Falling to Pieces (24 page)

“This is different. This time . . .” He dropped my gaze, staring out the window instead. When his fist hit the steering wheel, I was so unprepared for it, I let out a startled yelp. “
I’m sorry. I’m . . . You just . . . You need to be prepared because . . . I don’t know if he’s coming home this time.”

The raw anguish in
Caulder’s voice tore through me, stealing my breath with overwhelming pain.

“Cal?” I had to blink to see him clearly.

“Angel?” Red rimmed eyes stared back at me, everything I was feeling swimming in their depths.

“We can do this.” Biting back the pain, sniffing away the tears, I lifted my chin and looked him right in the eye.
Caulder had been everyone’s strength through all of this. He’d been there for his mother, for his brother, and even for me. It was time someone give him a little strength for a change. “We can do this. For Kiernan.”

Grief turned to shock and for the longest time he just stared at me. “You’re right. We can do this. We
have
to do this.”

“Where’s your mom?”

“She’s inside. She rode in the ambulance with Kiernan.”

“Alright.” I reached for the door again, and this time he didn’t stop me. “Let’s go find out what’s going on, and take it from there. One step at a time, okay?”

“One step at a time. Alright. Let’s go.”

Mrs. Parks was a mess
, hovering around the nurse’s desk when we walked in. Hair in knots from the way she kept running her hands through it, and mascara streaks down both cheeks, she looked like something out of a horror movie. Caulder took a shaky breath beside me and I knew their family was barely holding it together. If I focused on that—on helping them—maybe I could survive what was happening inside of me.

“Mrs. Parks?”

“Oh, Jade. Cal. You made it.” She swiped at her cheeks only making the makeup mess worse.

“Where is he?”
Caulder took his mother’s arm, ushering her towards an empty row of hard, plastic chairs.

“They’re looking at him now. They won’t tell me anything. They just keep saying—”

“You know how this works, Mom. They do the same thing every time. No use making yourself crazy over it.” I don’t know how Caulder’s voice came out so sturdy when I knew what a mess he was inside.

“You’re right.” Mrs. Park nodded roughly. “You’re right.”

Looking for some sort of distraction, I spotted a coffee machine near the door. “Hey, Cal, why don’t you get us all some coffee, while your mom and I make a run to the bathroom?”

Approval flashed over his face and I knew he knew what I was doing.

“I don’t think I—” Mrs. Parks started, but her son cut her off.

“If anyone comes with news, I’ll come get you right away.”

“See? It’s okay. Come on.” Uncomfortably aware that I was taking on a role I wasn’t used to playing, I eased Mrs. Parks out of her seat. “Come with me. We’ll only be a minute.”

She came willingly, moving like a zombie beside me down the hallway with ugly orange and white walls until we spotted
a sign for the women’s room. Setting her up at a mirror, I wet a few paper towels and handed them over.

“I’m such a mess.” She dabbed at her cheeks, scrubbing away the black stains. Cleaning up seemed to restore some of her composure.
“Thank you, sweetie. I wouldn’t have wanted Kiernan to see me like that.”

“I know.” Taking a look at my own face, I decided a wet paper towel couldn’t do any harm.

“Did Caulder tell you—?”

“It was bad. Yeah, he told me.” Tossing the wads of paper towels in the trash I took a deep steadying breath.

“I’m not sure if—”

“I know. Cal warned me.”

“Okay.”

“Okay. Here we go.” I turned for the door, but Mrs. Parks stopped me.

“Jade . . . I just want you to know, I’m glad you’re here. I’m glad Kiernan found you. I’m glad you’re a part of our lives. I don’t want that to change. No matter what happens. You understand?”

She was telling me that my membership in their family was not contingent on me being with Kiernan. That I had a permanent place with them. A home. A family. And as hard as it was to believe, I did understand that. “Yes. I understand.”

“Good. That’s good. Now, let’s get back out there before Cal drinks all the coffee.”

I laughed at her attempt at humor, though laughing was just about the last thing I felt like doing, and followed her back to the waiting room. Some time alone looked like it had given
Caulder the chance to collect himself, as well. Seated in those god-awful chairs, we sipped our coffees and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

***

“Mrs. Parks?” All three of us were out of our seats before the woman in the white lab coat could make it to us.

“Yes. Yes. I’m Mrs. Parks. And this is my son. And,” she turned to me and didn’t even hesitate, “my daughter.”

“Let’s have a seat, shall we?” The doctor sat and we all huddled around her.

“How’s my son? How’s Kiernan?”

“You know Kiernan’s diagnosis.”

“Yes, of course.”

“Then you know that it’s rare for someone to survive as long as he has.”

“What are you saying?”
Caulder’s arm fell over my shoulders and I had a feeling it was meant to steady him as much as it was to steady me.

“I’m saying Kiernan is awake, and coherent . . .” She went on to say more. A bunch of medical mumbo-jumbo I neither understood nor cared about. Kiernan was awake. He was
awake
. I could see him. Talk to him. “He’s been moved upstairs to a private room and he can have visitors, but I must insist on only one at a time.”

I wanted to beg and plead to be allowed to see him, but I knew it wasn’t my place.

“Take me to my son.”

Twenty Five

We all followed the doctor to an elevator bank where she hit the button for the third floor. It was the longest elevator ride of my life and once we got there, things didn’t move any quicker.
Caulder and I were deposited in an empty waiting room, with slightly nicer, puke green cushioned chairs and a small television set in the corner.

Mrs. Parks continued to follow the doctor through a set of swinging doo
rs, as we settled in for more waiting.

“You know this doesn’t change anything, right?
” Caulder’s hand dropped over my knee, which was bouncing at about a mile-a-minute. “What I said in the car—”

“He’s awake, Cal. She said he’s awake.”

“Yes, she did. But did you hear what else she said? Did you understand any of it?”

“Not really,” I admitted.

“She agrees that this time is worse. That Kiernan is worse.”

“Did she say he won’t get better?” Because
that
I might have noticed.

“No. Of course not. She can’t say that because she can’t know that.”

“Then neither can you.” I was sick of hearing worst case scenario. I didn’t need doomsday warnings. I needed something to cling to.

“Angel . . .”
Caulder sighed, slumping back in his chair. “I’m not saying this to upset you. And I’m not telling you not to have hope. I’m just trying to warn you that this may not turn out the way everyone wants it to. I know there’s no way to prepare for that. I’ve been trying to find a way for a year. It doesn’t exist. But there will come a time when we have to face it. And if that time came, and caught you off-guard . . . I’d never forgive myself.”

“Okay.” I understood what he was telling me. I understood his need to tell me it. I just couldn’t hear it. Not now. Not when I was working so hard to build up walls to block out the inevitable. Doing exactly what
Caulder was warning me not to do.

When reality hit
, it was going to hit like a ton of bricks. Caulder was trying his damnedest to soften that blow any way he could, but regardless, I was going to let it completely blindside me. At the moment, that seemed better than letting the pain in before I absolutely had to.

Another hour passed before Mrs. Parks returned pale faced with a blank stare that seemed to look right through us.
Caulder could have warned me seven ways to Sunday, he could have used every word known to mankind, and still not been able to tell me what her face alone did. A hard shudder ran through my body. My very soul trembled. And Caulder’s hand closed over my shoulder, turning me to face him.

“Hang in there, Angel. You want to go next?”

“No.” A deep breath did nothing to stabilize me. “You’re his brother. You should go.”

“Are you sure? I can wait if you want to see him.”

“I’m okay. You go.” With a nod, Caulder went to extract himself from the chair, but I stopped him halfway, grabbing ahold of his hand and tugging him back down beside me. “We can do this, right?”

A sad smile tipped his lips as he brushed some stray hairs from my face. “Yeah, Angel. We can do this.”

I watched him move out of the room, toward his mother. Not his usual arrogant swagger, but the resigned plodding of someone unsure they wanted to go wherever it was they were headed. Mrs. Parks pointed him down the long hallway behind the swinging doors and he continued on his way as she moved to join me in purgatory.

“How is he?” I asked, desperate to hear the answer I wanted and knowing full-well I wouldn’t.

“Not good, honey. He’s not good. He’s trying to act like he’s fine, but he’s not. A mother knows.”

“Oh.”
Oh?
After what she’d just told me, the best I could muster up was an ‘oh’? But Mrs. Parks didn’t seem to expect anything more. Her hand closed over mine on the shared arm rest between our seats and we slipped into mutual silence.

After another forty-five minutes, I was ready to pull my hair out. I couldn’t take it. I had to move. I had to talk to someone. Fishing my cellphone out of my pocket, I left Mrs. Parks practically catatonic in the chair beside me and excused myself.

I wasn’t sure she’d answer or if she even still had the old phone I had the number to, but I dialed her up anyway.

“Jade?” Her voice reached me after the fifth or sixth ring and I gasped with relief.

“Mom.”

“Where are you?”

“At the hospital.”

“The hospital? Are you—?”

“I’m fine. It’s Kiernan. His brother called while you were at the store. I’m sorry I didn’t leave a note. I just—”

“Is he okay
?”

“I haven’t seen him yet.” Leaning my free hand against the wall, I let my head fall forward to stare at the tile beneath my feet. “But it doesn’t soun
d good. It doesn’t sound good, Mom.”

“
Oh . . . I . . . Do you . . . Do you want me to come down there?” I hadn’t expected the offer, but it somehow eased some of the pressure building in my chest.

“I . . . I don’t know. But . . . Yeah. Yeah, I think I do.”

“Oh, okay. I’ll come. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“Okay. And M
om?”

“Yeah, Jade?”

“Thanks.”

There was a pause before the line went dead. I took a moment to catch my breath before straightening and immediately almost
fell over when I found Mrs. Parks standing about a foot away.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you. I was just headed to the bathroom.”

I hadn’t even noticed that I’d practically barricaded the door to the restroom while making my phone call. “Oh, I’m sorry.”

I stepped back to let her pass,
but she stopped in front of me. “I’m glad you called her.”

“I’m glad I could. Thanks to you.”

Mrs. Parks offered me a strained smile before slipping into the ladies room and I headed back to the waiting room.

Caulder
returned before his mother did. “How are you feeling?”

I considered his question. There were a million different answers I could have given him, each one accurate. But only one summed up the
maelstrom of emotions whipping through me. “Helpless.”

A dark cloud moved over
Caulder’s face. “Yeah. Me, too.”

We were two people standing on the edge of a cliff
, knowing we were going to fall and that it was going to hurt like hell when we hit bottom. But we were powerless to stop it, so we did all we could. We held on to each other and braced ourselves for the worst.

“Are you ready?”

Not even a little. “Yeah. I’m ready.”

“Last door on the left. And, Jade?”

“Yeah?”

“Take a breath
before you open the door.”

Be prepared
.

That hallway was like the never-ending tunnel of doom. Each step seemed to make it grow longer and the walls shrink tighter around me. I was both eager and dreading making it to the end. And when I finally did, reaching for that
door handle was like cranking the lever on a jack-in-the-box. Intentionally scaring the crap out of yourself.

My hand closed around the ice cold metal
fixture and I took that breath Caulder warned me to. Held it a moment, let everything settle, and then shoved it open. I’d been there before—walking into a hospital room to visit Kiernan, but they were right. This time was different. This time was worse.

He was lying on the bed, his eyes hooded and half closed. Machines blinked and beeped all around him. Tubes ran around his ears and hooked into his nose, IV’s hung by his bedside, and thin white chords traveled from some noisy m
achine to disappear beneath his t-shirt. Besides all of that, Kiernan just looked . . . spent.

“There’s the girl I’ve been waiting to see.”
He barely lifted his hand to wave me in.

“I’ve been waiting a while to see you, too.”

“Yeah, this whole one visitor at a time nonsense is ridiculous. I’m the one on my deathbed, why can’t I choose who’s here with me?”

He laughed, but I couldn’t find the funny in the situation. “Don’t say that.”

“I’m sorry.” Sobering, Kiernan patted the chair pulled up to the side of his bed. “Come sit with me?”

The long overhead lamp hanging above his bed was off, leaving the room lit only by the late afternoon sunlight filtering through the window and the faint glow coming from the machinery. Half of Kiernan’s face was concealed in shadow, but I could feel him watching me as I shuffled closer.

“Nope.” I was lowering myself into the chair when he stopped me. “Not close enough.”

Scooting over appeared to exhaust what little energy he had, but he managed to make room on the mattress beside him.

“Kiernan . . .” I wasn’t sure that was such a good idea. “The tubes and wires . . .”

“Will be fine. We’ll figure them out. Please?” I never could say no to him, but when he looked at me with desperation and fear in his eyes
, it was decided. There was nothing on this Earth I wouldn’t do for him. “I need to have you in my arms.”

I climbed up beside him and we both set to rearranging the many cords hanging around us. It took some maneuvering, but we figured it out. As I laid my head on the pillow next to his, Kiernan ran his hands over my arms, my shoulder
s, my hair, my face . . . anywhere he could reach. And I shut my eyes, savoring his touch.

“Remember when we met?”

“The first time or the second?” Truthfully, I had crystal clear memory of them both.

Kiernan’s laughed quietly
. “The second. I choose to disregard that lame Valentine as my first official gift to you.”

He
did
remember!
I nearly choked on my surprise. What would he say if he knew I still had it tucked away in a box beneath my bed? “How could I forget?”

“I knew you were special, right then. You were smart, and beautiful, and you blushed like a tomato, but it was your eyes that gave you away as something . . . more.” His fingertips gently brushed over the corner of my eye, sending a shiver coursing through me. “These eyes. These deep, beautiful eyes. They drew me in and
wouldn’t let me go. I dreamed about you, you know.”

“You did?” I didn’t even care that my voice was breathy, making it blatantly transparent just how much his words affected me.

“Uh huh. Almost every night. Your eyes . . . they haunted me. The pain I saw in them. I just wanted to take it all away.

“You did.”

Kiernan sighed. “Maybe. For a while. But it’s back, now. I can see it. Right here.” My lashes fluttered as his touch brushed over my eyelids. “I wish I could take that pain away for you, Jade. More than anything, I do.”

“I know you do.” Wrapping his fingers in mine, I dragged them down to my lips and planted a kiss on each one. Kiernan always had a way of seeing straight to my soul. There was no use trying to lie to him, so I gave him the God’s honest truth. “I’m scared
, Kiernan. But I’ll be alright. I promise. When I met you, the thought of finding love and losing it would have killed me. But I’m stronger now. I have people I can lean on. I have hope. And
all
of that is because of
you
. You’ve made me a better person. A
braver
person. And I wouldn’t give up knowing you to save myself all the pain in the world.”

K
iernan’s fingers trailed idly over my cheeks and across my jaw, as though he were trying to commit my face to memory—lock this moment away for eternity—the way that I was. “I have something for you.”

“Something for me?”

“Yeah. It’s on the table.” His gaze shifted over my shoulder. “I’m not sure I can reach it.”

“I’ll get it.” Rolling over, I spotted a small package sitting on the
rolling table beside the bed.

When I handed it off to Kiernan and he opened it, I was glad all the machines around us weren’t attached to me because I was pretty sure they’d be making some god-awful noise with the way my heart had stopped beating.

“You . . . You . . .”

“Yeah.”

“How?” I reached for the book he held in his hands, almost afraid to touch it.

“I had a lot of free time on my hands. I typed it up and had it professionally printed. This is the only copy.”

“Whoa.” My fingers drifted reverently over the glossy cover.

A cocky grin tipped Kiernan’s lips and he shrugged. “Yeah.”

“Whoa,” I repeated, dumbly, because . . . well . . . it bore repeating.

Defying Reality
was printed across the front in bold blue lettering. Beneath the scrawling font lay a picture of Kiernan and me. One I’d never seen before and couldn’t even remember being taken. The background was blurred slightly, but I could tell we were standing in his backyard, wrapped up in each other’s arms. It was no wonder I had no clue the picture had been taken, we both clearly had eyes for only each other in that moment. It was beautiful. It was heartbreaking. It was perfect.