In my frustration, I bent and picked up a rock and hurtled it into the dimming light as a scream ripped from my chest. My hands knotted in my hair as another scream was released into the sky.
Not knowing what else to do, I climbed into the car. I simply stared out over the open fields before me, trying to will Cole’s influence out of my head.
I would never mess with anyone’s head again.
The drive back to the hospital was numbing and helped to calm me down. By this point both Emily and Caroline had been moved into normal rooms. I found Caroline sleeping, her body hooked up to all kinds of monitors and tubes. Her heart had stopped during the night after I had brought her in. The doctor said it was due to all the drugs that were still left over in her system. He had also told me her recovery wasn’t going to be easy since she would also begin symptoms of withdrawal soon.
I walked down the hall and found Emily’s door cracked open. I could see Cormack sitting close to Emily’s bed on a stool. He held one of Emily’s hands in his own.
“I’m going ta get ya out of here soon,” I heard Cormack say quietly.
“I don’t think they’re going to let me out for a while,” she said, her eyes never leaving his face. “They’re going to want to take me to the psych ward. I did kind of try to kill myself.”
“Do you want ta leave?” Cormack asked.
“Of course. I don’t want to waste any time.”
“I’ll get you out of here then,” he said with a smile.
I turned and walked back down the hall toward Caroline’s room. I’d seen the way Cormack had been watching Emily as they worked on her. You would have guessed they’d known each other for years, not mere minutes. I didn’t really believe in love at first sight but there was something powerful going on between those two.
Seeing the two of them together just made it all the worse that I didn’t know what was happening with Jessica.
Cormack got Emily released. She was right, the doctor wanted to admit her to the psych ward but suddenly in the middle of explaining that, he said she could leave that afternoon. I didn’t miss the way Cormack’s eyes were so concentrated on the doctor.
Emily insisted that she couldn’t go home when she didn’t know if Jessica was alright. She felt so guilty about what she had done it made me feel guilty. She kept a constant stream of apologies going. When I couldn’t stand to hear it anymore I told Cormack to take her back to the hotel they had checked into.
Once the two of them had left, I waited in Caroline’s room. It made my stomach knot to see the way they looked at each other in such a hesitant but natural way. Emily would slide her hand into Cormack’s, her eyes looking at his face, gauging his reactions to her cautious forwardness. Emily finally had her angel and Cormack had found the woman he had searched for before he had been murdered.
With the two of them gone, there was no one else to watch Caroline. I had to give up my futile search for Jessica to keep an eye on her. I wasn’t about to let her run away from me again.
I had been out in the hall talking to Emily on my cell for a few minutes, again listening to her apologize for what she had done. When I finally managed to get off the phone and came back into the room, Caroline was awake and to my surprise, mostly dressed in her regular, though disgusting clothes. She was dragging a brush through her hair when I walked in.
“What’s going on Caroline?” I asked as I closed the door behind me.
“The doctor said I can leave now,” she said, her voice sounding terrible.
“Where are you going once you get out?” I asked as I folded my arms across my chest.
“What does it matter to you?” she said harshly, though she wouldn’t look me in the eye. I noticed how she was sweating and her hands trembled.
“You abandoned me for over twenty years,” I said through my teeth. “I’m not about to let you get off so easy again.”
“Well it seems like you’ve managed on your own just fine,” she croaked as she stood.
“You think it was easy for me?!” I shouted. She took a step back and sat back down on the bed. “You think it was easy being the kid with no mother? You think it was easy watching all the other kids at school have their moms drop them off, to see their mom’s making cupcakes and bring them into the class? All the other kids had their moms pick out their graduation clothes, had them give them advice about girls. I needed a mother and you weren’t there!”
“I couldn’t be your mother!” she shrieked back. “I wasn’t fit to be anyone’s mother! But then your father knocked me up and I didn’t know what to do. I, I wanted to…” she trailed off.
“You wanted to what, Caroline?” I asked in a low voice, suddenly unable to look her in the eye. “You wanted to get rid of me?”
“Yes!” she said, her voice cracking. “I didn’t know what to do with a baby. I couldn’t stop using the drugs when you were growing inside me. I’m not a good person, Alex. I’ve never claimed to be one.”
“People can change,” I said quietly, feeling nothing but hopelessness.
“Not me,” she said as she shook her head and looked down at her hands in her lap. “I am the way I am. I’ve accepted that. My lifestyle is going to kill me someday. You just pushed the date back a little.”
“I needed you,” I said as I finally looked up into her crystal clear blue eyes. “You should have been there for me.”
“Yeah, well, at least you have your father,” she said as her eyes shifted away from mine.
“Dad died when I was seven,” I said hollowly.
Caroline didn’t say anything for quite a while, just stared at the floor. “I barely even remember him, you know. It was a long time ago. There’s a lot that I don’t remember from back in those days.”
My insides felt like they had been gutted out and dumped in the garbage. Everything that was happening right now was wrong but I didn’t know how to change it.
“Come on,” I said as I motioned for her to stand and backed away. “If the doctor said you could leave you’re coming with me.”
“Alex, I…”
“I’m not giving you a choice Caroline!” I bellowed as I turned back toward her. She jumped away, her eyes wide with fear. “I’m not letting you go back into those rat infested houses to go shoot up again and kill yourself. You’re coming with me whether you like it or not!”
She gave the tinniest of nods and followed me out.
We got discharged from the hospital and neither of us spoke as we drove to the hotel Emily and Cormack were staying at.
X
Twice that night I caught Caroline trying to sneak out of the room. It was awkward sharing the room with Emily and Cormack, but I needed someone to help watch the drug addict.
Their relationship or whatever it was that had evolved between the two of the confused me. Emily was forward and Cormack was just as open to everything she gave to him. But they were both so hesitant. I wondered if they too were constantly thinking about the fact that he wasn’t supposed to be here.
“Who is she?” Caroline asked as she sat in a chair by the window and looked at me. We were alone, Emily and Cormack out for a walk.
I turned my head to her, her frame strangely aglow from the light coming in behind her. “What?”
“Who’s the girl? The one we’re just waiting around for? I know there is one, it’s written all over your face.”
“Jessica,” I said. My body felt relief just at saying her name. At the same time my hands shook.
“Is she good for you?” she asked as her eyes probed my face through the dimming light.
“She’s my whole…” I paused, about to say life but I didn’t have even that anymore. “Everything.”
“How long have you been together?”
“Seven months.”
“I was four months pregnant with you when I had known your father for that long,” she said with a crooked and gross looking smile. I only looked away and gave a nod of acknowledgment.
“She’s
the one, isn’t she?” Caroline asked, her voice suddenly serious. It shook from the effort it took to keep it even.
My emotions swirled as I gave a nod. If I’d been capable, I would have had tears springing to my eyes. Was she okay?
“You pop the question yet?”
I pursed my lips together and shook my head, my eyes glued on the floor.
“Why not?”
I didn’t answer right away, going over all the reasons why in my head. “Because some things have happened to me in the last few months. I might not be here tomorrow, or the next day.”
“You get in with a bad crowd?” she asked as she narrowed her eyes at me. She scratched at the crease in her arm furiously.
“In a way, I guess,” I said with a lifeless half smile. “But that’s not what I meant.”
Caroline was contemplative for a minute as she stared at me. “The lifestyle I live is not good in any way, shape, or form. But I have learned one thing from it. Live in the moment, in the here and now. Enjoy the high while you’re on it. Sometimes the high is better than the reality.
“You love this girl, I can tell. She’s your drug. Damn what might happen tomorrow. If she loves you as much as you love her it won’t matter if you’ve only got a year or twelve hours.”
Despite the drug analogy, what Caroline had said struck me hard. My reasoning that I wouldn’t leave Jessica just after we were married seemed to crumble.
But could I do that to her? Could I risk that I might not be able to fight it any longer and be pulled away from her to leave her alone forever?
“What little you might have may not be enough but make it enough to last forever, kid.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
JESSICA
The sun reached the highest point in the sky and started drifting westward, though I didn’t notice. I sat in a numb, shocked state, not thinking, not feeling anything. My life had already been too filled with the impossible; I couldn’t handle one more thing. One more huge, massive, way-beyond-life-altering thing.
Darkness had started to set again before I started to come to my senses enough to realize Cole had come back and was sitting on the floor in front of me. His expression was perplexed as he looked at me, his eyes unwavering. It looked as if he had decayed further. His skin looked all the tighter, the black spider-webs around his eyes becoming more pronounced. There were even fewer feathers left to his wings now.
“You’ve got to be wrong,” I said quietly. “I can’t…” I trailed off, my voice quivering. And yet I recalled all the impossible things that had happened to me recently and knew he was right.
Cole’s expression hardened slightly, though his eyes remained concerned looking. “Suck it up,” he said quietly, his voice firm. “Quit feeling sorry for yourself.”
I felt like Cole had just slapped me across the face. His words jarred my brain back into thinking and feeling again. “Excuse me?!” I said harshly, my eyes narrowing at him.
Most eyes wouldn’t have caught the way Cole’s tense form seemed to relax a bit but my apparently more-angel-than-human eyes did.
“There are worse things that could happen to you,” Cole said as he sat forward, resting his forearms on his knees. “I don’t recommend dying. Being hung from a tree by your father isn’t the best experience. I should think you don’t recall your own slide towards death too fondly either.”
“I don’t want this,” I said quietly as I shook my head. “I just want to be a normal person.”
“Don’t you realize what most people would do to have what you’ve been unwittingly given? What I would do to have it? You’ve got something that mankind has been searching for, for thousands of years!”
“I still don’t want it,” I whispered.
“Quit feeling sorry for yourself!” Cole roared as he stood up. “Do something about it! Don’t just mope around! Use their mistake against them! They’ve got claim on something that you want right now. Take it back. Fight!”
I felt my heart start to pound as I understood Cole’s words. He was right. I had an advantageous position. They screwed up and I knew they weren’t going to be happy about the outcome.
I wasn’t happy with what they were trying to do to Alex.
“You don’t love him near as much as you claim to if you aren’t willing to use this against them,” Cole said in a low tone as he looked down at me. “They can’t claim you. If you can’t be judged, what are you willing to do to save him?”
Adrenaline surged in my system and my pulse raced as Cole’s words sank in. What did I have to be afraid of? What did I have to lose?
Death and judgment were no longer a factor in my life.
I climbed to my feet, standing face to face with Cole. He towered above me but for the first time, I didn’t feel inferior to him.
“You know,” I said. “You could have been a great man. I wonder what you could have become if you hadn’t made the mistakes you did.
“Thank you, Cole.”
He didn’t say anything for a while as his black eyes searched mine. He just stared at me, his mouth a straight line. “How can you still see any good in me?” he asked. “After everything I’ve done to you?”
“Sometimes you just have to try and see things in a positive light. I know there is a good man buried inside there somewhere.”
“He’s in there pretty deep if there is one,” Cole said quietly.
“You’d better start digging,” I whispered.
As we spoke Cole had slowly leaned in closer. His eyes seemed excited, his demeanor was lighter. He seemed, almost, happy. Or even relieved.
“You don’t have to hold onto her forever,” I said quietly, his face now only a foot away from mine. “You don’t have to stay angry. They say forgiveness is divine.”
As I stared back into Cole’s black eyes I could tell that this was over. I had won. At least in this battle.
Cole reached a hand up and tucked a lock of hair behind my ear. I heard his flesh sizzle and saw it change into the ugly gray hue as he did so. He didn’t flinch though, just continued to look into my eyes. “Thank you, Jessica. I truly am sorry for all the pain I have caused you. It may not seem like it but I really do have real feelings for you.” I felt the shock as Cole leaned his forehead against mine and he placed his hands on the sides of my arms. “If you ever do find a way to make it back into my world, my offer will always be on the table.”
Maybe it was just relief that I knew what was coming, maybe it was just the shock of seeing such a sincere side to Cole, but I didn’t pull away as he tipped his lips forward and pressed them to mine. The shock that came with touching Cole now coursed through my system, sped along by adrenaline. It was tender and sincere, brief. Yet incredibly intense.
When Cole pulled away and I opened my eyes, a single tear escaped. All the veins in Cole’s body bulged, his skin turning frighteningly black. His image seemed to fade and re-solidify. I wasn’t sure if it was just that he couldn’t fight the pull anymore but I suspected it was just because Cole had finally stopped fighting. He was ready to go back where he belonged.
Cole took two steps back from me. One side of his mouth curled up into a little smile. “Don’t give up Jessica,” he said. “You’ve got to fight for what you want. I’ve finally faced my demons. I’ll continue to try and help you face yours.”
“Thank you, Cole,” I said quietly as a few more tears rolled down my face.
“Good-bye, Jessica.”
Cole’s form started to decay away, the same way it had when he touched me. The air around us seemed to quiver and swell. Within a few moments he had grown transparent and was gone. The air fell still.
My knees nearly gave out as relief washed over me. It was finally over now. Cole had gone back to where he belonged. I didn’t have to worry about him any longer, didn’t have to feel like I had to be on my guard. Cole would never watch me from the shadows again, a constant fear in the back of my mind. My emotions surged in waves as I stumbled to and out the front do
or.
Running wasn’t something I enjoyed doing but I ran faster than I could ever recall doing as I got out of Cole’s home. My feet pounded the gravel and grass as I ran back to the main road. They couldn’t carry me fast enough as I sprinted through the fading light.
The closest house I found was just short of two miles away. I rapped on the door as I tried to catch my breath. An old woman with nearly purple hair answered the door.
“May I please use your phone?” I gasped before she could even say anything.
“Are you alright, my dear?” she asked with a concerned expression letting me inside.
“Yes, thank you,” I said as I stepped through the door and she closed it. “I just need to call for a ride.”
“Phone is back through this way,” she said as she walked back toward a tiny kitchen.
I had to try three times before I dialed the number right. My fingers didn’t seem to want to function correctly.
“Hello?”
“Alex!” I nearly cried out. Tears sprang to my eyes again at just the sound of his voice.
“Jessica?!” He sounded panicked on the other end. “Where are you? I’m headed out to the car right now!”
I asked the woman for her address then relayed it back to him.
“I’ll be right there!” he said, his voice pitched. “And Jessica, I love you.”
“I love you too,” my voice cracked.
I hung up the phone. I thanked the woman and went outside to wait on the edge of the road.
My emotions raged the entire time I waited. I wanted to break down and cry. I wanted to crawl up in my bed and just disappear for a month. And yet Cole’s words rang in my head. I needed to suck it up and fight back.
There had never been a longer twenty minutes then those I had to wait for Alex to come get me. It was totally dark by the time I saw headlights turn down the quiet street and screech to a stop in front of me. Before I even stood up from my spot on the grass Alex was already out of the car and had scooped me into his arms.