“You don't like oysters?”

“Or year-old marshmallows.”

“Duly noted.”

He carries the bowls to the table while I get spoons.

“Here's how today's going to work,” he says. “I'm going to drive you to the hospital before I head to school. Though I'd prefer to miss school altogether and stay with you.”

“We've been through this. I don't want you falling behind on my account.”

I poke at the cereal in my bowl. I know that at some point I'll need to go back to school, too, even if Dad and Carly are still in the hospital. But this isn't that point. Not yet.

“Eat,” Jackson says.

Easier to do what he says than argue. Pick your battles. So I take a spoonful and chew.

He waits until my mouth's full before he continues. “I'll come by the hospital after with your homework. We'll stay till they kick us out, and I'll bring you home after.” I watch him, wary. Everything he's saying sounds too reasonable, which is exactly why I'm on high alert. Jackson isn't usually a reasonable kind of guy. “And, uh, on the way back here we need to make a stop,” he says.

“A stop?”

“My mother's making you dinner.” Before I can protest,
he says, “It was dinner or you moving into the spare room until your dad comes home. I've put her off as long as I can. Take your pick. Dinner or spare room?”

Jackson with a slightly sheepish expression is hard to resist.

There's a certain appeal to the thought of moving in to the room next to Jackson's, but I shake my head and say, “Dinner. If I move in to your place and not Dee's or Kelley's or Sarah's, I'm going to have a riot on my hands.” That isn't the reason and we both know it. It's more like: If I let myself drop my guard, drop my walls, let myself move in where someone's parents can take care of me, watch out for me, I'll stumble. I'll fall. I'll lose my hard-won ability to face whatever the day throws at me.

My friends don't get that at all.

But Jackson does.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

I SIT IN THE FAMILIAR PLEATHER CHAIR, PULL OUT MY MATH textbook, and work on some questions. I'm about halfway through when Dad whispers my name. My head jerks up and I study his face.

When I got here, the nurses said he had a good night last night, that he woke up and was coherent. It's one thing to be told he's improving. It's another thing entirely to hear him say my name like that. And then he opens his eyes and he looks right at me.

“Daddy.” That one word comes out sounding like sunshine. I jump up, textbook and notebook falling unheeded to the floor, and lean over to carefully work one arm around his shoulder—the right one because his broken ribs and the incision from his splenectomy are on the left—and
give him a hug. He tries to lift an arm to hug me back, but he's so weak he does little more than graze my hip before he drops his hand back on the bed. “The nurses said you're doing better, that you even had something to eat last night.”

“Not sure . . . I'd call . . . three sips of juice . . . something to eat,” Dad says, his voice raspy with disuse.

“Better than nothing, huh?”

“You think?” He offers a weak impression of a smile. He's pale, his hair disheveled, features drawn, eyes glassy from the pain meds. It doesn't matter. He's Dad and I'm so happy he's back.

I can't stop smiling. “You're going to be okay.” I've said that so many times, sitting beside his bed while he was unconscious, willing it to be true. Saying it now, I finally believe it.

He starts to speak again, but his voice cracks. He runs the tip of his tongue over his lower lip. I pour some water from the blue pitcher on the bedside table into a Styrofoam cup and hold the straw while he takes a couple of sips.

“Not too fast. The nurse told me you shouldn't gulp a lot all at once.”

“I should be the one taking care of
you
,” he says, holding my gaze. “I think I've been falling down on that job for a while.”

“I don't need to be taken care of.” I set the cup down on the table. “I just need you to get better and come home.”

“Working on it.” He winces as he takes a breath.

“Hurts to breathe?”

“Nope.”

“Bullsh—” He gives me that Dad look, the one where he lowers his head and lifts his eyebrows. “Bullcookies,” I improvise.

He studies me for a long minute. “You getting enough rest?”

“Yes.” That's the way Dad and I have communicated for a while. Mostly honest, but sometimes not.

He stares at me. The Dad stare.

I sigh. “No.”

He nods. “You'll start tonight.”

I want to tell him that I'll tuck myself in at nine p.m. sharp and sleep like a baby, that now that he's awake everything's great. But that would be a lie because Carly hasn't woken up yet and I don't know when she will. I don't dare let myself wonder
if
she will.

“Carly?” he asks, like he knows exactly what I'm thinking. “No one here would tell me anything last night. Just that she's getting the best possible care.” He tries to lift his hand again, but he can only hold it up for a couple of seconds before it flops back on the bed. “Weak as a kitten,” he mutters.

The nurses told me that if he woke up, I should keep things light. They told me not to upset him. I'm pretty certain that telling him Carly still hasn't regained consciousness and that she's in the neuro-ICU is going to upset him. So do I pull a Jackson and lie by omission? Or do I tell him the truth?

I'm saved from making that decision when Dr. Lee walks in. He nods at me, then starts talking to Dad, asking him questions. I can tell by his tone of voice that he's pleased with Dad's replies, and when he says, “We'll be transferring you later today,” I get my confirmation. Dad's on the mend and they're letting him out of the ICU. Which doesn't mean he's a hundred percent yet or that he gets to come home, but moving him to the regular floor means he's one step closer.

Those bits of conversation with me and the visit from Dr. Lee wore Dad out; he nods off within seconds of Dr. Lee leaving. I head to the neuro-ICU and sit with Carly for a while. Her head's wrapped in white bandages. There's a tube in her nose and another in her mouth. The respirator hisses and other machines beep.

I get flashbacks of the rows of shells in the cave, dozens of bodies that all looked just like Lizzie lying there, hooked up to machines. Clones created from Lizzie's DNA. Empty shells created to house alien consciousness and allow the Drau to hide in plain sight. I think of Jackson and Luka turning off the machines, and me freaking out because they were killing people. Who turned out not to be people at all.

I scrub both palms over my face, then take Carly's hand in mine. I talk to her, telling her about all the texts and posts from all our friends. About Marcy asking after her. I talk until I'm hoarse, until Carly's parents come back.

“We went to see your father,” Mrs. Conner says. “He was sleeping, but the nurse told us he's doing better.” She sounds hopeful, like maybe if Dad's doing better, if he's going to be okay, Carly will, too.

I nod and hug her and we just hold on to each other for the longest time.

But what terrifies me is the way Carly's dad, a man I've known my whole life, who in all that time has never hugged me, not even when Mom died, steps over and wraps his arms around us both. I'm crying again. I dash the tears away with the back of my hand, angry to be this girl, this weeping, desperate girl.

I just feel so out of control. There's nothing I can do to help Carly, and that's killing me.

“I'll walk with you to the elevator,” Mr. Conner says when I start to leave. “I'm going to get some coffee for the Becks.”

“The Becks?”

“Their daughter's here, too. Has been for more than two weeks,” Carly's mom explains. “Kristin Beck. She's the same age as Carly.” She looks away and whispers, “She hasn't woken up yet, either.”

I don't know what to say, so I just squeeze Mrs. Conner's hand and then hug her one more time.

When I get to Dad's room, he's awake again.

I lean over and kiss his cheek. “Aunt Gale?” he asks.

“She calls at least once a day. And I text her in between.
She has a flight home booked for tonight, but we agreed she'd cancel it if you woke up.” I smile at him. “Guess she's staying in Korea, huh?”

“Looks like.” He tips his head to the side. “Have you been staying at Kelley's?” I shake my head. “Dee's?”

“I've been staying at home. It's better, sleeping in my own bed, in my own house.”

He doesn't say anything for a second, then, “Who's been staying with you?”

“Sometimes no one.” I take a deep breath. “And sometimes Jackson.”

Dad's eyebrows shoot so high they practically disappear into his hair.

“Trust me, Dad, I haven't exactly been in the frame of mind for anything you might be worrying about to have actually happened. I slept. He slept. End of story.” I smile a little. “Besides, you told me I have to wait until I'm fifty,” I say, reminding him about the crazy awkward conversation we had about boys the day my neighbor Mrs. Gertner regaled me with her hemorrhoid surgery stories.

Dad laughs, then groans and touches his broken ribs. “Don't make me laugh. Hurts.” He sobers and gestures at the brownish-orange pleather chair that I've come to know far too well. “Sit. I want to talk to you.”

I sit.

“I want to tell you where I was. All those nights, I want to—”

“I already know,” I say, not wanting to talk about this,
but knowing I have to at some point. No sense putting it off, not if Dad's open to the topic right now. Who knows what later will bring. “I found your matchbooks. In the bowl in your bedroom. The one Mom used to keep potpourri in.” I take a deep breath. “The Elk Bar, huh? I guess you really like that one because you have a ton of their matchbooks.”

He just watches me and I keep talking, telling him everything that's been in my heart. Maybe he's finally ready to hear it, or maybe he's just my captive audience. I know I'm not supposed to upset him, so I try and keep my tone even and choose my words with care.

“Remember when you said you had it all under control?” I ask, my voice gentle. “I don't think you do, Daddy, and I can't just keep quiet anymore and wipe the counter and put away the empties. I need you.”