Clearer in the Night (4 page)

“Boyfriend?” I hadn’t had a boyfriend since ninth grade. Too much work, too much drama. Sex was an itch that needed to be scratched every so often, and it was easier to think of it that way, and not get it confused with things like love and loyalty.

“Wes,” Mom said, like I was a total idiot. “Honestly, Cait, I don’t know why you didn’t just tell me about him. He’s every mother’s dream, clearly. He’s been here all day, just stepped out a few minutes ago, I’m sure he’ll be back later. He said you two had a fight, and you wouldn’t let him drive you home. Though I will say, running into the woods was crazy, no matter how upset you were.”

“I don’t know—” I started, and then a nurse bustled in, her eyes wide, and it was all “What year is it?” and “Who’s the president?” and “How many fingers am I holding up?” And then there were doctors, talking about a lot of stuff I’d heard in medical dramas, but never applied to real people. Lumbar punctures and CT scans and everything else. I’d had a raging fever for no reason they could find. Overnight observation, they said, and if I could keep down food and water, then I could go home.

“I’ll stay with you,” Mom said, as soon as the doctors had cleared out again. “It’s not a problem.” Her eyes were twitchy, though, and her hands were shaking.

“It’s okay. I’d like to get some rest.” I wished she would protest that I’d been sleeping for three days, but—no. She smiled, kissed me on the cheek, handed me a bag that Shannon had probably brought from the apartment for me, and she was gone.

My mom. Talk about the effect of motivational research on the current understanding of educational policies, and she’d talk forever. Talk about feelings—or, God forbid, how my father, her husband, had driven his car into the lake with my sister, her daughter, in the passenger seat, and she went painfully silent. The kind of silence that speaks volumes. Loudly. We’d lived in the same house for a decade after they’d died, and we’d never talked about it. Not since the funeral. Not once. She spent her days counseling troubled teens, but at home, she didn’t have it in her to counsel her troubled daughter. Her and her glass. Nothing else mattered.

It hadn’t always been that bad. She’d been doing better when I moved out. It had been a long, long time since she’d had whiskey on her breath during the day. Of course, the sun was coming down now, glowing through the window, and the moon would be rising soon. The nurse brought in the dinner we’d ordered, and the dried-out chicken and applesauce cup tasted like perfection. She glanced toward the chair Mom had occupied, and this little line creased between her slightly grown-back-in brows.

“She was really tired,” I said. “I told her to go home and get some rest.” Making excuses was old news for me, but she wasn’t sold.

“Mmmm,” she said, adjusting my bed up and putting the tray table over my lap. “I’m sure. Go easy on this, now. I know that you feel ravenous, but your stomach’s been empty for five days. Don’t stuff yourself. It won’t end well.” She smiled the smile of someone who’s seen it all, and cleaned up the puke at the end of the night. I nodded. “If you need anything, just let me know.”

I dug into the food like a dying girl—no, like someone who was just starting to live—and barely put away half of it before I gave up, groaning, one hand on my distended belly. I pushed it away and thought about turning on the TV; no, there wasn’t anything there to watch. I turned it on anyway, because the silence was dizzying. One of the things in the backpack Mom had left me was my eBook; I opened it, but all the words seemed foreign and strange, like my eyes couldn’t focus on the pixels, or parse what they saw.

Somewhere in the evening, there was a flurry of activity as the empty bed next to me was filled by a woman, probably my age, or a little younger. She looked fine to me, but I heard our nurse—Jamie, her name tag said—say something about suicide watch, and after that some guy turned up, wearing a hospital name tag, to sit in the corner of our room and watch my roommate. She turned fiercely towards the wall and avoided any eye contact with me or her observer. When the guy brought out some knitting, and his needles started clicking against each other, I thought they might crack open my brain.

The entire building had sighed down into a sort of quiet—as much as was to be expected in a busy teaching hospital, anyway—when the door to our room opened again. I looked up, expecting Jamie or one of her co-workers to need to test my blood pressure or my pulse or some other indicator that I wasn’t turning back into Rip Van Winkle. But it was a good thing Nurse Jamie wasn’t measuring anything right then, becausemy heart paused completely, and then took off like a racehorse as my dark-eyed, handsome dance partner slipped into the room. Visiting hours had to be long over—how had he gotten in? And how had he found me in the first place? I glanced over at the guy, playing watchdog for my suicidal roommate. His eyes met mine for a moment, and then he shrugged, turning his chair slightly more towards his charge, and focusing in on his knitting. I could hear him perfectly: “They don’t pay me enough to care about hospital rules. They barely pay me enough to care about Tylenol chick.” Only his lips didn’t move. But the voice in my head wasn’t mine. Not even a little bit. It echoed strangely, instead of flowing.

My stomach churned, acid and spinning, and I thought that chicken might make a sudden reappearance when Tall, Dark, and Handsome slipped across the floor and took my hand in his. “You’re okay,” he said, so quietly that I didn’t think anyone else could hear. “Just breathe. You’re not crazy. It’s okay.”

He’d shut the door behind him. That was reassuring and terrifying. “I’m really not.”

“Crazy?”

“Okay.” Tears threatened, and I choked them back hard. I yanked my hand from his. “Who are you, and why are you here?”

Disappointment painted his face for a moment, and then was smoothed away. “I thought you’d remember…”

“Yes, we danced, in a club, we got way too friendly, and I left. Stalker much?” Plus, I had a weird fever dream about you, but let’s not get into that right now, okay? Let’s completely disregard the way you’re still making me tingle, from two feet away, the way I’m breathing harder just because you’re watching. Because I hate being this obvious, so let’s just skip it. Sound good? Great. Glad we agree.

“That’s not my intention,” he said, his voice low and quiet, his smile edgy. “I’m sorry if it felt that way.”

“So why are you here?”

His eyes narrowed. “I thought I told you that last night.” The smile didn’t waver, not for a moment.

My heart did another one of those racehorse things. “How did —”

“Did you think that dream was only for you? When have you seen the ocean like that, seen white sand beaches, felt the ages crumbled between your toes?” My mouth had assumed an unattractive fish pose. “You had to know that you could receive more than just thoughts. Didn’t you?”

Something thudded into my belly like lead. I could hear Dad shouting. I was nine years old, and I was huddled on the stairs, hiding, and he was shouting at my mother while she cried. I strained to hear his words, but—too far away.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” My cheeks were tight, my words clipped. “I want you to leave before I ring for the nurse.” I looked over at suicide watch guy, hoping for some help, but he was staring out the window, his knitting in his lap, forgotten.

I turned back to my visitor, and he laid his hand over mine again. My need for him was overwhelming. He raised my hand to his lips and pressed them gently against my knuckles. An electric shock spun out through me, and he smiled. “Caitie, you’re so much more than I thought.”

“I have no idea who you are…” But I knew how he made me feel, and the wash of warmth and rush seemed to go beyond what I felt dancing and…everything else. I couldn’t find words beyond the want and the need.

“Does it really matter?” he asked, and like that, it didn’t. It didn’t at all.

“Wes,” I said. “Wesley Chase. That’s your name, isn’t it?” I knew before he answered.

“Well done,” he said. “How are you feeling?”

“You were in my dreams last night.” I wanted to touch him. Have him touch me. Not even necessarily in a sexy way—although I certainly wouldn’t stop him if he tried—but the weight of his hands over mine made me feel grounded. Secure. Unlikely to lose my mind and float away.

“And you were in mine.” His smile was soft, like the sun right before it sets on a fall night.

“How did we do that? Was it magic?”

“Maybe. Maybe something else. We have a connection, you and I. I’d like to explore it more. What do you think about that?”

Everything was warm, melting through me, puddling in my lap. I purred as his hand stroked through my messy, greasy hair. “Yes, please.”

A chuckle from him. “Glad to hear it.” He leaned in and pressed his lips against mine for a far-too-short moment. When he pulled away, everything was bright and clear. “What happened to you in the woods?”

I blinked, confused by his question, and by why the kissing had stopped. My belly was twisting and turning again, like a snake that was slithering in circles. “In the dream, you acted like you knew.”

“Tell me anyway,” he said. I glanced at our company, who still weren’t paying any attention to us. “It’s nothing to them,” he gently turned my chin back until our eyes met. “They don’t even hear us. Tell me what happened.”

When I was fifteen years old, I’d slept with Sam Tate at the elementary school playground on a hot July afternoon. We were inside one of those cement tubes, gravel digging into my back, even through the blanket he’d thoughtfully laid down. The afternoon was sweltering hot, and I remember thinking “Why do they call this losing anything? I haven’t lost anything. I have more than I had before.” Only, once we were done, the only thing he wanted to do was tell me he loved me, and hold me close, and I just wanted him to go away. When he said he wanted to marry me when we were old enough, I shouted at him so loud that he got a nosebleed, but then he went away, and he didn’t talk to me again.

Wes hadn’t asked me to marry him, but there was a softness in his eyes that only went so deep. I’d stopped trusting people an awfully long time ago, and he was going to have to work a lot harder than this to get me to open up. I let Wes hold my gaze but I made my voice as firm as possible when I told him, “I do not want to talk about this.”

His nose didn’t bleed, but he did rock back in his chair. His eyes were wary, and my head felt cleaner, like the cobwebs had been blown out.

“Sorry,” I said, even though I wasn’t. “But it’s not very clear, and I was scared out of my mind, and I don’t know what was real and what wasn’t.” My hand rubbed against my belly, where there should have been scars. I couldn’t feel the twisting and gurgling with my hand, but inside, the rumbles and twists were intensifying. “I’d really rather just forget that it happened.” I was starting to think I might need to move fast for the bathroom.

He nodded and stood. “I’m sorry to have bothered you. Be well, Caitlyn Murphy.” He kissed my hand again, and then it wasn’t anywhere near as simple as I wanted it to be. Because if he left, I’d be alone with the mad girl and the knitting guy and the burbling TV and I thought I might lose my mind all by myself, with no one else to talk to.

“Wait,” I said. There was a long, terrible moment where momentum kept him moving forward, and then he did. “You don’t have to go.” I sounded like a little kid asking for one more story, and I hated it. My hands twisted around the thin hospital blanket, apparently on their own. “I liked dancing with you. We could do that again. If you wanted. Or get coffee. Or a movie. Or—shit, I don’t know.” The last time I’d been on an actual date was with the previously mentioned Sam Tate. I didn’t have the first idea how to do this thing.

It sounded like he was willing to make up for my deficits in this area, though. He was kissing me before I registered him moving, threading one hand into the hair at the nape of my neck, the other pressing into the small of my back. Small sounds of want came from his throat, and they were pleasing to my ears and my ego, and to other, deeper, darker things. “Yes,” he said, breaking away from me for a moment. “I very much enjoyed dancing with you.”

My entire body flushed, and not with embarrassment. Oh, for a room without an audience and ribs that didn’t ache, because I’d eat the left bedrail if he was actually thinking about taking me out dancing. “That’s settled then,” I said, letting my voice be high and breathy.

“I don’t think anything’s settled at all,” he said, and I laughed. “How tired are you? Do you want company tonight?”

I nodded as my face split into a huge yawn. Why in the world was I yawning? I’d just slept for the better part of—what, a week? Why would I possibly be tired? He settled down in the chair Mom had vacated just a few hours before, stretching his long, jeans-clad legs onto the bed. “You rest,” he said, as suicide watch guy picked up his knitting. “I’ll watch for monsters.”

MONDAY, JULY 29