Soft Shock (24 page)

Chapter Twenty-Seven

“Ugh. Do you
have to be so OCD?” Tyler asked. “We really have to come all the way back to
make sure you turned off the stove?” Tyler made a face. “I wanted to grab
drinks.” His tone of voice was the definition of the word petulant. “It’s one
of my last nights in town.” Tyler had been sulking since they left the
restaurant. It was a couple days after Valentine’s Day, and Tyler would be
leaving for Cali soon.

“It’ll just
take a minute.” Marci opened the door to the apartment and pushed Tyler inside.
When she flipped on the light, a room full of people shouted, “Surprise!”

Tyler screamed
and clapped a hand over his mouth. “Oh my God!” Then he turned to Marci and
hugged her. “You’re such a good
liar
!”
he exclaimed as he jumped up and down with her. Everyone laughed.

“I know you
didn’t think we’d let you go without a party,” Marci said.

“I was
beginning to wonder,” Tyler said, crossing his arms and tapping his foot.

Marci laughed.
“Just go enjoy your party, please.”

Tyler, who
loved being the center of attention, didn’t give it another moment’s pause.
Marci watched him mingle, and she talked to Sadie and Ronnie and Tyler’s
friends throughout the night, but her heart wasn’t in partying that night. When
Tyler pulled her aside near the end of the night and asked her what was wrong,
she told him as much.

“Oh honey.”
Tyler hugged her to him. “You better go after that man. Don’t be stubborn and
lose out.”

“I’m going to
miss you when you go away.”

“Of course you
are. And you know I’ll miss you, too, but don’t go changing the subject on me.”

“Tonight’s your
night,” Marci said. “Let’s be happy and celebrate. I don’t even know when I’ll
see you next after you leave.”

Tyler rolled
his eyes. “Please. Knowing my luck, this thing’ll get canceled and you’ll see
me in no time.”

“That’s not
true. Even if the show would otherwise be a total flop, you’ll be the saving grace.
And you’ll have more seasons than Friends and E.R. put together.”

He smiled.
“You’re sweet.
Too sweet to die old and alone and bitter.
So you better listen to my good advice.”

“I won’t be
bitter.”

Tyler shook his
head. “Heavens. What am I going to do with this one?”

Marci laughed.
“You know you love me.”

Tyler put an
arm around her shoulders and squeezed. “Of course. That’s why I want to see you
happy.”

“I am.
With my friends.
School. With the direction in which
everything’s headed in my life right now.” And that nagging feeling like
something was missing would go away eventually if she ignored it long enough.

#

Marci answered
the phone to a bunch of sobs a few days after she dropped Tyler off at the
airport.

“Ronnie,” she
said. “I can’t understand a word you’re saying. Breathe. Take some deep
breaths.” Marci got up from the couch and walked over to the glass doors that
led out to the balcony as she waited for Ronnie to calm herself enough to speak.
The rain pelted the glass and fragmented the view of the city lights of
downtown Richmond.

She heard
shuddering gasps on the other end of the line.

“There you go.
Good, good.”

After a moment,
Ronnie was finally able to say, “He’s in the hospital.”

“Who? Is it
your uncle?”

“No. Jeremy.”

Oh shit.
 

“What’s wrong
with him?” Marci asked.

“They won’t let
me see him.”

“What happened,
Ronnie?”

“Accident. Bad
accident. Really bad one.”

“Oh God. Were
you with him?”

“I’m fine. Just
a few scratches.”

“Which
hospital?” Marci grabbed her keys from her desk and bunched her jacket into the
same hand before reaching for her umbrella. Ronnie rattled off a name as Marci
left the apartment.

When Marci got
to the hospital, she felt better when she saw with her own eyes that Ronnie
looked mostly okay. She had a few bruises, and there was a butterfly bandage on
her cheek beneath her left eye. She walked with a limp and explained that her
left hip was bruised. Other than that, she swore she was fine.

Marci tracked
down some coffee and then they sat down in the waiting room with a cup each.
Ronnie’s hands shook so badly that she could barely take a sip without spilling
coffee all over herself.

“Ronnie.” Marci
put a hand over Ronnie’s hands, which were wrapped around her coffee cup. “It
must have been pretty scary, huh?” Ronnie looked pretty rattled. And Ronnie
didn’t rattle easily.

Ronnie leaned
forward in her chair but didn’t move her hands away from Marci’s hand. “Jeremy
borrowed his friend’s car. An old Honda Civic Si he’s been helping the guy fix
up. So of course he wants to go fast, right. I kept telling him to slow down.”
Ronnie shook her head. Marci felt Ronnie’s fingers tighten around the coffee
cup under her hand.

Marci squeezed
her fingers. “It’s okay now.”

Ronnie shook
her head hard, her hair swinging from side to side with the force of the
movement. “Not for Jeremy, it isn’t.” Ronnie moved her hands away from Marci’s
hand and managed to keep her grip steady enough to take a sip from her coffee
cup. “He took a curb all wild. You know it’s raining like crazy out there. Car skidded
out—landed in a ditch. Driver’s side.” She put down the cup and ran a
hand over her face. “I’m tired of investing so much into people who seem hell
bent on self-destruction. My uncle. Jeremy.”

Marci hugged
Ronnie to her with one arm. “There’s something to be said about believing in
people everyone else is ready to throw away. You have faith in them. Faith has
incredible power. You love them. To love someone without passing judgment, to
love
them
even when they can’t love themselves, that’s
a lot of work. And it’ll pay off one day. They know that no matter what, there’s
at least one person out there who won’t give up on them. That’ll sink in one
day. They’ll be ready to change.”

Ronnie looked
up at her. “I don’t know if that sounds very much like you, but it sure sounds
nice. If only it were true.”

“I’m sure it
is.”

“I’m not.”
Ronnie sighed.

Marci put her
coffee cup down and gave Ronnie a full, two-armed hug. They stayed like that
until Ronnie pulled back a little.

“Owen,” Ronnie
said, wiping tears out of her eyes.

Marci froze.
She didn’t want to turn around. She couldn’t.

“You can go
back now,” said a very familiar voice quietly.
Too familiar.
“He’s asking for you.”

“He’s
conscious?” Ronnie asked, her voice quavering.

“Yes.”

Ronnie stood
and reached for Marci’s hand. Marci swallowed a nuisance of a lump in her
throat and finally turned to face him. His hair, wet with rain, was darker than
usual and plastered to his head. His North Face fleece was unzipped, and he
wore a black shirt beneath it. Finally, she met his gray eyes. They were solemn
and worried. No doubt his mind was on his brother where it would be. She was
relieved not to see Kristin standing there. Kristin probably wasn’t far away if
she was any sort of fiancé at all, but at least Marci wasn’t getting hit with
two bombs at once. She got to take in and maybe get over the shock of seeing
Owen a little before she had to meet his fiancé.

Owen led the
way to Jeremy’s room with his head down, obviously not in the mood for
conversation.
And likely especially not with her.
Once
they were inside the room, Marci spotted her right away even though she’d never
seen her in real life before. Standing near Jeremy’s bed, next to where Owen
and Jeremy’s mom sat in a chair holding Jeremy’s
hand,
was a petite blonde. Platinum blonde. White hair on young people had always
disconcerted Marci. She narrowed her ice blue eyes at Marci, but the rest of
her face remained expressionless. Lord, that girl needed a good meal. She
probably had to buy size 000 clothes and have them taken in. Was she allergic
to food or something? She was pretty in a waif model—with the exception
of the height—ice queen sort of way, Marci guessed.

Ronnie rushed
over to Jeremy’s side. Owen stood between Kristin and Marci, looking like he
didn’t quite know what to say or do for a moment.

Finally, he
said, “Kristin, this is Marci. Marci, I’d like you to meet Kristin, my fiancé.”

“Nice to meet
you,” Kristin said coolly, barely giving Marci her fingertips in the handshake.

“You, too.
Congratulations on your engagement,” Marci said woodenly.

“Sham,” Jeremy
muttered from the bed.

Kristin gave
Marci an icy little smile, nodded, and then retreated to Owen’s side where she
latched on to his arm.

Glad that went so well
, Marci thought as
she made her way over to say hello to Jeremy. Marci then slowly backed away a few
steps at a time until she was hovering near the door that led into the hallway.
She barely realized what she was doing until her back bumped against the door.

Owen’s mom
hunched over in a chair by the bed, one hand over her mouth,
one
hand never leaving Jeremy’s. Ronnie stood on the other side of the bed,
peppering Jeremy with questions. Marci glanced at Owen sideways, not wanting to
turn her head in his direction as she could feel his fiancé’s death glare.
Owen’s focus was on his mom and brother. His lips were pulled into a tight,
grim line. With his hands on his mother’s shoulders, he looked over at his
brother with an expression she couldn’t fully read from her limited view.
Occasionally, he would bend down to say something quietly to his mom. Kristin
was right there next to him like a guard dog.

After less than
an hour in the room, she couldn’t take it anymore. Being in the same room with
Owen and getting Kristin’s laser death glare was a little too much for her all
at once. She told Ronnie she was leaving to get Ronnie something to eat. She
had to get out of that stifling room.

 
Owen followed her out of the hospital
room and into the hallway.

She looked up
at him and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry about what happened to your brother.”

He nodded.
“Thanks.” It wasn’t fair for him to still look so good to her. He was so tall.
Strong. She fit nicely into his arms, her head coming in just under his chin,
she knew from experience. She wanted what they’d had back, but she could never
have that. He’d always been the relationship type, and eventually the
relationship type wanted marriage. She was supposed to know that. However, her
common sense had decided to go on an inopportune semi-permanent vacation the
moment they’d met. It hadn’t come back yet.

“How’s your
mom?” Marci asked. “I know you said ever since…well, that she’s not good with car
accidents.”

Owen lifted his
eyebrows for a moment, as if she’d caught him by surprise. Then, clearing his
expression and his throat, he said, “Fine. She’ll be okay. Thanks for asking.”

Marci nodded.
She wanted to say something else, but none of the words she had seemed to fit
this moment.

He shifted and
glanced back at the door to the hospital room.

This was too
hard. Obviously, neither one of them knew what to say. And neither one of them
wanted to talk about
It
.
The huge
ass stinking elephant in the room—or hallway.

“I should go,”
Marci said. “Ronnie won’t eat if I don’t pick something up and bring it back. I
doubt very much she’s going to leave your brother’s side any time soon.”

“He’s lucky to
have a friend like her.”

“Yeah.” Marci started
to leave, but then stopped. She turned around and grabbed Owen’s
hand
as he was about to walk back into the hospital room. “I
miss you.” The words were out before she could stop them. “I miss everything
about you.” She looked up and found his gray eyes moving from their hands to
stare into hers. “Everything.”

Before Owen could
say anything, Kristin came out of the room. Marci dropped Owen’s hand.

“Is everything
okay out here?” Kristin asked. She shoved herself under Owen’s arm and wrapped
her arms around him in a possessive gesture.

“Everything is
the way it should be,” Marci said. “Congrats again on your upcoming marriage.”
She folded her arms under her breasts and hurried away.

By the time she
got outside to the parking lot, she was shocked and horrified that the raindrops
finding their way under her umbrella in the gusting wind were mixing with her
tears.
Tears?
Was she actually
crying?
Over a boy?
Bullshit.

She came to a
stop by her car and gasped in utter shock. “How did you beat me out here?”

Owen leaned
against the driver’s side door, the icy rain pelting and drenching him, with
his arms by his sides. He shrugged. “I was determined to see you again before
you got away.”

“I’m coming
back,” Marci said. “With the food.” She moved closer so that her umbrella
covered them both.

“Not for me,
you’re not. And I wanted us to have a chance to talk. Alone.”

“What’s the
point?” Marci asked, hating the quaver in her voice. She swiped at her cheeks.
“It’s rain, okay? I’m not crying, so don’t you even think that.
”

 
He ran the back of his cold, wet hand
over her cheek. She leaned into his touch without even thinking. “Marci,” he
said softly. “I hate that things are like this between us now.”

“There’s no us,
and there’s no between.” Marci saw red. “You know what your problem is?” Marci
hissed, wanting to punish him for the weakness she’d shown earlier. “You don’t
know how to not be in a relationship. What, did you call her as soon as I
left?”