Hold Me Like a Breath (9 page)

“We can wait,” I whispered. I knew it would be a week of worry, but possibly also my
last
week of hope. Carter better have his pom-poms ready, because when he reappeared, I needed a pep talk.

“There's always going to be some fluctuation in your numbers, but you're doing well,” he reassured me. “Now, Caroline's counting supplies in the surgical closet. Tell her to take a break. The two of you can go watch
America's Next Top Fashion Project
or whatever that show is.”

He waved off my thanks and resumed his surgical video.

I could hear Caroline counting under her breath before I opened the door to the closet. She held up a finger and continued. “Seventy-eight, seventy-nine—you make me lose count and I'll
kill you—eighty, eighty-one. Eighty. Two.” She dropped the last whatever triumphantly back into the bin, wrote the number on her clipboard, and stood up.

“Killing me might be a bit of an overreaction.”

“Fine, then I'd
accidentally
miss your vein a few times during your next blood draw.” Caroline looked like she could be my sister: her hair was only a shade lighter than mine; she was only an inch or two taller; and we wore the same size clothing, down to our shoes. But we weren't family. She wasn't even
Family
. She'd been hired nine months ago, straight from nursing school, probably chosen because she had no relatives or significant other. No one to ask her questions about what went on in the clinic, or why the estate needed a whole medical staff to deal with one sickly daughter who was currently (hopefully) not-so-sickly.

“Dr. Castillo said you could take a break.” But I wasn't sure I wanted her to. I wasn't sure I was up to chatting, smiling, and doing anything but checking my cell for messages from Garrett or Carter.

“So, how did your adventure with your brother and the stud muffin go? Did we pick a good outfit? Spill!”

No. I definitely couldn't do this.

“Oh, that's my phone,” I faked a vibration and pretended to read something on the screen. “My mother. She wants me for lunch.”

I typed
Update please
and sent it to Garrett, then echoed Caroline's pout. “Sorry.”

“I still want details, so if you have time this afternoon, come back over.”

“Sure.” And as soon as I knew where Carter had gone, as soon as I gave him a piece of my mind, as soon as I shook off this cape of dread and unease, I'd gladly rush back to ask her opinion on almost-kisses, blurred boundaries, and Garrett-Carter-Garrett-
me
.

Garrett and Carter didn't follow Mother, Father, and his second-in-command, Miles Banks, into the dining room as we assembled for lunch. Garrett's older brothers, Mick, Hugh, and Jacob, were there. His father, Al, too. And Nolan, his hair flopping onto glasses I suspected were purely cosmetic, part of his “academic costume” like his sweater vests and tweed, elbow-patched jackets. He looked, as always, like he was about to moderate a spelling bee or launch into a debate. At least he was seated by Mother's left and not mine. Why had he been in so many meetings lately? Maybe if I was lucky Father would decide he was invaluable to the Business—freeing me up for school. Based on the way Father clapped Nolan on the back and smiled at him, I might be onto something. Now I wished I was sitting closer so I could eavesdrop. I frowned as Jacob pulled out my chair.

Business had been spilling into meals more and more often.
I rarely saw Father without a flanking of Family members. Lately it felt like he belonged more to them, to big
F
Family, than to
us
, his little
f
family. I didn't like the way that creased his face—wrinkles in the corners of his eyes and across his forehead instead of laugh lines around his mouth.

When Father picked up his fork, everyone began eating and chatting. I played with my food.

“You're awful fidgety, Penny-Pea. Is something making you nervous?” Al Ward paired his question with a slow grin, and I shivered. He had been the center of my childhood nightmares. It didn't matter how many times Father reassured me that his job was to
protect us
, Al was the wicked dragon, the evil sorcerer, and all the villains from my fairy-tale bedtime stories. He'd only gotten scarier since Keith died and his wife left him.

But I'd promised Garrett I'd cover for him, so I laughed like the idea was ridiculous. “No. Of course not.”

I hacked at my salad like it was the toughest bark, or like my knife was made of paper. It wasn't until I put a mangled bite in my mouth that I noticed Garrett's brothers were watching me too. And in between their speculative glances, they looked at each other and raised their eyebrows. They knew
something
, but which something: the almost kiss? That Carter was AWOL? Garrett's forgotten gun? The secret errand?

The questions made it impossible to swallow my food or participate in conversation.

Mother clucked over my lack of appetite, then turned to Father. “Penny said they all enjoyed
Once Upon a Mattress
. Should I get tickets for us?”

He frowned at his plate. “I'd like to, but it's not a good time.”

“Oh?” said Mother.

“Why?” I asked.

“Things are a bit tense right now,” said Miles Banks with a gentle smile. It was the same expression he always used with me. Whether he was inviting me to join him and his basset hound, Thumbelina—I named her—for a stroll around the property, or complimenting my haircut, or asking about my classes.

“Tense because of the Everly incident?” I tossed the question at them and waited for the reaction to their porcelain doll not being as ignorant or complacent as they wished.

The silence stretched like taffy, gluing people's eyes to their plates.

Finally Father demanded, “How do you know about the Everly incident?”

“Nolan may not be the best tutor in the world, but I do know how to watch the news and use Google.”

“Penelope Maeve!” exclaimed Mother, while Nolan coughed into his water glass.

Hugh didn't even try to cover his laughter. Jacob choked on a mouthful of bread. Mick whacked him on the back—probably harder than necessary, since his brother's eyes widened with each blow. Miles was suddenly fascinated by his napkin, and Father's face was turning pre-fury red.

“I apologize. That was rude,” I muttered.

“You're quite forgiven,” replied Nolan with a magnanimous nod that made me want to insult him again.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. Mother absolutely forbade
anything electronic at the table, so I let my butter knife slip from my fingers. It clattered against the edge of my plate and then continued its free fall to the floor. Manners dictated leaving it—ignoring it—but being impolite provided a moment of privacy. I bent over, using the split-second I fumbled beneath the tablecloth to read the screen.

Can't find him. U?

Mother graciously covered my faux pas by saying, “The whole Everly thing is tragic. But I'm not clear on the connection to us seeing a play.”

Al Ward raised a finger. Father nodded at him. “The Feds can't ignore this, ma'am. I don't want you all out in public more than absolutely necessary.”

There went Korean barbecue, doughnuts, and all my opportunities for summer freedom. Al had just given Mother the perfect excuse for all her
no
s.

“May I please be excused? I'm not hungry.” I stood, and the men did too.

“But Penny, you didn't eat breakfast …”

I waved off Mother's concern. “I have a headache. I need some air. I'll eat later.”

“Do you want company?” she offered.

“Oh. Um, no. I'm going to call Kelly.” And once I was outside, I
did
make phone calls, but not to the vice president's daughter. I called Garrett.

When he said he still hadn't found him, I dialed Carter again.

I walked toward the gate as I called, nodded to Frank, the
guard on duty, then continued inside the perimeter. My phone rang against my ear—the noise joined by a faint song in the distance. One that grew louder as I walked up the lawn's slope toward the blind spot Father had been complaining about during breakfast two days ago. A tree limb had taken out a camera during the last summer storm. It dangled on wires, its lens pointed at the sky.

“Pennies from Heaven.” Carter's not-as-funny-as-he-thought ringtone for me.

And then I saw his shoes. The loafers he'd been wearing last night. Saw the soles of them through the fence.

They were attached to a body. There was blood.

And then I was falling to my knees, crawling across dirt and rocks to reach him. And there was my blood. My ineffective arms pulling and yanking on the sharp iron scrollwork that separated me from Carter. The red tips of my fingers clawing at the gravel. My tongue bitten as I screamed some wordless howl that meant both
this isn't real
and
get up, get up now, Carter
. It did nothing. Changed nothing.

And then I saw nothing. Nothing at all.

There was a delay between the moment I woke up and the instant I remembered. Not a long delay. Just the length of time it took for me to realize I was in the clinic.
Why
hit like a collision—dwarfing the pain in my body with mental screams of anguish.

When Dr. Castillo, Caroline, and Hugh Ward rushed into my room, I realized they weren't mental screams. I was screaming.

“No!”

There was a needle in Dr. Castillo's hand.

“
Carter!”

An IV line in my arm.

“
Please, please, please!”

My parents weren't there.

“
Tell me he's okay. Tell me!”

Caroline's eyes were wet. Her lips were white. She shook her head.

“
No. Lie to me. Just lie to me. He can't be—”

Then whatever was in that needle entered my bloodstream and erased truth and delusions along with consciousness.

In my dreams, I was swimming through blood. It filled my mouth, ran into my ears, blurred my vision. It was my blood. Carter's. Kelly's—and every other transplant recipient's. It was the donors' blood: the ones the Family recruited to sell a kidney for a retirement fund, or trade part of their liver for a year of college tuition. The ones who sold their blood and marrow as often as we'd allow to pay their mortgage, and the ones who lived with one cornea because they'd rather keep gambling than see through both eyes. The families who sold the cadavers of their loved ones for living expenses or for a memorial service. Or the ones with big-time debt who paid by donating skin—Carter had told me once that with skin grafts it was more painful for the donor than the recipient.

Carter.

He was with me sometimes. Always too far away to reach. And the closer I got to the surface, the farther he slipped. Sometimes it seemed as if I would escape, breathe air instead of blood, but then there'd be a flash of silver, a burning in my veins, and I was pulled back by a crimson undertow.

When I finally broke through it was with a gasp so powerful it propelled me into a seated position. I was still in the clinic. My arms from the elbow down were invisible beneath thick swaths of bandage. One of them was cradled in a large hand. I traced this past a starched cuff and up an arm clad in a white button-down shirt. Garrett was seated in a chair beside my bed
wearing a tie. The hand not under mine held a bag of frozen corn to his face.

“Princess?” He dropped the bag to reveal an eye ringed in watercolor shades of pink running into purple darkening to navy blue.

“He's dead.”

Garrett swallowed and pulled his chair closer. Swallowed again. “I couldn't find him. I couldn't find him anywhere … I should've been with him. I could've …”

Garrett had seen me cry dozens of times over tantrums and imagined tragedies, but I'd never seen him cry. Not even when his mother left. Now he carefully lowered my bandaged hand and dropped his head in his palms. There was a weight to his grief, to the shaking of his shoulders. This was real. I wasn't going to wake up and forget the sounds of Garrett's pain.

And it broke me.

Carter would never walk through the clinic door with a bouquet of lilies and make a joke about me being “idiot-pathetic.” He was never going to Skype in to say good night and complain that his business classes were useless for the Business or that the girl in his French seminar was immune to his charms. He wouldn't run interference with Mother or sneak me out for midnight drive-through. He wouldn't be here today. Tomorrow. Ever.

My tears started as a whimper. It was too inadequate a sound, too insignificant. Grief felt like it should be roared, screamed, bellowed.

I reached with bandaged hands for Garrett, my movements clumsy but demonstrating what I couldn't say: hold me so I don't fall to pieces. So I don't drown in the memories of all that blood. I wanted to be held tightly, gripped so I knew I was still something solid to cling to.

But of course he couldn't. That he touched me at all was testament to his pain. Gentle hands went around my waist, and his face leaned lightly against my stomach as he cried on the stark white sheets. My tears dripped onto his hair. My bandaged hands rested on his back.

“Please let go of my daughter.”

Father's words may have expressed a request, but his voice didn't allow for any disagreement. It was a tone of steel and blood and threat.

Garrett's reaction was instantaneous. I barely had time to snatch my hands off his back before he was ramrod-postured with a mask of professional alertness. A horrible, flawed mask of splotchy skin, tear tracks, and a black eye.

Mother was beside Father, but he stepped away to lean out the door. “Darius, I need you to examine Penelope for new damage.” His face hardened as he turned back toward the room. “Garrett, join me in the hall.”