Crash (9 page)

She's the third person to tell me that—Dr. Lee, Carly's mom, and now Laila. If I hadn't already been through this with Gram and Sofu and then Mom, maybe I wouldn't believe her. But I have been through it. Three times before. And I know she's telling me the truth.

“Go home, Miki. Sleep. Eat something. Take a nice hot shower. Come back in a few hours.” She pauses. “Do you have a ride home? Or money for a cab?”

Do I have a ride? I don't know how long I've been here. They wouldn't let Jackson into the ICU with me. The truth is, it's so late they didn't even want to let me in. But I was stubborn, even going so far as to have them call Dr. Lee and confirm that he said I could see Dad. They finally gave in.

“I have money,” I say, thinking I'll take a cab if Jackson
isn't out there waiting for me. A part of me can't imagine he would be.

Laila smiles at me. “Come back after you get some sleep, okay?”

“Will you be here?”

She shakes her head. “No. Shift changes in about an hour, but there will be a lot of people here to take good care of him.”

I give Dad one last kiss on his forehead and leave the ICU to find Jackson waiting for me in the hall, one shoulder propped against the wall, head bowed.

“You're still here,” I say.

His head comes up; his brows rise. “Where else would I be?” His tone is gentle with just a hint of
silly girl
,
which I kind of deserve. I wouldn't leave him if the tables were turned. Why would I think he'd leave me?

Because everyone leaves.

Not Jackson. Not if he can help it.

I'm a little surprised to realize I actually believe that.

Jackson drives me home. He opens two cans of soup. He makes me eat a bowl while he eats two. Then he rinses the bowls and puts them in the dishwasher and brings me upstairs.

“I hate the idea of waking up in the morning alone,” I whisper.

“You won't. And it's already morning.”

I look at him, startled. “Don't you have to go home? Your parents—”

“Dad's out of town. Mom knows exactly where I am. You got a spare toothbrush?”

“Downstairs bathroom, the drawer under the sink. There's toothpaste there, too. And soap.”

When I come out of the bathroom, teeth brushed, face washed, my clothes changed out for blue plaid flannel PJs, Jackson's in my room, wearing a pair of faded sweatpants and a loose T-shirt.

“That isn't what you were wearing before.”

“I had extra stuff in the Jeep. Workout clothes.”

I make a face.

“Clean workout clothes. I did laundry yesterday.”

“You do your own laundry?”

He arches one brow. “You think I want my mom washing my boxers?”

I laugh, but the sound's thin and strained.

He pulls back the covers, pats the mattress, and says, “Into bed.”

I walk to him, my feet leaden, my entire body sagging under the weight of my fatigue. I feel like I'm slogging through quicksand.

I sit on the edge of the bed. He sits beside me and our fingers intertwine. There's a slump in his posture I've never seen before.

“You okay?” I whisper.

He offers a shadow of his killer Jackson smile. “Sure.” His fingers tighten a little on mine. I tighten mine right back.

It hits me that he isn't just comforting me; I'm comforting him, too. Because no matter how much he's trying to be here for me right now,
he
has to be thinking about the girl we saw in the white room. The girl who can't possibly be his sister. Because Lizzie is dead.

According to Jackson, he killed her.

But maybe he didn't. Maybe he's wrong. Maybe she's somehow trapped inside the game, has been all this time. Maybe—

“Do you want to talk about Lizzie?”

“Not right now.” He draws his hand from mine, scoops my legs up, and stretches them out on the mattress. Then he drags the covers up over me and orders, “Sleep.”

“I can't.”

“Then just close your eyes.” He lies down on top of the covers, his front against my back, his arms around me like a barrier against the world, against nightmares and the monsters under the bed.

Except they aren't under the bed. They're in the game and in my head and there are moments I'm not sure who the monsters are. The guy who got drunk and ran his car into Dad's?

The Drau? The Committee?

Kendra? Me?

I can't forget that Drau, begging for its life.

I close my eyes and see the white room, the nanoagents, Lizzie. “I think it's really her,” I whisper. “Lizzie. I think she somehow got trapped in there, in the game, like
the guy from that movie
Tron
.”

He doesn't say anything. I feel his chest moving with each steady, slow breath.

“Jackson,” I whisper.

“Sleep,” he orders. Last word.

I open my eyes to sunlight peeking through the slats in my blinds, hitting me square in the face. There's a heavy weight across my shoulders. My first thought is that Carly slept over, got sick of the hard floor and crawled up on my bed. Wouldn't be the first time.

I blink against the light.

Carly.

Dad.

The hospital.

I jerk upright but don't get far. I'm trapped by Jackson's arm and the covers twisted around my calves. He groans and rolls onto his back, throwing his forearm across his eyes. His sunglasses are on my bedside table.

“Not exactly how I planned for us to spend our first full night together,” he says, his voice raspy with sleep, his eyes still covered.

“That wasn't our first full night together. We slept together one night in the caves.”

He drops his forearm and pins me with a look. “I think I'd remember if we slept together.”

A flush heats my cheeks. I shove aside the covers and drop my legs over the side of the bed, scowling down at
him. “I don't mean it that way.”

He laughs softly. “I know. I'm teasing. And
you
slept that night. I didn't. I just held you.” His expression sobers. “The caves don't count. Anything in the game doesn't count. This is the first time I got to hold you all night in the real world.”

The way he's looking at me makes my throat feel tight.

My phone buzzes, giving me an excuse to look away. It's a text from Kelley. There are actually dozens of texts. Everyone must have heard about the crash. I hesitate, torn between wanting to text them all back and being daunted by the task.

“Give yourself a few minutes to wake up, get your thoughts together,” Jackson says.

“And pee.”

“TMI.” He throws a pillow at me.

With a laugh, I catch it and throw it at his head. Then I sober, feeling guilty for laughing when Dad and Carly . . .

“Don't,” Jackson says. “It's okay to give yourself a thirty-second break from worrying. Didn't you ever hear the old saying, ‘laughter's the best medicine'?”

But I don't feel like laughing anymore.

After I grab a quick shower, I collect some clean towels from the linen closet and toss them to Jackson, then give him his privacy while I head down to the kitchen. My phone rings. It's Kelley.

“We drew straws for who would call you,” she says, her voice strained. “I figured it would be tough on you to
go through the details a million times with everyone who wants to know. I can call everyone if you want and keep them updated. Sort of act like a liaison.”

“That would be great,” I say, relieved by her offer, because the prospect of answering every text and call is just one more stress to pile on my growing mountain. I know everyone means well, everyone's worried, and I have to—
want
to—update them. But Kelley's offer takes the pressure off. It's a lot easier to have to just say it all once.

“I rigged it,” Kelley says.

“What?”

“The straws. I was worried it would be Dee. And when I thought about all the things she might say . . . I mean, Dee's awesome and I love her, but if someone can pick the wrong thing to say at any given time . . . Remember what she said after you saved Janice's sister and almost got hit by that truck? She told that story about the guy who had a fractured bone in his neck and didn't know it and ended up dying, and then . . . I mean . . . Shit. I just did it, too, didn't I?”

“Nope. Not at all,” I deadpan as I wander to the fridge and pull open the door.

“So . . . how are they, your dad and Carly? Can you tell me anything?”

I take out the milk and set it on the counter, then just stand there as I tell her what I know, how little I know, about Dad, about Carly and the induced coma. I can hear her crying and trying to hide it.

“Can we come to the hospital to see her?” she asks.

I put the milk back in the fridge, forgetting why I took it out in the first place. “I honestly don't know. I'll check with her mom and call you later. Probably not everyone all at once, but maybe one or two at a time.”

The sound of another voice carries through the phone, then Kelley says, “My mom wants to make you a tuna casserole. I'll leave it on your porch if you aren't home. It's cold enough outside that it should be okay, right?”

“No!” Oh God. Not the dreaded casserole. When Mom died it felt like all the neighbors and Dad's coworkers and maybe even some relatives of relatives brought tuna casserole. We had casseroles piled so high in the freezer at one point that we couldn't even get the door closed. We probably still have a stray casserole covered in frost somewhere in the back, behind the ice cream and the frozen peas. “I mean, thanks, Kelley. Really. And thank your mom. But no. I'm good. I'll be at the hospital most of the time. I'll just grab stuff there in the cafeteria. I wouldn't want her to go to the trouble and then I don't even get to eat it.”

“You could freeze it.”

I close my eyes. “I'm good. Really. But thanks.”

“You sure?”

“A hundred percent sure.”

“Okay.” She pauses. “Just know we all love you. Do you want to stay here? Till your dad's better? Mom says you can have your own key and come and go as you need to. And Dee said you can stay at her house. And Sarah said they
have a spare room so you wouldn't need to share. Do you want to? So you're not alone?”

The shower turns off upstairs.

“I'm not alone.”

“Oh.” There are a few seconds of silence. “Good. That's good.” I know she wants to ask if Jackson's staying with me. Instead she says, “Call me as soon as you know anything about Carly or your dad, or if I can do anything for you. Drive you. Pick you up. Feed you. Sleep over. Bring you to sleep here. Do your homework. Anything.”

I can hear the love in her voice. I can feel it through the phone. I can feel it in my heart and all around me like a hug.

We end the call and I skim through my texts, finding lots of love from Dee and Sarah and Maylene, Shareese, Aaron, even Marcy and Kathy, which is kind of a surprise. Only when I scroll through a second time do I realize there's no text from Luka, which is also kind of a surprise—a not-so-nice one.

“Hey,” Jackson says as he pads barefoot into the kitchen. His hair's wet, slicked back off his face, a few stray strands falling across his forehead. He's wearing his jeans and a faded T-shirt that's all stretched out, clinging to his broad shoulders and the muscles of his arms and chest, loose around his waist. His glasses hang from the neck of the T-shirt.

“Ready to go?” I ask.

“Just as soon as you have some breakfast.” His tone
vetoes any possibility of argument.

Right. Breakfast. That was why I took out the milk. “You have control issues,” I say.

“So do you. We've already established that. Yet another thing we have in common.” He comes to me and presses a kiss to my lips. He smells like mint toothpaste and my shampoo. “Let me take care of you, Miki. I can't fix this, can't make it go away, can't protect you. At least let me feed you.”

That's everything in a nutshell, and I get it. If the situation were reversed, I'd want to do the same, take care of him.

He weaves his fingers with mine and I stare at our hands. I see them, but I don't feel his touch. My fingers and toes are cold, numb, pins and needles spreading along my palms to my wrists and my feet to my ankles.

Jackson frowns and glances down.

When he looks back up, his face goes kind of weird, pixelated, like when I need to reset the digital cable box. Like my real world is lagging, just like in the game.

His eyes widen. He feels it, too.

I try to speak, my mouth refusing to shape the words that form in my brain. I'm caught somewhere between being tethered to this world and pulled into a different one. Not now. Not again.

There's no way to fight it, but I want to. I want to force my body, my consciousness, my reality to stay firmly rooted right here.

When sensation surges back to my fingertips, I sag in relief. Jackson's hand is warm, his hold a little too tight.

“Whoa,” he says softly, and loosens his grip. “Thought we were getting pulled for a second there.”

So did I, at first. But . . . “No.” I shake my head. “It felt different than that. Weirder. If that's possible.”

The corners of his mouth pull to the sides, tension hardening his features. Then he says, “Food,” as if that's a solution, and starts opening cupboards, stopping when he finds the bowls.

I move to his side and rest my hand on his. “Thanks,” I say, the word coming out raspy and thick. Insignificant. How can such a small word convey what I feel? “I mean it. Thank you. For being here. For caring about me.”

“Caring about you,” he says, staring at the bowls. Then he turns his head and his mercury eyes lock on mine, pupils wide and dark. “You have no idea.”

But I think that maybe I do. Maybe all the doubts I had while we were arguing, all the worries about how we could make this work, about how he hides things from me and keeps secrets . . . Maybe I get that no relationship's ever perfect, that we'll fight, we'll disagree, we'll be very different people. But in the end, we can make it work if we both try, if it matters enough, if we're both willing to compromise and meet each other halfway.