Page 54

“I heard about you getting arrested again,” Kevin said. “We cut our vacation short to come down here and hold a little intervention. Flynn said you were causing all sorts of havoc down here and might jeopardize the whole band, so I figured we could talk some sense into you. I was going to yell at you forscrewing things up, but… I guess what you were saying about the Andersons was true, huh?”

“How did you know?” I groaned.

He shook his head and looked back at me through the rear-view mirror.

“I just had a feeling. So this is a bit worse than some one-off brawl like you had a couple months ago. What happened?”

“Just drive. I’ll tell you on the way.”

“I’ll call 9-1-1,” Sarah said. “Let them know we are on the way with him.”

As Kevin drove, and after Sarah got off the call with the hospital, I tried to recount what had happened to the best of my ability. But as the car ride wore on, I kept finding myself zoning out. When I came to the last time, the car was stopped and the back door was opened. Hands reached for me and pulled me out of the car feet first and straight onto a gurney.

Voices above me were shouting instructions, and something closed over my nose and mouth. An intrusive amount of air started filling my lungs, and I coughed.

“Doctor!”

“What?”

“He coughed. Look.”

“Is that coming from the back of his skull?”

“Yes.”

“Get him into room three, right now. And flip him on his side. I need to see the back of his head.”

Further instructions were shouted out. Several CCs of this. A shot of that. Clothes were torn off of me, and a gown was draped overtop. Painful prodding was going on in the back of my head as they laid me on my side and held me there. A bandage was wrapped all the way around my skull, stopping just short of my eyes, and then taped off before I was laid back down on my back.

People came in and out of the room, a nurse coming and covering me up so I wasn’t so cold after they had washed and cleaned the wounds on my legs and hips. I hadn’t even been aware of them until they began brushing them with alcohol. Then I becameveryaware of them.

Eventually, things quieted down, and I dozed on and off with whatever drugs they were pumping me with. When I had moments of lucidity, I was pleased to see Amber there, working as one of the nurses and helping me out. I could trust her. Whatever was going to happen to me now, I knew I was in good hands.

As I closed my eyes again, my mind drifted to the only thing that could make me feel better.

I dreamed of a field on a cool fall afternoon. A light breeze was blowing the grass and clouds, making shapes in the sky. Lying in the grass beside me was Charlotte. She pointed to a shape above her and laughed. She curled into my arm, and I kissed the top of her head. It was a memory, one from many years before, but one I came to when I wanted to just feel that warmth again. That happiness.

For that moment, all was good in the world, and I could see a future where it would only get better.

I let myself drift to sleep thinking of that memory, letting it envelop me until it was real, all around me. Until I was lying in that grass with Charlotte’s body curled into mine. Looking up into the clouds and laughing at what we saw.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Charlotte

I’d tried calling him three times now, but he wasn’t answering. I knew he was probably still mad at me, but something just didn’t feel right. Jesse would answer—even if it was just a text message telling me to stop calling him, he would answer. He hadn’t responded to texts either. Something was wrong. It had to be.

I had changed out of the dress once the plane got airborne, folding it up and putting it in my bag. I wasn’t going to need that again for a long time, if ever. I didn’t know what I was going to do with the jewelry, but Graham had been insistent on me taking it. It was wildly expensive, I could tell, but he would hear nothing of me returning it to him. He even told me to sell it and buy something wonderful if I wanted to.

Pacing in the plane for a few moments, I went to the little bar and opened it up. I had left right after the meal, and though I’d had a couple of glasses of wine, I felt like I still might need a little something to keep my nerves in check. It would have helped if he had answered any of my messages, but as it was, whiskey was looking like the best course of action.

I poured a small glass and turned on the television. I had to admit, this was the kind of lifestyle a girl could get used to. If I had never met Jesse, maybe I would have been content to havea loveless partnership. Probably not, but it was fun to imagine a life like this. Though I wondered if it would be all that fun if it were every day, or if the only reason it was so neat was because I never experienced it otherwise.

Trying to relax was proving useless, though. None of the shows were of any interest, and I didn’t want to start a movie knowing I’d end up leaving before it finished. The only other thing left was sports, and I had even less interest in that. So I put on a cooking show and left it on in the background while I stared out of the window and wondered how much longer it would be before I was on the ground.

I went back to the bar, looking for something to munch on and found a bag of pretzel chips. They weren’t exactly the healthiest thing in the world, but they were something. I was so nervous and so upset I needed to chew on something, even though I was still pretty full from the dinner in Paris hours ago.

I kept looking down at my phone, checking to see if he’d seen my messages or if he was calling back. I was a half hour away from landing when I decided to try one more time. I dialed his number and waited for the familiar fourth ring pickup of his full mailbox.