Popular? I move around the circular desk to a door that leads to a long hallway: a hallway I’ve walked a million times, but today seems different somehow. Maybe it’s the leftover panic that still has my muscles twitching.
I follow Pam to the door with a nameplate on it that says “Rosie” in script. “So you didn’t leave a message with my secretary today?”
She shakes her head. “No, but I might have an idea who did.” She dips her forehead toward the square window in the door.
My mind whirls and my gut tightens. I step up to the closed door and peek in through the window.
The air around me stills along with my lungs. My daughter, smaller than the average eighteen-year-old, sits in her chair, head and legs locked into place by soft straps.
But she’s not alone.
Eve.
Emotion clogs my throat, and I force myself to swallow. She’s in a chair, leaning forward so that her long hair veils most of her face. She has one of Rosie’s hands between her own, and she’s talking.
My eyes track movement on the other side of the room. I look over to find Ryder, his eyes on mine through the window, and a pleased smile on his face.
Without the conscious decision to do so, I push open the door and move into the room.
Eve’s head swivels toward me. Her big blue eyes are red-rimmed and puffy, cheeks painted with tears. “I didn’t know.”
“Now you do.” It’s all I can say, the only thing I can get out before I brace for her reaction: her disappointment, anger, revulsion that because of me my daughter’s living out her life brain dead in a hospital. All because of me.
Eve turns sad eyes back to Rosie. “She’s beautiful, just like her mom.”
I nod, even though she can’t see me, not trusting my voice.
She holds Rosie’s curled-up hand, rubbing comforting circles on her knuckles, and the visual threatens to drop me. I look away and blink as my eyes focus on my son.
“Hey, Dad.” Ryder plops down on Rosie’s bed, hands behind his head. “So I take it you got my message, huh?”
I dip my chin toward Eve. “You do this?”
He shrugs one shoulder. “It was time. Rosie and I were sick of watching you fall apart, so we took matters into our own hands.” He looks at his twin sister. “Ain’t that right, Rose?”
“We? You haven’t been here in—”
“Guess my secret’s out too.” Ryder steps closer to whisper. “Just because I haven’t been coming with you doesn’t mean I haven’t been coming.”
Pride floods my chest with warmth. Here I thought he’d been abandoning his sister, but instead he’s been forging his own relationship with her. “How long?”
“Couple months. I stopped coming with you and I missed her. I decided to come visit, and I liked it better being alone with her. When I used to come with you, it was so depressing.”
“Sorry, son.” I rake a hand through my hair. “I . . . I don’t know what to say.”
“Nothing to say.” He says it in such a casual way I have to wonder how I didn’t see this before.
I turn my attention to my daughter. Eve moves away from her spot to give me room.
“Hey, baby girl.” I lean in and press a kiss to her forehead before taking the seat that Eve just vacated. “Busy day, huh?”
I watch for a reaction, a flicker of her eyelids, twitch of her lips, but get nothing. Her deep blue eyes stare blankly at me.
I notice a picture lying on her lap. “What’s this?” I pick it up. It’s of me, Eve, and Ryder from the night Ataxia played at The Blackout. “Your brother bring you this?”
“It’s a great picture,” Eve says in a soft way that gets my eyes.
I get lost for a moment at the tenderness I see in her expression.
“One of my favorites, although”—she reaches to a framed picture on the table next to her—“this one is the best.”
I take the frame from her, and an instant smile pulls at my lips upon viewing the image of Ryder and Rosie just weeks before she drowned. They’re eating popsicles in the backyard, both of them with bright purple lips and sticky sweet dripping off their chins. Messy blond hair and sun-kissed toddler cheeks.
“That was a good day.” My voice cracks with the memory.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
I shake my head. “I guess the same reason you lied about your age. I didn’t want you to hate me.”
She steps close, and I exhale hard with the soothing warmth of her hand on my shoulder. “I could never hate you. It was a mistake, Cameron.”
“A mistake that cost her . . .” I swallow the lump forming in my throat and pull Rosie’s hand to my lips to kiss each one of her knuckles. “I’m so sorry, baby girl.”
Still no response from Rosie, but the telltale sniff of silent tears from Eve shoots straight to my chest.
I turn my head. “Now you know. It’s because of me she’s locked inside a body she can’t control. She’ll never have a life outside of this facility, and if all plays out the way it seems like it’s going to, she’ll die in here—”
“Shhh.” Eve wipes her eyes and stands next to Rosie. “She can hear you.”
“We don’t know what she can hear.”