WHY DOES JEREMY love her? Why love a girl that he doesn’t really know? A girl he’s afraid to question, afraid he won’t like the answers, that his conscience will step in and pry their hands apart, will push his heart into a blender and shut the door to 6E forever. Maybe the damaged are the easiest to fall in love with. She is damaged. Damaged in a strange way that has strength—a silent, don’t-open-that-door, watch-your-back-in-the-dark strength. Her eyes sometimes glint in a way that is unnatural; her hands shake from something other than nerves. She has told him that she is dangerous, that she wants to hurt others, to kill. That alone should make him leave, should put distance between them. He should find a girl who is normal, whom he can bring home to the family and not worry about curfews or Mom’s knife drawer. But her vulnerability, her fear, her rules, her absolute adherence to isolation… she has good in her. She tries so hard, she worries so much. He wishes he could take that worry. Give her a clean life full of children and carpools and grocery lists and vacations. Wipe the stress from her eyes. It fades a bit, every time they are together. His strength reassures her, his ability to physically restrain her softens the fear that she may hurt him and allows her to drop her guard. Let him touch her. Let him distract her mind in ways that make his cock hard.
He doesn’t know why he loves her. But does anyone know why they love? We don’t love people for their traits—traits are common. We love them for their unique ability to tug at our soul, to connect to us in a way that no other person can. Love is unexplainable, unpredictable, and often unreasonable. It doesn’t make sense, and doesn’t care to explain to us its thought process.
He hears his name, a scream from her lips, and everything else stops. He tries to lift his head, tries to move, but the weight on his back is excruciating, his body pinned beneath something, most likely hundred-year-old chunks of brick and pieces of a house that was never intended to come apart. There is the feel of heat, incredible heat, and he wishes he could call her name. Wishes for something other than to struggle silently, his world dark. He feels the sharp edge of something along his cheek and tries to work it over his eyes. Tries to move in a way that will rip open the tape and give him back his sight in these last moments of life.
He fails, the sharp edge doing nothing but scratching the hell outta his face, his attempts stopping at the first bite of pain.
The heat is incredible, building. Growing. It feels like his skin is cooking, yet he can’t move, can only lie still, blind and burning.
And still her screams continue. The sound rips at his heart, and he prays that she is not in pain.
CHAPTER 113
EVERYTHING HAPPENS AT a moment when I want nothing. I want to stand by my car and scream some more. I want to run through the burning debris and find Jeremy. I don’t want to be wrapped in blankets and coddled like a victim when I am the one responsible. I don’t want valuable personnel helping me when they should be looking for him.
But shock victims are treated with warmth and reassurance, and I am lumped into that prognosis. Warmth and reassurance. I do appreciate the blankets, the ambulance way too cold, no one else seemingly mindful of the frigid air. My teeth chatter, the blanket not enough, the second and third one helping slightly. They get moved, the blankets. They get lifted and adjusted as different parts of my body are examined. I feel the sharp prick of glass being pulled out, the wet flow of blood that is promptly stemmed.
Glass. I now remember the glass. It felt like a blast of desert air, shards instead of sand, a wall of getthehellouttatheway coming too fast, too soon, my shock at the explosion leaving me vulnerable for a moment too long before reflexes kicked in and I ducked, covering my face, turning my body away from the blast. My eyes had been closed, my mouth moving in silent prayer, the sound of the explosion confusing me, a moment of absolute quiet before insanity boomed. In the brief pause of life, I had opened my eyes. Even though it exposed the most vulnerable piece of my body. But, I had to know, my curiosity sharing space with my fear.
I should have kept them closed. Now I have that image branded in my mind. The second ending of my life.
Warmth and reassurance. My body temperature is finally starting to rise. I blink, looking into the face of the too-calm paramedic, and will her to shut the hell up. I don’t want her words. I don’t want her words unless they speak the impossible. I want her to shut up, to stop talking before I roll my broken body off of this bed and silence her myself.
“Jeremy,” I whisper.
But she doesn’t respond. Doesn’t look up. Continues moving her mouth and saying words that don’t help. Words that don’t say what I want to hear.
“Jeremy?” I speak louder, asking it as more of a question, then repeating myself. Louder, because she is raising her brow as if she doesn’t understand.
Then the woman yells, her voice too loud, not calm, and I look at her in confusion, the sound piercing through me, the combination between it and my chattering teeth too loud for reasonable thought to occur. Then more faces appear, dotting the landscape, firm hands shoving incessantly on my torso, unnecessary as I am already lying down, and a mask appears, covers my nose and mouth, stale air pushing incessantly, too cold. My entire world is too cold, too dark. I fight my eyes but they close and the last thought I hold on to is one that doesn’t make sense. Jeremy.
CHAPTER 114
I COME BACK to sanity, or my best form of it, in a hospital. I blink, my lids crusted closed, the action of them slow and painful. My room is empty, no one sitting in the chair, no nurse standing by the ready. I celebrate the silence for a moment—a chance to gather my wits before someone comes in and sees my psychological vulnerability.
I turn my head slightly, testing my range of movement. Move my arms and legs. Everything works. Some bandages, nothing major. A woman in scrubs walks by the open door, pauses, reroutes into my room when she sees me.
“Good. You’re awake.” She lifts my chart from the door, steps in with a friendly smile. “How’re you feeling?”
I shrug, not sure of the correct response. Not sure what I want. Do I want to stay here a few nights? Enjoy the experience, live up my moment in the real world? Then I remember how I got here. Jeremy. My world dulls. “I’m fine.”
“We can get you back home as soon as the doctor checks you out. But let’s get you some food; you’ve got to be starved. Are you up for a phone call?”
“A phone call?” I ask slowly.
“Your boyfriend’s been calling.” She smiles. “A lot.” She rolls a tray to my bedside, opens a low refrigerator, and pulls out some generic purple form of Jell-O. Cracks it open with easy efficiency while I stare at her, trying to move my dry lips and get out words. “We can’t share anything about your condition without your consent, so he’s pretty worried. I know he’d love to hear your voice.”
“He’s alive?”
She shoots me an odd look. “Oh yes. Would you like me to get him on the phone?”