Angel (9 page)

I finished wrapping her feet and lifted her before she could stand and do herself any more damage. Her body stiffened almost immediately, but if she thought I was going to let her walk on those raw feet now that I’d seen what they looked like, she had another thing coming.

Lying her in her bed and tucking her in probably wouldn’t be found in any medical textbook, but it felt like the right thing to do. Sort of how leaving felt like the
wrong
thing to do. So I planted myself on the edge of her mattress and searched for an excuse to stay.

It was Jade who gave me one. “I’m sorry for dragging you out in the middle of the night.
Again
. And for blubbering all over you.
Again
.”

She was apologizing . . .
Again
. It seemed like all that girl ever did was apologize. Like her existence was some kind of inconvenience to everyone around her. The thought that there were people in her life that would intentionally make her feel that way . . .  “Don’t ever apologize for your pain, Angel. It means you care. That you have a heart. Otherwise it couldn’t break like this.”

“Why do you keep calling me that?”

“Angel?” I’d thought of her that way since the moment I’d laid eyes on her. She was Angel to me before she was Jade. But I had no idea when I’d made the conscious decision to start calling her it out loud. Or if I even
had
made a conscious decision to do so. “Because you are one.”

“What?” She looked at me like I was crazy and finally my temper broke through.

“I mean it. Look at you. Nothing about this is easy.” How could she not see what an amazing person she was? What a difference she had made in Kiernan’s life—and mine—at a severe cost to herself? “As far as I can see, nothing about your life is easy, at all. And yet here you are. I know Kiernan didn’t want to hurt you, but I think a lot of the reason he didn’t tell you sooner was because he didn’t want to
lose
you.”

"But, I'd never—"
 

"He knows that . . .
now
. But a lot of girls would have. Hell, his own father did. Can you really blame him for worrying about it?" 

Her sleepy eyes struggled to stay open as she shook her head, nuzzling deeper into her pillow.

“I should get going. You hanging in there?”

“Yeah. Thank you, Cal. For everything.”

Dark hair spilled across the pillowcase and over her shoulder, framing her delicately featured face. Tiny nose, slender chin, and sooty lashes fanned against her high cheekbones.

Sweet
. Everything about this girl screamed sweet.

My gaze continued south to her bandaged hands clutching the blanket and a knot lodged in my throat.

Sweet and damaged.

“Good night, Angel.” I shouldn’t have done it. I knew I shouldn’t
do it when I did. But I couldn’t keep myself from pressing my lips to her forehead. As though I could somehow kiss away all of her pain.

If only life were that simple.

Her breaths turned deep and even before I left the room. Down the hall, the living room greeted me with the same gruesome scene I’d found when I arrived. Not something I gathered her mother would appreciate. Or give a damn about. And not something Jade should have to deal with in the morning.

Rooting through cabinets made me want to hit something. The ones in the kitchen were barer than the ones in the bathroom. No wonder she was so thin.

I did manage to come away with some paper towels and a bottle of store brand cleaning solution from under the sink, a broom, and cracked dust pan. After sweeping up the shattered debris, I dumped the destroyed timepiece in the trash and set to scrubbing some of the stains from the worn carpet.

On hands and knees in some woman’s living room I’d never met—but already despised—after two in the morning. My life was becoming all sorts of complicated.

Thirteen

Male bonding: where two or more men gather to maim, kill, and otherwise obliterate . . . pretty much anything. Or experience all of the above vicariously through the big
screen at the Cineplex. In IMAX 3D. By the time Kiernan and I hit the lobby, I was pretty sure I was deaf in at least one ear. Totally worth it.

“That was awesome.” Kiernan pitched his empty popcorn bucket in the trashcan, headed for the door. “Thanks for coming.”

“You know me . . . Any excuse to watch shit go boom, count me in.”

Kiernan grinned and threw open the glass door, stepping into the sunlight. It was a beautiful day for late November and I forced myself to relax. Even good days could get to be
too much. As hard as I tried to enjoy the good times while they were happening, there was always that voice in the back of my head wondering how many more good times I’d get. If this could possibly be the last one. For the moment, I told that voice to ‘stuff it’ and trailed Kiernan out to where he’d parked.

Kiernan drove. He almost always drove because he liked to drive. Personally, I couldn’t have cared less. Back in California, I loved cruising in my baby, showing her off with the sun gleaming off a fresh wax job. But here, I didn’t really have anyone to show her off
to
. And sunshine was something dreams were made of.

Fall was breathtaking in the northeast. For all of about forty-eight hours. Then all of those brilliantly colored leaves seemed to rip themselves from their life-giving source and plummet to the earth at once. Couldn’t blame them, knowing what came next. Rain, snow, sleet. Unsavory combinations of the three. The ground was always wet, the sky was always gray, and I was bordering on a serious vitamin D deficiency. The blue skies and bright sun above us were a rare gift from the gods. One I fully intended to soak up for as long as possible.

We were almost home when the music cut out, announcing an incoming call from Jade.

Kiernan smiled and hit a button on the steering wheel. “Hey. Are you at my place? We’re on our way back. We should be there in—”

“No, Kiernan. I’m not at your place.” Jade’s voice was ripe with anxiety.

“Oh. Okay, are you home? Do you want me to come pick you up?” Kiernan shifted his hands on the wheel, tightening his grip as I leaned almost unconsciously closer to the speaker.

“Yeah. I’m at home . . . with your mom.”

When she
paused, my entire body tensed, waiting for her to continue. I don’t know what I expected. Something about that dirtbag neighbor of hers? Her mother? Maybe. But
our
mother? The thought never crossed my mind.

I opened my mouth to respond, but Kiernan waved me off. “My mom?”

“Ask her what she’s doing there.” Kiernan glared at me and I shrugged. He was the one who took the call on speaker.

“What’s my mom doing there?”

“I don’t—” Jade’s voice cracked and it hit me like a punch to the gut. Whatever this was, it was bad. And it involved not only my Angel, but my mom.

“Turn the car around.” I pointed out a dirt side ro
ad where Kiernan could pull a uey, hell bent on getting to them as quickly as possible.

“Talking to my mom. She wants you to come and get me.” Why
was I not surprised that Jade’s mother was involved? I liked to consider myself a pretty laid back person when it came to getting along with others. There weren’t many people I didn’t like. But I
hated
that woman.

“We’re on our way.” The tires kicked up dirt as Kiernan cut the wheel, turning us back toward
Halfmoon Park. “Meet me outside. I’ll be there in five.”

My foot pressed against a phantom gas pedal the entire way, silently urging Kiernan to drive faster than Great Aunt
Bessy. When we rolled up in front of her building, Jade was standing there, arms wrapped protectively around her narrow waist. Kiernan was at her side almost before he had the car in park.

I took a minute to check my emotions. Jade was finally starting to let her shield down around
me. Last night she’d allowed me a glimpse behind the curtain of composure she wore like a second skin. The last thing I needed to do was let my anger get the better of me and frighten her. Send those walls shooting right back up. How was I supposed to help her deal with what she was going through if I couldn’t even see it?

“What’s going on up there?” Jade twisted around to face me as I joined them on the sidewalk.

“I don’t know.” Guilt shone bright through her glassy eyes. “Your mom told me to leave.”

And there went that lip back between her teeth again.

“Should I—?” I tipped my head toward the building, uncertain how Jade would react to my offer.

“No!” The bug-eyed dread was more than I expected. “She said they needed to talk, privately.”

I called bullshit. This was about more than my mother’s wishes. Jade was genuinely distressed at the thought of me going in there. At my mother being in there. Alone.

And so was I.

“No offense, Angel, but I don’t really feel comfortable leaving her alone up there with your mom.”

Jade shuffled her feet over the cracked concrete. “She may be . . .
vocal
every now and then, but she’s in no shape to hurt anyone physically.”

Despite all of the awful things he’d told me about her mother, Kiernan nodded his agreement. “It’s true. And you know Mom can handle the rest.” His attempt to smile at Jade was pathetic. Kiernan hadn’t developed the same kind of shield she and I had. He hadn’t had a reason to. For that I was grateful.
Usually
. “Working in the ICU comes with the added bonus of developing a thick skin. You should hear some of the crap nurses have to listen to.”

While I listened to my brother try to ease Jade’s remorse, my gaze drifted back to the building and up to the third floor. I wasn’t usually one to take other people’s word for it. I liked to see things for myself. Maybe I had trust issues, I don’t know. But that look on Jade’s face, and the fact that I really
did
trust her was enough to still my restless feet.

“Let’s go.” Kiernan steered Jade toward the car. “Mom wanted her out of here, we’re getting her out of here. She’ll be fine, Cal.”

***

The one universal pitfall of all teenaged guy’s dream cars was the serious lack of backseat leg room. Who the hell cares how much space is between one seat and the next as long as it can go from zero to one-twenty in two-point-five?

The guy who’s stuck back there eating his knees, that’s who.

Leaving the complex behind didn’t calm Jade down. If anything her anxiety only seemed to ratchet up a few more notches. She was edging dangerously close to another panic attack. If she couldn’t relax . . .

Without thinking, I reached for her small shoulders. Maybe I could help rub away—

Kiernan’s hand settled on her knee and I froze, hands hovering awkwardly over the top of the seat. What the hell was I thinking? She
had
someone to help ease her worry. And it was most certainly
not
me.

Doing my best not to be a complete voyeur, I tried to imagine what a conversation between my mother and Jade’s mother would be like. It wasn’t pretty. Mom was a good person. Kind, understanding, passionate. It was that last one that could get her into trouble. She was very passionate when it came to things she cared about. And Jade was one of those things.

It was easy to see why Jade had won a place in her heart, but that probably meant bad things for Jade’s mother. And Jade’s mother didn’t seem the type to take bad things lying down. In fact, she seemed the type to take those bad things, turn around, and dump them all over someone else—namely
Jade
. When Mom was in a mood, Kiernan and I knew well enough to stay out of her way. She didn’t come looking for us and she’d never intentionally take it out on us. Jade wasn’t so lucky. Odds were, by the time she got home, her mom would be looking to unload a lot of crap. And in that tiny apartment, there was nowhere for her to hide.

There was a lot of shit in her life that scared her, but this did not have to be one of those things
. “If our mom stirs up trouble, I’m sure she won’t mind you crashing at our house for a few days until things settle down.”

And that had absolutely nothing to do with me wanting her where I could keep an eye on her.

“No.” The thought seemed to horrify her, which—I won’t lie—I took a little personally.

Despite Kiernan’s additional urging, she steadfastly refused to stay away from that hell-hole any longer than strictly necessary. A response I truly could not understand. She was obviously terrified of the idea of going back to face her mother, and yet she refused to accept a pardon, intent on doing exactly that.

We wrestled our way through the front door like a pack of wild animals, desperate to escape the whipping wind and biting cold. The sun had disappeared behind the ever-present bundle of clouds, taking any hope of warmth right along with it. Frigid was too kind of a word to describe the weather here. Obscene was more like it, and it wasn’t even technically winter yet.

My thick winter coat felt heavy folded over my arm as I stood back, watching Kiernan hang Jade’s sorry excuse for a jacket in the hall closet. Thin blooded or not, just looking at that thing made me shiver.

“What happened to your hands?”

I ignored Kiernan’s outburst, groping in the closet for a hanger of my own, but listened carefully for Jade’s response. I’d been wondering since yesterday if she’d tell him about what happened, about calling me. It was the kind of thing I usually tried to shield my brother from, but would she do the same?
Could
she?

“Nothing. The stupid clock on my living room wall fell last night and I cut my hands trying to clean it up.” The lie tumbled smoothly from her lips, matching perfectly that mask she wore so well.

I loathed it.

And then I donned my own.

“Are you okay?” Kiernan peeled back her bandage, peeking underneath. Something I desperately wanted to do myself. “Are you sure you don’t need stitches? Mom could—”

“No. I’m fine, Kiernan. Really. She already looked. They’re not even bleeding anymore. I just didn’t want them to get infected.”

Knowing Mom had taken a look eased some of the residual worry that had been plaguing me since I left her with little more than a washcloth and a Band-Aid. Not nearly the kind of care I wanted her to have. 

Growing up with only a brother, I didn’t know much about entertaining girls. I mean, I knew how to entertain a
girlfriend
, no problem, but not so much a girl
friend
. Jade had retreated inside her own head and was thinking entirely too much. Whatever was happening back at her place, there wasn’t anything we could do about it now. And whatever was coming next couldn’t be dealt with until we got there. So, for the meantime, it was probably best to get her mind on something else.
Anything
else.

As a last resort, I raided the DVD cabinet, grudgingly moving into my mother’s section. I swear the word ‘love’ was in more than half the titles and every cover looked like a slight variation of the one before it. How did she even tell these things apart? Choosing one at random, I popped it in the Blu-ray player and we all settled on the couch.

It seemed to work. For a while. But as soon as those credits rolled, I could tell we were losing her again. Convinced I wouldn’t survive another chic-flick, I went with plan B.

Kiernan wasn’t thrilled when I pulled out the old family albums. We hadn’t looked at them in years. After the move, I’d been the one to unpack them and I’d intentionally hidden them at the
back of the bookcase. Too many memories. But now seemed like as good a time as any to revisit them.

We’d been so many places, seen so many things. In some ways it proved that Kiernan had gotten a lot out of his seventeen years. In others, it served to remind us of everything he’d be leaving behind. Bittersweet emotions clouded every page, every story.

Dad was in almost all of the pictures. Mom was the family photographer, so she was in a group shot here and there. A few candid shots. But Dad was in nearly every single one. He was such a huge part of our lives. He was my goddamn hero. Nothing in my eighteen years with the man had led me to believe he was a spineless coward, but when he packed his shit, claiming ‘he couldn’t deal’ after Kiernan’s diagnosis, he proved himself to be exactly that. It felt like a giant chunk was carved from me. For a long time, I didn’t know who I was without him. I was Caulder Parks, son of Sam Parks, future CEO of
Parks Steiner, LLC
.

That’s who I was. Always.

Until I wasn’t.

By unspoken agreement, Kiernan and I ignored his presence and managed to find a way to share our many misadventures with Jade without mentioning him once. For me, it was anger that excluded him from our lives. For Kiernan, it was guilt. He denied it, but I knew deep down he still blamed himself for Dad leaving. Which only made me madder.