“Lilac, I’ll call you back.”
I don’t tease him for the nickname he has given this woman. Instead, I reach for his arm and tug on it like I would do when I was a child and he was a teenager.
Come on, Jacob. Let’s go, a younger me whispers in my memory. Jacob has on jeans and a T-shirt. He slips into a pair of flip-flops despite the fall temperature and follows me down to the garage. The layout of the house puts the garage under Jacob’s wing, built into a hill which provides the house height and the space for the inground pool out back. As the electronically powered garage door takes its sweet time to open, more thunder claps, lightning strikes, and then the rain begins in earnest. Sheets of water cascade to the ground, and I shiver as a chill courses down my spine.
He's been drinking. He’s driving. It’s dark and raining. Please let him be okay.
We climb into Jacob’s SUV, and it doesn’t take us long to find what I feared. The motorcycle on its side with Ethan trapped partially underneath the machine. The road is drenched, turning the gravel to mud. Before Jacob even stops the vehicle, I have jumped out the passenger door and am running to Ethan. The rain pelts my skin, prickling like tiny knife jabs. My head screams at me that I deserve the pain.
However, Ethan has done nothing to deserve any harm or my wrath. He didn’t do anything wrong tonight. This is my fault. I’ve pressed too far. I pushed him away, and he left.
I fall to my knees next to him. At least he had the sense to put on his helmet, but he isn’t wearing a leather jacket. He also isn’t moving
“We need to get this off him,” I yell to Jacob, implying the weight of his motorcycle. Jacob left the SUV running with the lights on to guide him as he jumps into action. He removes Ethan’s bike from his body while I speak to him in soothing tones.
“Ethan? Ethan, can you hear me?”
He only groans as my hands hover over him, wanting to remove his helmet.
“We should call an ambulance,” I holler, but Jacob turns his head. He knows what this would mean. We’d be exposed.
“We aren’t leaving him,” I shout as if reading Jacob’s thoughts. He’s a fiction writer. He’d suggest something like making an anonymous phone call for help and hiding in the dark to wait until an ambulance arrives.
With his bike removed, I’m afraid Ethan has hurt his head or back. He shouldn’t be moved, but we don’t have a choice. The rain is not letting up, and it’s freezing.
“We need to get him off the road,” I cry out. Jacob moves behind Ethan’s head. He scoops his arms under Ethan’s armpits, and I move to Ethan’s ankles. Awkwardly, we carry him to the SUV. Jacob climbs in first, dragging Ethan across the back seat. I follow and rush to remove his helmet. Ethan groans, and I almost cry in relief. He’s soaked and muddy, but there isn’t a scratch on his face. I brush back his hair before I lower my head for his chest.
“Don’t leave me,” I whisper. To my surprise, Ethan’s hand lifts, and his fingers slip into my hair.
Jacob’s back on his phone, but I don’t hear anything that’s said as he shifts the vehicle into reverse and flies down the road backward.
“I’ll come back for the bike,” Jacob tells me over the driver’s seat. “Pam’s on her way.”
In a former life, Pam was an EMT. Her medical training hasn’t left her, but she swears she’ll never return to the profession. One too many bad accidents, she once said. Jacob relies on Pam for everything, and I wonder if he’ll ever admit how he really feels about her. When we return to the house, we stay in the SUV, waiting on Pam’s arrival.
“I’d feel better having him checked out by a doctor,” she says when she finds us in the garage. Ethan is too big for us to move again without help. We’d never get him up the stairs. I’m afraid he has a concussion as he hasn’t woken up again since moving his hand to my hair.
Jacob paces in a circle in the garage for a second and then hands his key fob to Pam.
“Take him.” As my concentration is on Ethan, I don’t hear anything else that passes between them. The next thing I know, Pam is in the driver’s seat. She glances over her shoulder at me, and I have a decision to make.
“Drive,” I say to Pam and meet Jacob’s stare through the back-seat window. I never go out in public, yet I’m risking everything for Ethan.
+ + +
“Hey.” A groggy voice greets me as I lay on Ethan’s bed in his bedroom back at the house. I rest on my side, hands under my cheek and knees pulled to my chest. He’s rolled his head on his pillow to face me.
Ethan’s been medically cleared with nothing more than a few bruised ribs and a sprained ankle, plus a wicked headache as he calls it. He’s been given medication for the pain, but he needs to be woken throughout the night to be confirmed concussion free. Thankfully, he wasn’t going fast enough to sustain any real damage before he lost control of the bike and simply flipped it. He fell asleep on our return from the hospital. Pam and I walked a limping Ethan to his room where he promptly fell on the bed and passed out. I haven’t left his side.
“God, I feel like shit,” he croaks, and I give him a weak smile.
“You had an accident,” I remind him as if he doesn’t know, as if his body isn’t telling him. He turns his head to face the ceiling.
He can’t even look at me.
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper, and he rotates back in my direction.
“For what?”
“I shouldn’t have said what I said. I shouldn’t have been acting how I’ve been acting.” My vision blurs, and I swipe under my eye. I don’t want to cry. I don’t want to make this about me. “I’ve been an awful human being.”
“True,” he states and then winces as he tries to shift his body to mirror mine. His expression is a mixture of teasing and torture.
“You shouldn’t move,” I state as he decides to remain on his back.
“I shouldn’t have been driving,” he huffs and winces once more. “I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck.” Thankfully, he wasn’t. Nor did he hit a tree. He just spun out, and I swallow loudly. It could have been so much worse.
“No, you shouldn’t have been driving,” I agree. He’d also been drinking, and I didn’t know that until Jacob clarified. He’d heard Ethan come home under Pam’s guidance, mumbling incomprehensible things before falling on his bed. I didn’t know more. I didn’t ask. I’d already said enough this evening.
“Why would you leave like that?” I question, staring at him.
He holds my gaze. “Have you ever reached a breaking point?” His question is like the pot calling the kettle black. Of course, I have, but I don’t answer him. I understand what he’s asking. I’ve pushed him one step too far, and while I don’t understand how my accusation could have done that, I realize I don’t know much about Ethan. Maybe he has more going on in his life than what I see. Maybe he understands me a little better than I understand myself.
“I shouldn’t stay here,” he whispers.
“I don’t want you to leave.” I lick my lips at the admission, and he watches the movement of my tongue. Swallowing hard himself, he twists his face away from me once again, and I close my eyes, feeling as if my honesty is coming too late. He’s going to turn away from me and reject this job. I don’t blame him. I’ve been unbearable. Deep down, it would be easier if he left. I’d have accomplished what I didn’t even know I was doing—rejecting him before he could reject me. Pushing him away before he walks away. Repulsing him with my behavior to distract him from my scars, both outside and in.