Always and Forever (22 page)

A cough racked my body, shaking loose even more tears and a whole lot of snot. I've never been a pretty crier.

“I want Kal…” I shook my head on another loud wail and balled up even more, if that were at all possible. “I want Kal. I don't care how, whether it's just as a friend or as something more. I just need
him with me. Everything's all wrong without him. I'm all wrong without him.”

I cried and I cried, and when I was pretty sure the well of me had run dry, some hidden reservoir materialized, and I cried some more. Time lost all meaning. It was just me and Jill's grave. Me and God, if he even existed. It's funny how you never think about that kind of stuff until the absolute worst happens, and then all you want is for Him, Her,
someone
to save you. Still, I was crying, and well, I wasn't quite so sure that anyone out there was listening.

Even so, I had to try.

I flung myself open, rolling onto my back and spreading my arms out wide as I sniffled and wept, staring up, glassy-eyed at the dreary, overcast sky.

“I just want some more time. Is that really so much to ask? I just need to fix everything. Make things better. Give me a year,” I pleaded. “What's one miserable year when you're going to have me for the rest of forever? How can you not give that to me? One year!”

No answer ever came. Believe me. I waited for it.

Several hours passed in the space of a moment as I bled out hot salty tears onto Jill's grave. My body warmed the earth beneath me as the cold crawled up and seeped into my bones. When the last of the rivers that I'd created dried up, I slowly pushed up to my feet, grabbed the thermos, and trudged out of the cemetery.

Dad was parked out front, one hip resting on the hood of his car. Wordlessly, he opened his arms up for me. It was all the invitation I needed. I flung myself at him. New tears sprang up to bleed me dry again. This day was fast becoming a never-ending cycle of emotion.

“I know, princess,” he whispered. He folded his arms down around me and created a safe haven if only for the time being.

“I'm so sorry, Daddy,” I sobbed against his chest. “I messed up so bad. Everything…I mean, everything is all fucked up, and it's all my fault.”

“Shh, there now. Whatever it is, darling, it can be fixed. I promise you.” His reassuring voice all soft words and soothing sounds. If only it was that easy. “No one's mad at you, Mia. We all just…we love you, and we just want you to be happy. Well, as happy as any of us can be right now,” he amended.

“Kal hates me,” I wailed. “And, Ricki…well, Ricki and I aren't friends anymore. Daddy, I messed everything up, and I don't think I can fix it!”

“Aw, princess, Kal doesn't hate you. He's just upset and confused.”

“No, he hates me.”

He leaned away from me just far enough to cup my chin in his hand. “Sweetheart, how do you think I knew where to find you?” At my curious look, he continued. “Kal came over after you left this morning and told us he saw you cutting out the back way. He's worried about you, Mia.”

I could do nothing but stare at him, hope and disbelief warring within me. Disbelief won out.

“He's just being nice for you guys,” I muttered at last and stepped out of Dad's arms. “Can we maybe drive around a bit before going home, Dad? I just…I just need a little more time.”

T
WENTY
-S
IX

NOTE TO SELF: THE NEXT TIME
I decide to go traipsing through the countryside on a bitterly cold winter day, remember to take a warm coat. And a hat. And mittens. And a scarf.

No wonder I woke up Monday morning with the worst freaking cold ever.

The minute Mom heard the first sniffle, followed closely by a giant cough in which I horked up the foulest looking goo imaginable, she bundled me up in sixteen layers of thick woolen clothes and packed me into the car to go to Dr. Lambert's office. He, of course, was all sad eyes and gentle words.

It took everything I had not to lash out at him. He'd started all this. If it hadn't been for him and his damned tests, everything wouldn't be so messed up. I wouldn't be dying.

Well, at least, I wouldn't know that I was.

We left Dr. Lambert's office armed with three prescriptions, a note keeping me from school for the whole week, and a follow-up appointment with Dr. Shreve scheduled for Wednesday morning.

Monday afternoon and Tuesday passed me by in a blur of tawdry daytime soaps, untouched bowls of chicken noodle soup, and Mom's hovering form, hands constantly fluttering around me, skimming over my hair, tracing the contours of my face. Between the antibiotics and the pain killers, I was pretty much in la-la land.

Wednesday morning, Dr. Shreve said basically the same thing that Dr. Lambert had. Anyway, it didn't really matter. I was already feeling better. Not 100% completely recovered, but definitely on the
mend. Dr. Shreve let us go after drawing some blood and writing me a prescription for a higher dosage of the pain pills Dr. Lambert had given me—
for when the headaches are really bad
, she'd said.

Dad dropped us off at home before going to the office, and after assuring Mom that I wasn't at Death's door—at least not today—she left, too.

Upstairs, I flopped onto my bed and snatched up my phone, the red
message
light blinking furiously. Three voice mails and eight text messages, all from Brad—and steadily increasing in urgency—wanting to know where I was. Rolling my eyes, I shot off a quick text to him.

Home sick. Got a nasty cold.

Less than a minute later, the phone jumped in my hand.

“Exactly how nasty is this cold?” Brad demanded the minute I put the phone to my ear. From the raucous background noise, I assumed he was navigating the halls between classes.

“Hello to you, too,” I chuckled.

“Mia, you may get colds that last forever, but you hardly ever miss school because of them. Hey man, watch where you're going,” he growled. Then, his voice muffled as if he pulled the phone from his ear. I listened to him snap at someone and then in the next moment laugh loudly. Then, he was back. “Are you sure that's all it is? Just a cold? You don't have some kind of
Contagion
bat-pig killer virus, do you?”

“Well, you know how my mom is,” I hedged. “She freaks out over every little cough and sneeze. I'm actually feeling a lot better.”

“So, you'll be in school tomorrow?”

“Well…no. Dr. Lambert put me off for the whole week.”

“But if you're feeling better—”

“Brad, you know how my parents are. It doesn't matter if I'm doing cartwheels in the street tomorrow morning. They won't let me out of the house until the doc says the coast is clear.”

“Okay, fine, I—” In the background, the bell rang, and Dave said something, but it was too muffled for me to hear. Brad blew out an exasperated sigh. “I'll have to call you back, Mia,” he said, and then hung up before I had a chance to respond.

I shook my head, tossed the phone aside, and grabbed up the book I'd been slogging my way through for the last month. Absently
rubbing my temple, I flipped to the bookmarked page and began to read.

No more than ten minutes passed before I tossed the book aside with a muttered curse. “How am I supposed to finish this damned book if the words keep jumbling up and blurring together on me?” I grumbled to myself. I leaned back, staring up at the ceiling.

“I just…I just have some things to do,” I whispered to God, tears once again gathering. “I want to set things right with, well, with everyone. I want to make sure they'll all be okay first…before I die. How can you not understand that? Hello? Are you even listening to me?”

Warm wetness slid rivers down my cheeks, agony ripping through me with a hot iron poker. It couldn't end like this. It just couldn't. I had to fix things. I just needed some time. That was wall.

Just a few more minutes. Just a few more hours. Just a few more days.

“I just…” I sobbed, brokenly, scrubbing at my face, mopping up the tears that seemed to go on forever. I rolled onto my side and snatched the book back up. “I just want to finish this damned book.”

With the book in hand, I headed downstairs. Through the kitchen and into my parents' bedroom, I crept around their bed to the nightstand on Dad's side of the bed. Beside the alarm clock sat the newest Grisham novel, and on top of that were his extra pair of reading glasses. Sitting down on the bed, I set my book down and then slid the glasses onto my face. Then, I opened my book back up.

Better, but not by much.

Glasses still on my face, I made my way back upstairs, but another ten minutes reading was about all I could muster. Tossing the book aside again, I got up and began pacing the room. What to do now? I'd had about all the television I could handle in the last couple of days, and there was really no one I could call.

My eyes lit on the closet and the meager selection of clothes still hanging in there. Slowly, I shifted my gaze to the chest of drawers beside the closet. Ricki hadn't gone through those. Before any thoughts could fully form in my head, I was already in motion. I fairly flew to the chest, yanking the drawers open and pulling out clothes.

This was how Brad found me, sitting on the floor of the closet, surrounded by a sea of clothes, some folded, some not. One dark
brow winged up in question as he took in the disaster area my room had become.

“Packing for some kind of trip?” he asked, his lips twitching like he was fighting to suppress a smile.

“Huh?” I glanced up, taking in his stance by my door, Horcrux sprawled out in his arms, purring loudly. “Hey, I didn't hear you come in. Wait. How did you get in? Are my parents home?”

He shook his head. “Nah, I gave Benny a ride. He's downstairs, playing war games.” He slid gracefully—it still surprised me how fluidly he moved for such a big guy—to the floor and picked up a sweater to fold. “So, what's all this? Cleaning out your closets? I mean that in the literal way, not the Eminem way,” he added.

A bright laugh jumped out of me, startling me a little. A loud, hard cough followed close on its heels, wracking my entire body, making me ache in places I didn't even know I had muscles.

Brad leaned forward, reached out to me. “Mia, you okay?”

I nodded, coughed again, and then pounded a fist into my chest. “Yeah.” I cleared my throat loudly. “Yeah, just a cough.”

He pursed his lips and regarded me for a long moment. “If this is feeling better, I'd hate to see what sick looks like.”

I shot him a dark look and then picked up another sweater.” How'd you get that evil cat to come to you? He doesn't like anyone.”

“He likes me.” Grinning, Brad scratched Horcrux behind the ears. “Jealous?”

“Not especially,” I muttered, rolling my eyes. “So, how's school? Did I miss anything good?”

He just shrugged, guilt coloring his face a soft pink.

“Brad?” I leaned over, snatched the sweater from his grasp. “What happened? Tell me.”

“Nothing…I just…” He hung his head, his shoulders drooping under the weight of embarrassment and shame.

“Brad!”

“I got into a fight,” he admitted in a small voice. “I just don't know what happened, Mia. One minute, I was totally fine, calm, level-headed. Then, the next—” He lifted his hands, palms out in a helpless gesture. “—fists were flying. I don't…I just don't know how it happened.”

“Oh, Brad,” I whispered, reaching out for him. After the last time he and Dave had gotten into it on school grounds, both boys had been warned that one more fight would put them both out of school sports for the remainder of the school year. Dave, while not too thrilled about it, had just shrugged the warning off. Even though he was a great athlete, sports weren't his entire life. Unlike Brad who lived for athletics of any kind. “Did the principal actually take you out of wrestling?”

“What?” His eyes snapped up to mine. “Oh, that. No. It broke up before the principal arrived. Neither of us got in any trouble.”

“Well, that's a good thing.” At his stricken look, my stomach knotted. “Isn't it?”

“You haven't asked me who I was fighting with, Mia.”

I stiffened at his tone, not at all sure I wanted to know. “Who?”

“Kal.”

The breath sailed out of me all in one horrified gasp. “You didn't.”

He nodded miserably. “I just…I don't know what happened. Dave and I were walking into school this morning, and I forgot my history book. So, I went back to the Hummer to get it when Kal pulled in. He had Kara with him, and I just…I just…I didn't know where you were. I didn't know you were sick, and all I could think of was that it should've been you getting out of Kal's car. You he had his arm around.” He peeked up at me to gauge my anger level. “I thought that maybe you'd been cutting because of Kal. Because you didn't want to be around him. I mean, it hasn't been that long since you guys broke up—”

“It's been a month,” I cut in, trying to soothe Brad all the while my insides had gone cold, a blustery bitter wind ripping through the empty abandoned walls of my heart where Kal used to live. “He's free to see whoever he wants. And, really, we only went out for like a week.”

“He's loved you since we were all kids, Mia. Everyone knows it. Well, everyone but you.”

“Maybe he just loved the idea of being with me.” That was a lame attempt a rationalization, and the look he gave me said we both knew it. I blew out a long, mournful sigh. Yet another fucked up situation that was pretty much my fault. “How bad is it?” I asked,
eyeing his bruised knuckles. “You didn't seriously hurt him, did you? Did you, Brad?”

“Nothing permanent,” he hedged.

“Brad!”

“I'm sorry, Mia. Okay? He's got a black eye. I split his lip open. I don't think his nose is broken.” He winced at my groan. “Maybe a cracked rib or two, but they could just be bruised,” he hurried to add when my face drained of all color. “He walked away under his own steam.”

“Brad, you could've really hurt him!” I shoved to my feet, marched over to the nightstand, and swiped up my phone. But as I pressed the
K
button and Kal's number jumped up to the screen, I froze. I was probably the last person he wanted to talk to right then. Lifting my gaze to meet his, I drew in a shallow breath. “Do you really think he's okay?”