Then it was him. Pulling another trigger. Ending not just one person’s life but two. His own included.
I yanked myself out of my waking nightmare, hoping my panic didn’t show on my face. “Death,” I said, unable to utter anything else.
She scoured my face, seeming to see through everything I was masking it with. Best friends, after all, knew when a dress, guy or expression didn’t fit you.
“Looks like death brought you back,” she said finally, her eyes flickering to the heart monitor. “Or almost death.”
I looked at the monitor too. And for a terrifying second, the sound stopped, the emptiness signaling the finality of death. Thankfully, it was just another hallucination—or flashback? A sign I was really going crazy? Properly One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest crazy?
I was sane enough to regard my friend, tears filling my eyes at the realization of just how much I’d missed an integral part of me, how I’d almost lost another one. “No way would you die and leave me in this world without you,” I choked. “I’d kill you if you did that.”
She gave me a wonky grin. “Renewed motivation to stay breathing.”
I glanced from Lucy to the stoic man at her side, who’d been silent during the whole exchange. He didn’t look pissed that I’d hijacked his moment, nor impatient for me to leave. He seemed content enough to sit there in silence, grasping Lucy’s hand and listening to her. Watching her. With an intensity that told me he was terrified that if he let go, if he stopped watching, she’d float away.
Something jerked in the vicinity of my heart.
Another one bites the dust.
It wasn’t jealousy. It filled me with joy, watching the people I loved grasp onto love that didn’t seem real unless you witnessed it in person. But I was becoming an outcast in an ever-growing club, I was happy to live in my desolate wasteland if it meant my family were happy. But I couldn’t help but wish for my own version of it.
I shook myself. “No, I think you’ve got enough right there.” I jerked my head to Keltan with a smile.
It was a real one.
Lucy had been dancing around this hunky Kiwi for years. Even when I was drowning in my own heartbreak, I saw that twinkle in his eyes the second they met. Watched them tumble in and out of their own heartbreak. Watched my beautiful friend mask her pain, doing it almost as well as I did.
Now she didn’t have to. She’d stopped running from it. She could be still and happy.
She squeezed my hand. “I’ve got more than enough,” she whispered.
My eyes threatened to leak once more, the force of my absence hitting me. I was only just realizing how little I’d been living, breathing in this past year without the people who made me somewhat whole. A single tear trailed down my cheek and I snatched my hand from Lucy’s grasp to angrily swipe it away.
I couldn’t believe this was when I lost it and cried. After this entire year of horror, this was the moment.
I couldn’t let it linger or else I’d never stop. I’d break completely.
“God, what I am, a girl or something?” I said. “Too sappy. Plus, there’s an entire motorcycle club, your mom and dad, your sister, and other hot guys I don’t recognize but approve of in a big way all waiting for you,” I continued. I’d breezed past most of my worried family, sneaking away before I could face their wrath, or worse, their love and concern. “I better go out and do the whole ‘she’s alive’ thing,” I finished, mimicking Dr. Frankenstein and trying to lighten the heaviness surrounding me.
I fastened my mask firmly back on, made sure my costume wasn’t going to fall off again.
It couldn’t.
Lucy narrowed her eyes, like she’d seen my slip, seen the fucking colossal mess underneath it all.
“Just to be clear, you’re only going to the waiting room. No going,” she demanded.
I mentally pinched myself at the fear in her voice, the expectation of me disappearing again.
I beamed falsely. “Of course. I’ve already taken up your old room. Polly is living in some loft that I’m almost certain is a front for a cult,” I told her cheerfully.
She didn’t blink. Polly was the ultimate wild child. Different than me, and dangerous too. I was a little worried about my adopted sister. But there wasn’t much you could do with the wild ones. I knew that better than anyone.
“You’re moving here?” Lucy focused on that little gem.
I’d made the decision on a whim, like I did most of my decisions. But LA was always supposed to be where Lucy and I would go to live out our dreams. Ultimate bachelorettes with a great apartment and fabulous jobs and few worries.
But like most dreams, it hadn’t quite turned out that way. Lucy got hers, the one she didn’t even know she wanted.
Mine weren’t important.
“Well, not here exactly, because hospitals creep me out, no matter how hot the nurses are. Grays’s Anatomy was serious false advertising. But yeah, watch out, City of Angels. The Devil has arrived.” I winked, speaking the truth but disguising it with humor.
If only my best friend knew what I’d turned into. Even the men in the club would blanche. So I had to bury it all. Dig a grave and put this new version of myself in it. Try to resurrect the girl from before.
“Okay, so you’re not leaving,” she repeated, like she almost didn’t believe me.
I hated that too. Trust between girlfriends was almost as sacred as those naked photos you only showed them. I broke that.
“Nope. Not too far, at least. I’ll be back, I promise. See you never,” I said, trying to stick to old Rosie’s script.
Lucy’s face warmed to a smile I didn’t deserve. “Love you always.”
I gave her a smile and Keltan a wink before turning and purposefully walking out the door, as if I didn’t have a care in the world.
As if I wasn’t close to collapsing.
I couldn’t.
I still had a part to play to the entire crowd of people in the waiting room.
I wanted to see them all, despite the bitter taste in my mouth at seeing the stranger I turned into when I dove back into my previous life.
Running was the easy part. It was coming back that was the bitch. Nothing went away while you were hiding; everything stayed exactly preserved, like a fossilized demon of all your mistakes.
I just had to stop being such a coward.
It was a family reunion, not a firing squad.
So why did it feel so much like the latter?
Just before I made it to the waiting room, a hulking form rounded the corner and I froze.
There he was. The fossil I had craved just as much as I’d dreaded uncovering.
Luke.
Chapter Seven
It would be nice if life was like the movies. Not only would I always look fabulous, regardless of whatever dirty situation I’d come out of, but everything would turn out for the guy and the girl in the end. After a long and painful separation, they’d finally reunite, run into each other’s arms and forget all the differences, the suffering that kept them apart.
But that shit only happened in the movies.
Reunions like that weren’t glamorous, or passionate, or romantic. They were stiff, awkward and hurt more than a bullet through the chest.