This woman had seen too many movies.
“We can’t stay long,” she continued. “They like to let his mind rest, and too much excitement in the room seems to raise his heart rate. But you have a few minutes.”
A few minutes was more than enough. My heart rate was high enough for the both of us.
She nudged me toward the chair at his bedside. “Don’t be afraid to touch him.”
I sat and looked at his arm, not sure if I wanted to. But she was standing beside me, full of hope. So I reached out and placed my hand on an open patch of skin between a scrape and the IV. I did want Jeff to know his friends were here and thinking about him.
“Hey, Jeff. It’s Autumn.” I felt self-conscious speaking to him with an audience.
His mom must’ve sensed this because she said, “We’ll give you a couple minutes.” Then she told the nurse she had a few questions and they went out into the hall.
I waited for the door to shut, then cleared my throat. “Hey. I came to see you.” I wasn’t sure what else to say but went on anyway. “You don’t look too bad. Only slightly worse than that time you went through the car wash without your car.” I laughed a little, remembering that day. We’d seen an empty field of mud as we were driving home from lunch. Lisa had said something about how it was too bad we hadn’t taken her four-wheel drive. Jeff got that mischievous gleam in his eye and said, “Who needs a four-wheel drive?” Then he’d proceeded to drive donuts in it. Only he’d forgotten to roll up his window. So not only did his car get a mud bath, he did as well. That’s when he got the idea to walk through the car wash at the gas station before heading back to school. The bristles left a few scratches on his face, and he came out looking like a drowned rat.
“Remember that, Jeff? The car wash? One of your many brilliant ideas that turned out not to be quite as brilliant as you thought it would. You need to wake up and make me laugh. I had a crappy weekend. Sure, not as crappy as yours, but still.” I squeezed his arm, then dropped my hand to my lap. “You’re going to be fine. Lisa is here too. She came to see you. But she’s not your cousin like I am, so . . .” I sighed. “Jokes aren’t as funny to tell when you can’t hear them.”
It was nice to see him, to hear the beeps that represented his heartbeat, see his chest rise and fall, even though I knew a machine was making that happen. He was alive, and I was grateful for that.
When we walked back into the waiting room, Lisa attached her arm to mine and didn’t let go. Jeff’s mom hugged me and whispered, “Come back soon, please.”
“I don’t want to take family time,” I said.
“No, please.” She squeezed my shoulders a little too intensely. “Let me get your phone number so I can give you updates.”
We exchanged numbers, and I said, “I’ll come back as soon as I can.”
Lisa tugged me away and we were silent as we walked to the car. It wasn’t until we were inside with the doors shut and the engine running that she said, “How was Jeff?”
“I don’t know. Okay, I guess. I mean, he’s in the ICU, so I’m sure there’s a lot of internal stuff going on, but he looked like he could get up and walk out of there if he wanted to.”
“Are you okay?”
I was wondering the same thing, waiting for the tears I’d been holding back to finally come. I kept them in even though my throat and chest hurt. “I think so.”
Lisa nodded and looked over her shoulder to back out of the parking space. When we were on the road, driving toward my house, she said, “That was weird that his mom made you go in there. Like you possess some sort of healing power.”
“I know. Really weird.”
“When are you going back?”
“I don’t know. This week sometime. I need to be there for him . . . and maybe his mom, too.” I sighed. “I feel guilty.”
“What? Why?”
“The same reason you felt guilty when you thought I was in the car with him.”
“Him being there is not your fault.”
I put both my feet up on her dashboard, hugging my knees to my chest. “If it weren’t for me, he wouldn’t have been in the canyon that day. I feel guilty that he might have gone over that cliff thinking that I hadn’t wanted to see him at the bonfire. That I’d gone home instead.”
“Autumn, you got locked in a library. It wasn’t your fault.”
“Maybe not, but I can be there for him now.”
Lisa smiled. “Maybe you really can help him. His mom acted like you were the love of his life.” She shoved my shoulder. “He must’ve talked about you a lot.”
My cheeks went hot and I hid my face against my knees. “Shut up.”
She laughed. “You love it. Autumn and Jeff. It’s so happening.”
An image flashed into my mind, not one of Jeff healed and walking out of that hospital with me, but one of Dax’s eyes, staring at me across the library. I pushed it out. “Yes, it is happening.” It would happen. It had always been what I wanted.
CHAPTER 21