Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
Eden
The hospital bed dips down next to me, and I smile to myself. My head is turned toward the wall.
He’s here.
The one person holding me here. The boy who’s taken over my heart. “Hi,” he whispers behind me as he lays down folding me against his chest. “Are you awake?”
“That’s a silly question. If I wasn’t, I am now.” I giggle, placing my hand over his gloved hand. “Did you bring Achilles along?” His fluffy grey Tabby kitten typically snuggles into the loose top of my hospital gown.
“Sorry… and no, I couldn’t find him.” His voice was laced with concern. “He’ll come back; he always does.”
The first couple of nights here when he visited, he kept his distance from me. After his initial surprise of me grabbing one of his gloved hands, he’s become more comfortable with me.
I want him to kiss me. So stupid. I’m in the hospital and in between homes. I have bigger worries right now.
When I turn to look over my shoulder, he pulls back in alarm. “How are you feeling today?” His voice is husky and deepened. “Do you think you can walk a longer distance around the room?”
“Why?” I don’t need to go anywhere. Once I leave, I may never see him again.
“Start walking around the room for longer periods to build up your stamina.” His eyes scan over my face like he’s committing it to his memory. “You’ll need to leave soon.”
Leaving means losing him…
I can’t…
Present Day
The crows keep circling and I hear her laughter in the distance. My mother. I claw at the earth on my hands and knees. Embry was buried alive around here. I know it. My hands are bloody; my fingernails are ragged and broken. I have to get him out.
“They see… they see everything.”
The crows start diving at me. Their unearthly screeches make the terror I’m feeling paralyze me. Help, please someone help me.
I curl into a ball to protect my face from their beaks.
Hands come from somewhere and gently rub my back. “Eden? Eden… can you hear me?” A soft female voice. Sweet and soothing.
Who is that?
“Honey? Shhhh… shhhhh. It’s not real, you’re having a nightmare. It’s not real.”
I want to open my eyes and wake up. My eyes are open, aren’t they?
Why is this happening? My breathing comes out in hiccup like pants.
“Why won’t she wake up?” Is that Blaine?
Help me, please B… please. Why can’t he hear me? There are more people, and it sounds like murmuring. Are they leaving me here?
No. A scream wells deep inside me. I need them to help me. Help Embry. She’s coming, she’s coming…
A flash of a light, a slight pain in my arm.
Fuzzy and bright. Beeping. What’s happening to me? I squeeze my eyes tight, ordering myself to open them again.
Open up.
Bright light burns through my eyelids. White ceiling tiles swim into focus. Antiseptic stings my nose. A steady beep ticks beside me.
There are three people in scrubs standing around my bed talking about me. “…she’s coming around. Check her O2.” Handing articles back and forth over me… bandaging?
I turn my head looking for Blaine. I know I heard his voice. He’s hovering partially behind the doctor, reaching around him to grab my hand.
“Oh my God, there you are, Ed. Fuck.” His eyes are red and watery. “It took forever for you to wake up, sweetheart.”
When the doctor shifts to the side, Blaine moves closer to me. Without concern over the IV or monitors he pulls me to him. Crushing me to his chest as he whispers, “Fuck, I thought I’d lost you. I thought you were gone.”
“Be careful of her IV,” a no-nonsense nurse admonishes Blaine. He doesn’t ease up.
“If you thought I was clingy before, Fuck, Ed. I’m going to be like super stick cling wrap now.” He fiercely kisses my head. “If someone is coming for you, they get us both.”
I hold onto him as we cry on each other. I didn’t think I’d ever see him again. Much less be in his arms again. The fight about my mental health feels petty now. Let him think I’m crazy.
I need him.
Wanting someone to belong to-and to belong to me-doesn’t feel like weakness.
I’ve only ever had that with Anna, my foster mom.
“Blaine… what about Keir? Is he okay, where is he?” Blaine pulls back a fraction, wiping his eyes.
Biting his lip, he clears his throat. “He’s here.” Blaine lovingly strokes a hand down the back of my head. “He hasn’t woken up yet, Ed.”
Why can’t I remember what happened to us?
“I don’t understand. What happened to him?” Blaine moves to hold me at his side. To avoid my searching look?
He stares at our intertwined hands as he says softly, “I found him with a head injury in your room. I went back to the Center an hour or so after you kicked me out. You were gone. So were all your things.”
No matter how hard I try, it's a black void. I can’t remember.
“Why can’t I remember… the last thing I remember…”
My hand flies to my mouth. Keir knows who Embry is. We were talking about my foot scar. Then he… there was a knock at the door.
Then… nothing…
“Caleb?!” I jolt up a bit in bed. “Where is he? He was in the woods with me; he was trying to help me.”
“He’s okay. He’s here, too. A little worse for wear, but he’ll be fine. He’s more upset about you. He can’t remember anything, either.” Our attention is drawn to the door after a brief knock, it cracks open.
“Can I come in?” Matt asks, after sticking his head in. “I’ll come back if you want.”
Not a chance.
I need to lay my hands on him. In my last moments before passing out I regretted the way I kicked him out of my room and the fact I hadn’t let him talk.
“Come here.” I hold my hand out.
In three large steps he’s taken me from Blaine’s grasp and has me locked against him. The only clue he’s crying is the way his chest is heaving.
“You had us all terrified,” he says into my hair. I drink the smell of him in, like expensive cologne with a hint of cinnamon from the Altoids he sucks on.
“She doesn’t remember what happened,” Blaine says to him over my head.
I wonder if they’ve worked their issues out?
Blaine went rigid when he saw him. That tells me it’s unlikely.
He pulls a chair up on the other side of my bed, settling there, gripping tightly to the hand Blaine doesn’t possess.
“I told you we’d protect you and I failed to do that. I can’t even tell you how sorry I am.” His eyes glisten with tears as he continues, “I want you to move out of the Center if you stay in the study. I have room for you at my rental. I don’t think you’re safe at the Wellness Center at all.”
“I doubt I’m still in the study. Right?” I look at Blaine. “I had Keir and Caleb in my room. I…”
Swallowing is getting a little harder, I could use some water. Blaine notices. He pours me a glass of ice water from the tray.
“Thank you,” I rasp out and drink down the glass, trying not to choke. “I’m sure I’ve lost my graduate school status, too.”
If I hadn’t just had a brush with death, I’d be devastated by that, but right now I’m just happy I’m above ground, in close proximity of two men that have moved into my heart.
“I don’t know. The Center covered up the whole thing. You’ll have to talk to Hart I’m sure, that’ll be a blast.” Blaine rolls his eyes. “But you could fight all your things along with you were gone. So technically, Keir wasn’t found in your room, and they can’t prove Caleb was there.”
“You said that before. What do you mean all my things are gone?”
I don’t have much. Even in my tiny closet of a walk up back home, it’s sparse. Now what little I traveled with is gone?
The stash of money that I keep tucked in a hidden pocket of my suitcase— it had grown in the last few years to several thousand.
Gone?!
“Cleaned out. Gone. Nothing of yours was left in the room. Like you’d never been there,” Blaine explains as Matt sighs rubbing my hand with his thumb.
“Someone wrote ‘Time is Now’ on the wall in what looked like blood, too.” Matt’s voice is hushed, but he almost looks like he’s assessing my reaction.
When I try to pull away from him, his grip tightens. “I’m not accusing you of anything. I’m just telling you what was found.”
Tears build in my eyes. Why can’t I remember?
It’s one thing to forget a person’s name, or whether you read something…
but whole events. Terrible events? When I feel like my mind might be as faulty as Blaine and Matt were suspecting, I recall that Caleb can’t remember either. “Caleb… he doesn’t know.”
“No. In fact, he was convinced Keir was in the woods with the two of you.” Matt leans forward resting his elbows on his knees. “Hutton happened to have a couple of cameras in your room. Which didn’t make me happy, but we were able to see you answering the door and it cut out.”
My face reddens. I think about masturbating and having sex in that room.
Was Hutton watching?
“Cameras? Oh my God.” I’m kicking him in his junk the next time I see him. Between the weird memories my mind has been making up about him and now this. “You couldn’t see who was at the door?”
“It looks like only Keir, and you did. Caleb was in the bathroom. When he came out, he was attacked from behind. The recording blacks out after that.”
“I want to see Keir and Caleb. I need to see them both.” I look down at my thin aqua hospital gown and the bandaging wrapped around my upper thigh. “Can I leave my room?” I direct the question to Matt because I automatically assign authority to him. Why do I do that?
“That’s not wise. You need to get rest, and you have an IV in…,” Blaine says next to me.
Matt just shakes his head no.
I’m not new to loss. Pieces of me have been chipped away with new losses my entire life. Embry, foster homes, friends and acquaintances, boyfriends, and now most of my possessions and the money I was going to use to start fresh.
Once I found Embry, I planned on finding us a home. Regain some footing in life. What’s causing my heart to ache right now is the fact that I could have lost Caleb. Keir. Both.
That would have destroyed my heart completely.