Wild Child (The Wild Ones #1.5)(26)
Author: M. Leighton

I make my way back upstairs. Cami’s waiting on the top step, arms crossed over her chest, hell in her eyes.

“Dammit, Rusty, what is wrong with her? What did you do?”

“Keep your voice down,” I tell her. “I didn’t do anything to her. Her father was killed in an accident at the orchard today.”

Cami’s gasp is followed by her hands covering her mouth and her eyes filling with tears. “Oh my God! Oh my God! Poor Jenna!” She closes her eyes and slides her hands up to cover her whole face. Trick comes around from behind me to pull her into his arms. I give them a few minutes, minutes for Trick to comfort Cami and for Cami to collect herself. She’s known Jenna’s dad for years. No doubt she feels some sense of pain and loss, too, not to mention the sympathy for her best friend.

When she uncovers her face and wipes her eyes, I continue. “Mom was down in the ER and she came and told me right away. Jenna had already left the hospital, so I went to her house. I found her out in the rain. She didn’t want to go back inside, so I brought her here.”

“I’m glad you did,” Cami says, kindness back in her eyes. “I’ll take care of her. I’m sure you need to rest. You’re not even supposed to be out of the hospital yet, are you?”

“I’m fine. And I’ll stay with her tonight, if you don’t mind.”

“You really don’t need to do that. I’ll make sure she knows—”

“No offense, Cami, but it’s not a request. I’m staying. Or I’m taking her with me when I leave.”

Cami eyes me suspiciously, but again, she relents. “Okay, okay. Can I at least go see her?”

“I’ll come get you when she wakes up, but I want to be there when she does.”

Cami nods, possibly in approval. I can’t be sure. “Fair enough.”

She looks from me to Trick, and then turns and walks slowly back toward the living room. I know she doesn’t like it, but at least she recognizes that I’m not budging on this. She can take it or leave it. Her choice. She chose to take it.

Smart girl.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE – Jenna

Life, or what feels like the reasonable facsimile of it, has slowed. At first, it was a series of light bulb-flashes of time and sounds, of people and places.

There were the various rooms of my house. Then there were the empty windows of the rooms upstairs. There was Rusty’s face in the rain. Then there was the dashboard of an unfamiliar car.

I woke some time later, in a dark room, to the faint sight of Rusty hovering over me. We watched each other for an eternity. Or for a few seconds. I’m not sure which. I stayed perfectly still while the mattress beside me sank and stretched out beside me, drawing me into his arms.

There was more time after that. Hours or days, I don’t know, but I woke again in the same dark room. Beneath my ear was a beating heart and deep, even breathing. I lifted my head to confirm what I already knew. It was Rusty. Rusty had fallen asleep holding me.

Still, there was more time. Still, I don’t know how much. I woke, startled by a girl’s screams. It took Rusty stroking my hair, soothing me with his calming words to make me realize that the girl was me. And that her screams were mine.

I remember daylight after that. And Rusty. Still. Always, it seemed.

There was worry on his face and in his eyes. But there was something else, too. Something I refused to think about. So I slept.

There were vague impressions, too. Fingers on my cheek, lips against mine, words whispered in my ear. Something that made my heart sing and cry, all in the space of a heartbeat. So I dove back into sleep, into escape.

When I could hide no more, I woke to the sight of Cami sitting in the rocking chair in the corner. I watched her for a few seconds before I moved. She looked tired as she swayed gently back and forth, her head resting against the cushion, her eyes closed. I wondered briefly what was weighing so heavily on her.

Her head straightened and her eyes opened, locking on mine immediately. I knew then what was worrying her. It was me.

She came to the bed, curled up beside me, threaded her fingers through mine and we cried. Together. I don’t know how long we did that before I fell asleep again. When I woke she was in different clothes, standing in the doorway.

“Where’s Rusty?” I’d asked.

“He said he’d asked you for one day, and that you’d given it to him. And that he would come back if you wanted him to.”

My heart broke a little more. I’m not sure why. Maybe because it was already in a million tiny pieces and happiness hurt just as much as sadness. Or maybe because I couldn’t tell them apart. Maybe they are one and the same. Or maybe there can’t be one without the other.

After that moment, time sped up into a blur, a rapid succession of images and places, of fuzzy emotions and decisions, all set against the backdrop of an unimaginable pain and sense of loss. They ran together, beyond my control, like water colors in a cold, hard rain.

There were arrangements to make, morticians to speak to, songs to choose and gravestones to select. There were thoughts of telephone calls, but none to make, except to my brother, Jake. Although he’s always been as far away emotionally as he has been geographically, he promised he would come. That moment stood out among the rest.

And now, somehow, I’m here. In a cemetery. In the sunlight. In a dress I don’t remember buying, in front of a casket I can’t remember picking out.

My brother stands beside me, looking like a brooding, bitter version of my father, with his black hair, dark skin and amber eyes, and we address the dozens of people who have come to pay their last respects to my father. He nods politely and I say things I really don’t mean to people I really don’t know as they drift by in single file. I watch them come and I watch them go, and all I feel is…empty. And alone.

Even my mother’s jealous, vindictive sister, Ellie’s presence doesn’t shake me from my stupor. I recognize her trailer-trash hair and her trailer-trash dress when she steps up in line. I recognize the smell of vodka on her breath and the way she curls her lip in disgust. But still, I don’t feel like I’m present. Not fully.

I listen as she speaks, but I don’t really understand what it is she’s trying to say. And some part of me thinks that I don’t really want to. At least not today.

“I’m so sorry to hear about your daddy,” I hear her slur. “Have you already read the will and taken care of all the arrangements?”

I don’t answer. I simply watch her, wishing she’d disappear. Or that I would.