So today was about strengthening my resolve.
My mom had called seventeen and a half times today already. The half because one of the phone calls lasted so long that classifying it as one call just didn’t seem fair.
My brother and his wife, Bethany, had arrived yesterday, and I could feel the pretentiousness creeping through the phone just hearing them in the background.
I still hadn’t packed my bags. I had two sets of clothes folded and ready to go—my traditional holiday garb of turtlenecks and scarfs . . . or my normal clothes. As much as I wanted to make Cade happy, this wasn’t a decision that I could make lightly.
When I came home from my shift at the tattoo parlor, I reached out to tug open the door to my building, and it didn’t budge. I blinked, and then pulled again, but nothing changed.
I stepped back and looked around my street to make sure I’d gone to the right building. There was the Laundromat next door, which meant I was in the right place. I stepped forward and yanked on the door again. Nothing.
The door was locked.
The door to this building hadn’t been locked in ages, almost a year, I was sure.
I fished out my keys, and it took me a few seconds to even remember which key worked on this door because it had been so long. What had made the landlord fix it now? I’d given up bugging him about it months ago because nothing worked.
Unless he hadn’t been the one to fix it.
I froze with the key halfway to the lock. Would Cade have done that? Even though we were . . . well, not whatever we had been.
I weighed the probability in my mind of who could have fixed the door. Between my bum of a landlord and Golden Boy—the choice was obvious.
My heartbeat sped up faster just thinking about the possibility.
Maybe it didn’t mean anything. Maybe it wasn’t even him.
But what if it was and what if it did?
I thawed a little bit more.
I shook my head, and focused on my keys. When I found the right one, I shoved it into the lock a little too hard. Then I went upstairs and faced my packing options. I took a few turtlenecks, just in case, but for the most part I packed my normal clothes, the clothes I thought Cade would have approved of.
When I couldn’t hold back my nerves about tomorrow or my fantasies about Cade being the one to fix my door, I went to bed for the night, hoping I could stay strong . . . against everything.
My head was pounding, and it sounded like I was underwater. The world was so far away and too bright after so long alone in the dark. A light shined in my eye, and I flinched. A face hovered over mine, and my heart turned over in my chest.
Alex.
It had to be.
I tried to say her name, but my tongue felt like sandpaper, and my throat burned with the effort. All I managed was a whisper.
“Don’t try to talk, Rest your vocal cords.”
The voice was male, not Alex’s. My world chose that moment to sharpen, to emerge from the blur of my vision. I licked my lips. They were sticky and tasted like pennies.
Two fingers pressed into my wrist, and the man startled rattling off numbers to someone else I couldn’t see.
I registered the steady rumble of an engine, and whatever I was lying on swayed slightly.
I was in an ambulance. They were taking me away.
I panicked, and tried to sit up, but my shoulders were strapped down. I was trapped again. I bucked and squirmed, and a sharp pain shot up my leg. I tried to scream, but nothing came out.
Empty.
The pressure in my head increased until I thought it might explode.
I mouthed Alex’s name again and again, even though I couldn’t say it.
“You’re going to be okay,” the paramedic assured me. “We got to you in time.”
No. No, they hadn’t.
They were too late.
I saw the paramedic pick up a syringe, and then my world went fuzzy again. The panic subsided, but the memories did not.
It all came too late.
I woke up, gasping, my arms and legs slick with sweat and stuck to the sheets. My dreams were always worse around the holidays, but that had been the first in a while. I’d been too preoccupied with other things of late for my old demons to show their heads. I guess it was too much to hope for that they’d finally ended.
I tried to go back to sleep, but now the accident was fresh in my mind. Every time a car passed outside, the lights reflected through my window, and I shot up in bed, afraid another dream was starting.
Finally I decided that sleep wasn’t going to be a possibility. I got up, and took a long shower. I used the time to clear my head, and focus on what I needed to do on this trip.