“We’ll stay with you, Daisy, as much as they’ll let us. You’re in intensive care, so the visiting hours are limited. No matter what, you won’t be alone. One of us will be nearby twenty-four/seven.”
Tom’s worried face hovered into Daisy’s field of vision. He was nodding at each of Aubrey’s well-enunciated statements.
Daisy shut her eyes. Looking at them upside down and sideways above her was making her nauseous. She didn’t remember the accident. She’d hit Aubrey’s house with her car? She thought back, searching her bruised mind for something, anything to hang onto.
Images floated through her mind—tennis, her house, vodka, Tom.
Nothing. She was blank.
She opened her eyes and another face appeared in her field of vision. A young man, thirty or so, with dark eyes. He looked so familiar. So very familiar. She had no idea who he was, and yet she knew him intimately. Every ache, every pain. Every whisper in the night, the smooth skin on the underside of his arm. She loved him. Even in high school, when he hated her, she loved him.
Her brain worked to make the connections, tried to process and spit out the answer, but it just wouldn’t come.
And then he sprang into her consciousness, and she realized it had all been a terrible, awful dream. She’d been dreaming.
Josh. Her Josh. He was right here, standing with her. She didn’t even care that the wretch was with him. She was flooded with happiness.
It was so good to have the family back together.
Exhausted, she let her eyes close, and slid into darkness again.
CHAPTER 28
Josh
Seventeen Years Ago
The beginning of Josh’s first day in high school was shaping up to be incredibly painful. The Montessori school he’d attended since kindergarten only went up to eighth grade, and then the students moved on to regular, mainstream public schools or pricey private schools. Private school wasn’t in Tom’s budget, so instead of walking down the street to school, Josh had to get on a bus, with strangers, to go to Hillsboro High School. Josh hated strangers. He liked things safe and sane and comfortable.
At fourteen he wasn’t big for his age either, which worried him. He knew he was going to get picked on. New kid, new school, new class—yeah, things were going to be different, that was for sure.
The bus smelled like vomit. Someone more scared than he was, then. He ignored the curious looks, took the first empty seat, and attempted to become invisible, shrinking into the green pleather, face attached to the window. The glass was cool and felt good against his cheek.
He didn’t know how he was going to stand being away from Aubrey.
She was so small, so wounded. Who was going to take care of her? Who was going to defend her? Without him there to give her that invisible layer of armor, she would be vulnerable to attack.
Last night, when they’d talked on the phone, she told him that she missed him. It made his heart swell up, and he’d snuck off to the bathroom for another shower and spent his time under the water’s spray imagining all sorts of naughty things that he’d like to try with Aubrey. Things his mother would probably shoot him for.
But Aubrey was only twelve. A mature twelve—she’d seen too much at the foster home where she lived—but twelve nonetheless, and the way Josh looked at it, it wouldn’t be right to have the real thing between them for a while. He knew of a girl in his neighborhood who’d gotten pregnant, and the idea of that happening to Aubrey was frightening to him. He’d gone to the library and looked up several books on childbirth, and learned exactly what happened when a man and woman had unprotected sex. No, that wouldn’t do.
So he had to be content with pleasuring himself in the shower, which really wasn’t all bad, though he would have liked to at least have Aubrey’s hand in place of his own. That would be safe. They wouldn’t get into trouble that way. She’d do it, too, without complaining. She would do anything for him.
His fantasy about the shower lasted him until the bus pulled up in front of the school, and he realized he had a painful erection. God, how was he going to get off the bus?
He fiddled with his backpack, praying things would calm down. Dead puppies. No, that didn’t work. Daisy. Yes, that did the trick. Just one mental glance at his mother’s disapproving glare sent things shrinking back down to normal.
He swallowed and got off the bus, knowing he must be beet red. He looked down at the ground and hurried up the stairs, being jostled by boys and girls much bigger than he.