Seeing Red (30 page)

You can’t have everything. Where
would you put it all?

-Helen

Jillian

“Where is he?” Alexander stormed through the doors
with a look of utter fear. Jillian’s heart hurt for him. She had to
clutch her chest.

“He’s in intensive care. He’s unconscious, Xander.
They won’t tell me anything. They said that we have to wait for the
doctor. I’ve tried everything,” Without warning, Jill started
sobbing uncontrollably, overwhelmed by the magnitude of
emotion.

“Come here.” He extended his hand, and she took a
few steps towards him. He grabbed her hand and pulled her close to
his chest as they made their way to the nurses’ station. “My
brother is here, Oliver Jacobs. I need to see him right now.” He
ran his hand through his hair, looking panic-stricken yet
confident. “I need to know if he’s okay!” He practically yelled.
Jill clung to him, her hand squeezing his.

“Sir, I can’t let you in right now. He suffered
pretty severe injuries. Let me see if I can find you someone who’s
working on him to come speak with you. Please be patient.”

“Patient? No! Don’t tell me to be patient. My twin
brother is here. I don’t know if he is dead or alive. I need to
know now!”

“Sir, please give me a second and let me see what I
can do.” He held Jillian and kissed her forehead while he waited
and mumbled something softly to the top of her head. It sounded as
if he was praying for his brother to be okay.

Two minutes later, a woman in a white coat walked
out. “Mr. Jacobs?”

“Yes.” His hand was still tightly wound around
Jill’s.

“’Your brother was in a head-on collision and
suffered a lot of injuries. It doesn’t look too good right now.
He’s unconscious and suffered a severe head trauma upon impact. The
results from the MRI don’t show any internal brain injury, but
until he recovers consciousness, we really don’t know the severity
of the trauma. The next few hours are critical. Also, he has a
broken rib and a broken arm. The rest of the injuries are
superficial.”

“Can I see him?”

“Okay, but only one person at a time, and it has to
be quick.”

He let go of Jill and followed the doctor, leaving
Jillian in the waiting room.

Heather walked over to Jill and held her hand. “He’s
going to be fine, Jill.”

“I hope so.” She was still crying, and Heather
hugged her, pulling her over to the waiting-room, trying to get her
to calm down.

“You’ll see, sweetie, he’ll be fine.”

A few minutes later, Alexander, white as a ghost,
came out and took the seat next to Jill, pulling her into his
chest, hugging her while he spoke.

“He looks bad—terrible, actually. I can’t believe
this happened. Oh my God, he can’t die, Jill.” He turned to look
into her face. The angst he showed was more than she could handle.
“Jill, he can’t die. Please tell me he isn’t going to die. Please,”
he whispered, his disarmingly blue eyes full of unreleased
tears.

“Xander, I . . .” She didn’t have words. She just
clung to him as if being less than inches from each other would
kill them both. Two torturous hours later, a nurse walked out.

“Mr. Jacobs?”

“Yes?” He jumped up, running his hands through his
hair, his voice shaking, “Yes? I’m Mr. Jacobs.”

“Mr. Jacobs, your brother is awake. It looks as if
he’s going to pull through. We need to keep him in observation for
a few days. He’s pretty heavily sedated right now for his pain, but
I wanted to let you know that he is conscious.”

“Thank you. Thank you so much,” he said, almost
hugging the nurse.

“Oh, thank God.” Jill and Heather both let out the
breath that they’d been holding for the last few hours.

No one said anything for a long time, and gradually
Jill slowed her crying as Alexander continued holding her.

“Hey, Red, it’s going to be okay. Your boyfriend
will be fine. You’ll see.” The snarky Alexander was back. She
couldn’t even reply to his stupid remark. Instead, she wiggled
closer into his chest.

She wanted to tell him all about the whirlwind of
emotions she felt, but it wouldn’t have been fair to him. She
should have been comforting him, not the other way around.

“I thought it was you, you stupid jerk.” She punched
him playfully in the shoulder.

“Huh?”

“You two idiots sound alike, and when you said I was
right over the phone, I just assumed it was Oliver calling me. I
thought it was you. Then, they couldn’t find an Alexander Jacobs,
so I called your stupid girlfriend whose number was on my caller
ID, and she told me that it was you, not Oliver, who was at her
place.” She rested her head on his shoulder.

***

Alexander

“Oh. Sorry.” He wasn’t sure how he felt about this.
Was she crying because it wasn’t him who was hurt or because it was
Oliver?

More time passed in silence.

“Heather, why don’t you take Jill home? It’s going
to be a long night. I’ll call you when I hear something.”

“No way! I’m not leaving.”

“There’s no point in staying here all night. Just
go, get some rest, and I’ll call you.”

“Of course, there’s a point. I am staying. Are you
staying?”

“Of course, he’s my family.” She looked hurt by his
comment.

She lowered her voice and looked down as she
fidgeted with the cap on her bottle of water. “He’s my family too.”
It was barely audible, and he saw her eyes well up and the look in
her eyes. He hadn’t meant to hurt her by belittling their
relationship. “I’m sorry. That’s not what I meant. I meant only
that, I . . . Oh hell, Jill, I don’t know. I can’t leave, Jill.
He’s my twin brother. Half of me is in that hospital room. I know
you love him. You’re our family, and I didn’t mean anything by
that. Of course, you want to stay. I understand. I just . . . I
just . . . I don’t know. Just stay.” He felt defeated.

“I’ll call you later, Heather. You’re such a good
friend. Thank you for driving me and for staying through it
all.”

“No problem. Please keep me updated.” She gave Jill
a huge Heather-hug and one to Alexander with her big smile. “If you
ever have one of your little visions about me, let me know, and I
promise I will not move from my bed for an entire week!”

They all laughed. “Good night, y’all.” she
drawled.

“She’s very sweet,” said Alexander.

“Yes. She is. She didn’t freak out when I had my
little episode today.”

“You always underestimate everyone, Jill. You don’t
trust people to love you, and I’m not sure why. You’re very easy to
love. Except towards me, you’re sweet, smart, and kind. Give people
a chance to know these things about you. I bet you thought she’d
think you were a weirdo or something?”

She nodded. “You really do know me well.”

“I’ve been trying to tell you that for a long time,
babe.”

“Xander, I hate that it happens to me. I lose
complete control and don’t know what’s going on. I don’t have many
friends, and I don’t want to alienate the few that I have.”

“But it happened—twice—and she accepted it. She’s a
nice person, Jillian. You need to start opening up and trusting
people, especially the people that love you, and Heather loves
you.”

“The few times I’ve opened up haven’t turned out so
well.”

“The teacher?” Alexander asked.

Jill nodded. “And the doctors.”

“Those doctors only know what is tangible. What they
can see. They want to be able to rationalize things with science.
You’ll probably never convince a doctor. But Black’s an asshole,
Red. I hate to say it to you, but I told you so. I hope you were
smart enough not to sleep with him. Don’t let that jerk dictate
your behavior. Trust people, babe. It’s better than the
alternative. Don’t regret your years here in school like you have
all those years in D.C. and in boarding school.”

“When did you get so smart?” She smiled up at him.
They were still cuddled together in the waiting room.

“Finally, you’re listening. I’ve always been smart.
You just hadn’t noticed before.” He winked. They sat quietly in the
waiting room.

Jill stood up every few minutes and paced back and
forth. “I wish they’d tell us something. There has to be some sort
of news by now.”

Alexander shrugged. He looked overwhelmed, worried,
scared. He sat with his elbows on his knees and his head on the
palms of his hands. She continued pacing back and forth. It killed
her to see Alexander this way. It killed her not to be able to tell
him how she felt. It killed her that she didn’t know how Oliver was
doing. And deep down in the corner of her mind, it killed her that
Alexander had just come from sleeping with some woman. She had a
lot of questions about that.

She would have to file all these things in her
memory bank for a later time.
A much later time.

The clock ticked and ticked and she paced and paced.
It had now been four hours since the dreaded phone call. The sun
was starting to rise. Alexander abruptly stood up, walked to Jill,
grabbed her hand, and pulled her to a chair. “Stop pacing. Sit
down.” He said, sternly.

She obeyed. He sat next to her and hunched over
again with his hands on his face and elbows on his knees. She
couldn’t sit still and was inadvertently shaking her right leg up
and down, up and down. It was a nervous tick. He looked at her with
uncontrolled irritation and put his hand on her knee and pushed it
down. “Stop doing that.” He said through gritted teeth. He was
starting to make her feel like an intruder on an intimate family
moment, as if she were overreacting. Or, maybe he wanted
that
girl, Ms. VW, here with him? That thought was nagging
at her.

“Listen here, buddy.” She stood up, hands on her
hips, penetrating eyes narrowed on him. “I’m nervous, okay. I know
that I’m not your sister or cousin or anything for that matter;
you’ve made that abundantly clear, but guess what? I DO NOT CARE!
I’m sorry if I’m bothering you, but I’m not leaving. If there is
SOMEONE
else you want to call to be here with you, by all
means, BE MY GUEST! You two idiots are all I’ve got, and you may
not understand, but I know he does, and I can’t help that I feel
like my own flesh and blood is in there, so leave me the hell
alone!”

She continued her pacing.

He sighed and went back to putting his head on his
hands with closed eyes.

And of course, since things could always get worse,
her phone rang. She saw on the caller ID that it was Paul.
Shit!
Talk about bad timing.
She walked away from Alexander into a
corner of the waiting room, not wanting him to overhear the
conversation. In the weeks that they had dated, it had become very
evident that Paul was a very jealous man, but so was Alexander.
Paul would be overly upset knowing that she was with Alexander,
even if it was due to the accident. But with that being said, he
had disappeared and had no real claim on her or his jealous
feelings. She shouldn’t have answered.

“Hello.”

“Hey there,” he said as if he had not been missing
for the last week. Argh.

“You’re alive.”

“Sorry. I had a family emergency. I meant to call
but got caught up. I hope you weren’t worried.
Worried?

“Worried took a vacation five days ago and was
replaced by anger.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I want to see you. Let’s
talk.”

“First, it’s the middle of the night. Second, you’ve
been missing for a week, and lastly, I’m busy.”

“Busy?”

“What? I was supposed to sit and wait?”
Ha! Let
him suffer for once.

“Jillian, where are you? And if you tell me you are
with another man, I . . .”

“You what!” She caught herself yelling and lowered
her voice. “You have no right to be anything. I’m with
Alexand—”

“What!” He yelled loudly, furiously.

“Let me finish, damn it. Oliver had a car accident,
and we’ve been in the hospital all night.”

“Is he alive?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, so let’s go. I’ll come pick you up so we can
talk.”

“Aren’t you listening to me? He was in a bad
accident. He’s in ICU and I can’t go with you. I want to stay here
until he wakes up, and—”

“You’ve done this to me before, Jillian. It’s always
a Jacobs.”

“I’ve done this to you before? No, I have not.
When?”

“That day you missed class.”

“We weren’t even dating then, Paul. Missing class is
not the same as standing you up.” She was whisper-yelling now.

“Come on, Jill. You’re going to stand me up?”

“Stand you up? We didn’t even have plans! You don’t
understand, and you haven’t been listening to anything I’ve been
telling you for the last few weeks if you’re throwing that in my
face. I’m always going to be there for them, no matter what. You’d
do the same for your sister and her kids. Apparently, you did do
the same since I haven’t heard from you in over a week. After we
almost slept together and you told me you loved me, you
disappeared. You know how I felt? And then, I hear from a damn
secretary that you’re not even teaching this semester. It was as if
you up and disappeared off the face of the earth.”

“I’ve seen the way they look at you. They’re in love
with you, Jillian. My sister isn’t in love with me. You’re going to
throw what could be a very good thing away over what? A man who is
always overseas chasing adventures or the other one who is always
chasing pussy? They will never be able to give you what I can offer
you.”

“Don’t you dare talk to me like that! I can’t have
this conversation now, Paul. I understand if you want to end
things. I really do. I’m prepared for it. In fact, you gave me an
entire week to prepare. This is my life and it is not going to
change. I come wrapped up with all this baggage. You can accept it
or choose to walk away. But today, I’m staying here, and you are
most certainly not welcome. Goodbye, Paul.”