Strange or not—I’m glad she’s finally here. “Come on. Finn’s this way.”
She follows me back out to the front of the store and up the red carpeted staircase.
“Finn,” I blurt at the top of the first staircase. “What are you doing down here?” My cheeks burn at the sight of him.
He stands at the kitchen sink, filling himself a glass of water. “Hey,” he says with a sheepish smile, “I thought maybe an introduction where I’m not in a bed might be nice.” His eyes skirt to Cytha. “For both of us.”
Finn’s blue T-shirt hangs over his gray sweats. His hair is tousled—hinting he’s spent a few days, or, in Finn’s case, weeks, in bed. He almost looks normal. Tired and sluggish, but no more than any other eighteen-year-old. His cheeks aren’t as pale as they were yesterday, and he’s standing.
I stride over, my fingers itching to touch him. “Are you okay?”
He bows his head in a surrendering nod. “I am. Don’t worry.” He lifts his head to my friend who I’ve left across the room. “Cytha?”
“In the flesh.” She grins and her hands are propped on her tiny hips.
He smiles back and it kind of melts me. “Nice to meet you, best friend.”
“Nice to meet you, bookshop hottie.”
My face flushes and I clamp my teeth together. Finn only laughs.
We play AA, we talk, we laugh. It’s more comfortable than I could have hoped for. I sit cross-legged on the couch. Finn is at my left holding his, doctor approved, bowl of salad, while Cytha is on the floor at my right, an open pizza box on the coffee table beside her.
“Okay, Cytha, tell me this—how did Esther first describe me?”
Cytha titters, pizza in her mouth.
“No!” I say, squirming until my arms wrap around Cytha’s neck and my hands cover her face.
“That bad?” Finn grins.
“No,” I say again, “I don’t really remember what I said.” But it wasn’t exactly positive.
“I do,” Cytha says under my hold. Finn laughs and Cytha writhes. “You’ve never had problems expressing yourself, eh, Louise.”
“Thelma and Louise again?” Finn raises his brows. He winks at me. “Louise?”
“He’s never seen it,” I say, talking to Cyth, but peering at Finn.
“Well, that has to change.”
We find an edited version of the movie through Finn’s TV app. We have to sit through a few commercials, but I love it just the same, just like I did the first time Cytha and I snuck Lisa’s DVD. She scolded us horribly—for not asking and for watching something our nine year old eyes shouldn’t have. But when the modified for TV version aired over cable the next year, she let both of us watch with her.
The three of us squeeze on the couch, our feet propped on the coffee table. I haven’t been this close to Finn in weeks. It makes my heart thump and a tremor runs through my fingers. I hold my hands together in my lap, hiding the twitch.
I lean my head on his shoulder, feeling the warmth of his body through his shirt, it penetrates into my skin, warming every inch of me.
The credits roll and a small buzzing snore sounds from my right—Cytha. I look at her and then Finn, a conspiratorial smile on my face. He breathes out a laugh, too.
“So, how are you feeling—really?”
“Mostly good. I’m glad to be home, even if I’m confined to my room most of the time.”
“Your gauze is gone.” I twist toward him, carefully folding down the ribbed collar of his T-shirt. The top of a bright pink line, stitched and taped, shows where I’ve pulled at his shirt. “How big is it?”
“Maybe nine or ten inches?” He touches two fingers to the middle of his chest. Then, his hand reaches for mine, entwining our fingers.
I want to ask if he feels different—he has the heart from another living being. Someone who lived and loved. Someone with hopes and plans. Does any of that translate over? But it feels too invading of a question. Too soon.
And he’s still him. I can feel that in everything he says and does.
“Does it hurt?”
“It itches. It doesn’t exactly hurt.” He brings our knotted hands to his lips and kisses my knuckles, sending a shiver down my spine. “How is it having Cytha here?”
“It’s good. I wish she could stay.”
“Are you regretting not going back to Reno?”
Regrets… I don’t want any of those. Not when I can help it. “No. I want to be here.”
Finn leans down and I stretch toward him, pressing a small kiss to his lips. He tastes like honey and popcorn and I have to resist reaching out for another. I press my lips together and lean my head against the couch.
“Who do you think he was?” Finn says, and I know exactly whom he means. His donor.
“I don’t know.”
“Why do I get a third chance and he barely got a first?”
I squeeze his fingers. “I don’t know. It must have been an accident, nobody’s fault.”
“I just—I wish I could say thank you or I’m sorry. Something.”
“I know.” I don’t know how to help him, except to encourage him to move on, to work on that list he thinks I know nothing about. But it’s still too soon. He can’t go skiing or go on a hike—not yet, anyway.
Cytha chatters the entire drive home. It’s so good to listen to her ramblings in person again. I fall into bed that night and drift off to sleep still listening to her. Soon, her voice has drowned out and the visions begin…
My car… The parking lot… The playground…The sign—the words are bright and clear now that I know what they say, WOODHILL’S PARK. The body beside me is warm and important as ever as we step out into the cold. A shiver runs through my body at the chill. My hair whips back and a steady hand grips my own. It’s so hard to see what’s next with my heart and mind so focused on the hand in mine. I see the rows of houses and then the sign… The street sign… I focus my eyes in and out of blurring. There are words there, but what do they say? Lake… Lake… There’s another word, but my angle isn’t good enough and my dream self doesn’t care—she already knows where she’s going. I can’t see it.
I blink my eyes, but there’s nothing to see, the room is dark. My head aches and my breathing is haggard. Lake. It wasn’t a totally wasted dream. I saw something. I sit up and slide the notebook Cytha wrote in the night before from my nightstand. I scribble the word onto her notes, though I don’t think I could forget.
I do the same thing the next night. And the next. I focus and see that the houses are white with green trim—all of them. I see that they are stuck together, separate homes, but together in one long row.
The next night I wake to a splitting headache, but I finally focus enough to see numbers on one specific house, 824.
When the sun finally rises and I tell Cytha, she squeaks, pulling out her phone.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m finding this house. We’re going there, today.”
31
“Jackson Lake, Tagart Lake,” Cytha says, flipping through web pages on her phone. “Here’s a Lake Lane and a Lake Street in Jackson.” She looks up at me.