That assumption, though she’d made it herself, made her angry again. “Would you say that about someone else? Say I met some guy online and he got the whole medium thing—totally accepted it—was wonking me until my eyeballs wobbled—wanted to marry me—give me a houseful of babies—would you say the same thing? No. You’d be thrilled Delaney was finally spending a Saturday night with something other than her battery-operated boyfriend and a bag of trail mix, wouldn’t you? Just because I met Clyde under extreme circumstances, that doesn’t mean I like him less. I like Clyde. I like him beyond the fact that he gets my ghost friends. I like his smile. I like the fact that he wears those glasses when he surely must know that he now has twenty-twenty vision. I like the dumb-ass crap he knows about the stupidest things like earthworms and ’80s music. I like that he eats cheeseburgers like he’s dining at some fancy restaurant. I like that he has no clue how fucking hot he is. I even like that we have almost nothing in common because you know what? I learn things from him because of it. The differences between us makes him that much hotter. I just like Clyde. The way I feel now, I figure given a couple of more months the l word I’m feeling now might have had a different spelling—but I’ll never get the chance to fucking find out.” She sobbed the words out, stuffing a knuckle in her eye to plug the wet tears that refused to stop falling.
Marcella held her away from her, gripping her shoulders. Her eyes held compassion. “And you’re fucking angry about it! Good on you—you should be, muchacha. Wanna throw shit together? I’m all in for some glass breaking.”
“I like you, too, Delaney,” Clyde said from the bathroom door, his forearms braced on the frame, his face contorted in flashes of emotion. “And if things were different, I’d hunt your ass down, throw you over my shoulder, and make you eat cheeseburgers with me. I’d do all the things a man who wants to get to know a woman better does. I’d text-message stupid notes to you just because. I’d buy you flowers, even though they end up dead. I’d even put them in water with a smile on my damned face. I’d take you to the movies. I’d call you just to say hello. I’d even listen to Michael Bublé with you. I’d wear your ass down until you decided to consider a future with me and as many stray, helpless dogs as you could adopt and as many babies as we could make to fill a household. If this were different, if I had a choice in any of this fucked-up mess, I’d stay with you—and this time, I’d pay attention. I’d pay much closer attention to what was going on with the people in my life.” Clyde’s eyes clung to Delaney’s face when he finished, blazing with conviction and all that passion she’d taunted him about not having.
And it left her breathless.
Wordless.
And so filled with anguish, it made it impossible to express it.
No one spoke—the tight confines of the bathroom suddenly became almost too much to bear.
Marcella grabbed a handful of tissues from the box on the long vanity, handing them to Clyde. “You two let me know when you’re ready.” She slipped under Clyde’s arms and out of the bathroom.
Clyde cupped Delaney’s cheeks with both hands. “I’d choose to stay with you if I could. I’d choose to stay . . .”
Her arms went around his waist, inhaling the clean scent that was Clyde, memorizing each ripple in his abdomen, each hard plane of his arms.
She had nothing left. For fifteen years she’d used words to help others, cajole, soothe, comfort. Tonight, she had nothing.
There really was nothing left to say.
They didn’t have a choice.
Satan had made the choice for them.
Clyde’s body was indeed at Lang Memorial Hospital—a trauma center for burn victims, the brain injured, and those with a host of other life-threatening issues. It hadn’t been easy to get past the brigade of nurses, but Marcella and her charm should never be underestimated. In a matter of moments, Delaney’d slipped passed the trauma nurses’ station unnoticed, with Clyde right behind her. Marcella slipped back out of the room after squeezing Clyde’s hand, then hugging her friend. “Safe journey, Clyde,” she offered with a gentle smile. “I’ll be right outside, D. Right there.” She pointed to the long, sterile hallway. “Waiting.”
So here they were.
Her, Clyde’s soul, and Clyde . . . er, Clyde’s body.
One big, fat, supernatural hoedown.
They stood by his bed. Parts of his body were wrapped in gauze, and he was hooked up to a ventilator and a heart monitor and some feeding tubes. According to the file Marcella had stolen, he had burns on only twenty percent of his body, yet another Clyde miracle, but that was only part of the problem.
He’d suffered severe head trauma in the explosion. The file was filled with complicated medical terms Delaney was only half sure of—the only thing she was sure of was that Clyde really was terminal. Essentially, this vital, smart, overly logical, fantastic man was brain-dead, and had been for almost three months now. Clyde had been right—there were no wills, and no living relatives to sign a DNR.
Every fiber of her being had hoped against hope that Clyde would have even a small chance of survival, despite what Marcella’d told them. She’d prayed Marcella was wrong. Seeing him this way, his strong frame helpless and pale with tubes and monitors, left Delaney barren of any optimism.
Clyde took in his lifeless form with grave silence. He neither moved toward the bed, nor away from it.
Hopefully, when they pulled the plug Clyde’s soul would go where it’d always belonged, and this would all be over.
So. Over.
“So you have to go.”
“It looks like it.”
Puffing her cheeks out, Delaney fought to keep her focus on the task at hand. “Hookay, I say we don’t linger because that’ll just be bad for my already burning eyeballs.” And her heart. Her aching, clenching, pounding, anguish-riddled heart. “So here’s where we say good-bye. I ship you off to the big, white light and you walk into it, okay? No looking back—no waffling. Absolutely none or you’ll be in some big pile of stank. So . . . okay?” Delaney finally looked up at him, clenching her jaw to keep tears from seeping out of her eyes.