After the End (19 page)

Wait. What?

I fumbled for the phone. “Brady?”

“Don’t worry,” he assured me. “It’s just my mom and dad and my sisters. We’ll go out for dinner, and you can even leave early if you want. Just pop in to say hi. Okay?”

Crap. I wasn’t good at
families
. Mine had just been me and my parents, and when they’d died I’d been alone. I didn’t get siblings or big Christmases or Sunday dinners. It had been a really long time since I’d even had to think about things like that. Aaron had been disowned by his family when he’d come out, and I’d never even spoken to them until the funeral. Meeting the folks was definitely a new experience.

But it was what people did. So I took a deep breath and nodded. “Yeah,” I added, when I realized he couldn’t see me. “Okay. I’ll just stop in for dessert, maybe? Low-key.”

“I can do low-key,” he promised. “But really, hon, you don’t have to worry. They are going to adore you.”

I nodded again, worrying my lip.

He sighed at me. “I can hear you fretting from here,” he teased, gently. “Listen, how about you call me tonight when you get home? I’m going to be working late the next two days, but we’ll talk on the phone before you go to bed and we can decide what you want to do. All you need to do now is concentrate on painting. My parents will keep if you don’t think you can meet them yet.”

“Yeah.” I studied my brushes, the bright swaths of colors already forming the outline of the first piece. “Hey, come on. Families are good, right? And they made you, so they’re probably good people.” I smiled a little, still nervous, but sure about this part at least. “I’ll call you tonight. But tell your mom and everyone I’m looking forward to meeting them.”

“You’re kind of amazing, Quinn,” Brady told me, fondness in his voice.

I just smiled, murmuring, “You’re not so bad yourself. Now leave me alone, slacker. I’m trying to create.”

He laughed and hung up. Turning back to my canvas, I blew out a slow breath. Right. Families were easy. Piece of cake.

U
NFORTUNATELY
, when Brady said he’d be busy, he meant it. I hadn’t thought I’d mind—really, I did understand work was important; I wasn’t
that
needy. But I did miss him. We talked on the phone every night, even if it was only for a few minutes, and he texted me when he could through the day, but I missed
him
. The presence of him, the way he smiled. How he kissed me in the morning. Things I’d just begun to get used to I already was craving.

Still, it did leave me with ample time to both run the shop and paint. It was strange I’d been so apprehensive about starting. Once I’d made myself begin, once the paint had coated the canvases, it was like I remembered what it was like to
breathe
again. All those possibilities I’d held inside, all those ideas and half-formed stories, they were rushing from my fingertips like a wave.

In three days I’d completed one piece and started a second. Which was ridiculously fast, but that first one had been so liberating I’d barely put my brush down. It’d purged the cobwebs from me, the stale air from my lungs. Now I’d settled into the second of the series, and I felt like I’d gotten my sea legs back a bit.

That night, I was meeting Brady’s parents. Just a casual dinner at a nearby Italian place he liked. They did have the best marinara sauce in the city. I’d also had their leeks and prosciutto in cream sauce over pasta once and had promptly changed my will to insist I be buried in a vat of it. Even if the night was terrible and awkward, at least I’d eat well.

My phone chirped a few times before the noise penetrated. I’d been painting the dawn, the god of the sun emerging from the sea, and the delicate blush of rose against the water had captivated my attention. I hadn’t noticed the time slipping past, much less the sound of my phone. Reaching for it, I paused to stretch. I never realized how stiff I was until I moved again.

There were a series of texts from Brady, showing him and his sisters around town. They’d gone to the zoo today and shopping. His sisters looked like him, tall and gorgeous, with the same curl-ridden hair. His younger sister had freckles, though, but all three of them had the same infectious smile.

Miss you today. Can’t wait for tonight.

I smiled at the text, rubbing my thumb across the screen as if I could touch the sound of his voice, could capture the warmth seven simple words gave me. I sent back
“me too
” and set the phone aside. Cracking my neck, I lifted my arms above my head, absently stretching, studying my progress. Just a little longer, I thought. A little bit more before I stopped.

Hours passed in a blur, the sweet-sharp smell of oil paints as familiar and welcoming to me as coming home. When Aaron had died, I’d honestly thought my inspiration had gone with him. I was not a technical artist, not one of the greats. When I painted, when I found my stories, they seemed to spring up from some deep well of emotions, of sensations that begged to pour out and over. With Aaron gone, I’d simply dried up.

I wasn’t going to pin my resurgence of creative desire solely on Brady. That wouldn’t be fair—to give one person that much responsibility, to shoulder him with the burden of
my
life, of
my
hopes and wants—but he’d breathed into me again. He’d warmed me, thawed me, like I’d been wrapped in ice and he was fire itself. The dawn breaking, perhaps, to go totally poetic.

When I finally pulled myself away from my work, I only had time to scrub the smears of paint off my skin and change before I was due at the restaurant. It was a short walk away, and I relished the bite of cold in the air, the crisp smell of snow. The fall was dying out, spreading withered brown leaves across the streets in a blanket, preparing for winter’s first hit. There’d been frost on my window that morning; soon the whole world would be a whirl of white.

I wondered if the fireplace in Brady’s apartment was functional. I kept meaning to ask. Perhaps after the exhibit was over, we could take a few days and hole up inside, drink hot chocolate and watch movies, make love in front of a fire. Christmas was coming. This year, I decided suddenly, I’d get a real tree. Aaron had been allergic and they’d always seemed like so much work to me, all the needles that would fall, the sap. But this Christmas was my first with Brady, and maybe I needed a little bit of a mess.

The restaurant was warm enough that the tip of my nose burned as I came inside from the cold. Brady wasn’t there yet, so I curled myself into a chair in the waiting area, content to people watch. There was a loud, boisterous family there, children settled in parents’ laps, wine poured for the adults, sharing bites of huge platters and laughing together. In the corner was a couple, sharing low conversation. Across the room was another pair, much older, their hands laced together on the table as they ate in contented silence.

There was life in the room and I relished it. It hurt, still, to see people in love, to know that Aaron and I would never be the white-haired couple sharing an evening meal. Of course it did. And I was beginning to think parts of me would always ache for him. I was bigger than that loss, though; at least, I wanted to be. I wanted to be endless on the inside, huge enough to hold Aaron close and still love Brady. To find pieces of me that would be only his. People had to be like that. We had to be made for love unending: like parents with children, like friends, like family. There wasn’t a limit—three children loved, but not four, six friends held dear, but not seven. So I would always long for Aaron. I would hold myself there with him, in the world that had been ours. But I’d grow and stretch, I’d expand my skin, and I’d take in Brady as well.

At least, I wanted to. I was trying. The growing pains were still there, but there was hope that came with the hurt.

The clatter of dishes and conversations washed around me as I waited. Ten minutes passed, then fifteen, and I began to check my watch. Twenty minutes, and I began to get a sick knot of dread. Brady was sometimes late, yes, but never this much, not without calling. Not without letting me know.

My fingers shook a little as I dialed, but I tried to be calm. I did this. I imagined terrible scenarios and really it would be nothing more than Brady losing track of time while he was with his family, or the stunning lack of available taxis. Or maybe I’d gotten the time wrong. It was going to be a mundane thing, a silly nothing, and I’d feel ridiculous for worrying. Just the other week I’d been
sure
Tracy had been in some terrible accident when she was half an hour late for lunch; it turned out, she’d gotten pulled into a closed-door meeting that had run over. She’d called me with huge apologies, and I’d done all that worrying for nothing. Most of the time, the worst thing wasn’t what happened. Most of the time, life was boring and safe and wonderfully dull.

Most of the time.

“Hello?”

An unfamiliar woman’s voice had answered the phone, and I recognized the tone of it. It was stark fear. It was a dread that went so deep it dulled every sense. It was an attempt to sound normal when your insides were howling at you to fall apart. I’d sounded that way a lot, when Aaron had gotten worse. When we’d been at the end.

“I… I’m sorry, this is Quinn O’Malley. I’m trying to reach Brady Banner?”

With a quiet sob of noise, the woman breathed, “Oh, God, I’d forgotten to call you. I’m so sorry, dear, I am. This is Brady’s mother. There’s… there’s been an accident. We’re at the hospital.”

Everything stopped.

People said things like that.
Everything stopped
. In a movie, they would show it, making the outside noise fade away, blurring everything else to white. Pins dropped and hung there, trembling into nothingness. A record scratch or a loud noise and everything literally did just stop.

That wasn’t what it was really like. In reality, it wasn’t that everything
stopped
. Your heart still beat; you could feel it in your ears, in your throat. Your breath moved in your lungs, ragged, painful, and the thunder of your pulse combined with it until you were certain everyone else could hear. The world around you didn’t go still; it sped up until it didn’t matter anymore. You weren’t in it. You were in the
next
. You were desperately clinging to the
before
, the wonderful normal that existed only three heartbeats ago. And trembling, sick, you would be thrust into the after. Into the world where whatever terrible thing actually existed.

Cancer.

An accident
.

Such stupid, weak words, to invoke such a reaction.

“Brady?” I asked, barely getting his name out.

“We’ve only just arrived ourselves,” Mrs. Banner was saying, but her voice was so tinny and far away I couldn't quite grasp hold of her meaning. “The doctors are with them now. You should come, dear. We’re at Saint James. Do you know it? I’d never heard of it, but the taxi driver, he was such a nice boy, he got us right here.”

She was rambling now, just needing to talk. To have someone else who felt it too, that strange, twisted pulling in your gut, the ache in your throat that tightened so much you could hardly breathe. “Yes. Yes, I know it. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

Hanging up, I fumbled my phone into my pocket. Tracy was always going on and on about how I left my phone places when I wasn’t paying attention. I’d need that phone if something happened. I’d have to call people. Tracy. Annabeth. I’d need to tell someone what had happened.

Numbly, I went up to the hostess. She flashed me a cheery, distracted smile, obviously busy. “Your party’s not here yet. I’ll call you when they come in, if you miss them.”

“There’s… I’m sorry, I need a taxi. I have to get to the hospital.” I was having trouble asking the right thing, putting it the right way. She should know the Banner group wouldn’t be arriving. She shouldn’t keep looking for them all night, eyes going again and again to the door, with their name printed neatly next to 7:30 p.m. She wouldn’t cross them out if they never came. Their name would just sit there, frozen, and she’d wait for someone who wasn’t ever going to come.

The hostess frowned a little at me, concern tightening her face. She looked nice. I suddenly found myself hoping she had someone to come home to. Like Tracy did. Tracy had Annabeth. I had Winston. It wasn’t quite the same. I hoped this woman with the kind eyes had an Anna and not a Winston.

“I’ll call you a cab,” she told me, and I nodded, shuffling over to wait by the door.

It was raining. Hard pebbles of water were pelting down from the sky, turning the slush of streetlights into blurs against the night. Absently, I realized I was clutching my scarf in white knuckles. Not my scarf, really. Brady’s scarf. The borrowed blue one I’d never given back.

“God,” I prayed, I pleaded, staring sightlessly out into the street. “Or whoever’s out there. Please.” That was all I could say. No specifics, no hopes I dared give voice to. Just that one word. “
Please
.”

The cab pulled up, brilliant yellow, garish against the muted, rain-soaked world. I got in and directed the driver to Saint James, sitting back in my seat, wondering at how numb I was. I was acting calm, but inside it was a raging tempest, a churning swirl of emotions I couldn’t quite feel. I knew they were there, I could almost taste the panic, the fear, the horror, but I hadn’t broken through to them yet.

The hospital was a mess of people, of that calm kind of urgency as doctors and nurses moved through the hallways. There was the squeak of shoes, the sterile sharpness of antiseptic, the steady beep of machines from behind closed doors. It was all painfully familiar, and I had to swallow back bile as I passed elevators I’d ridden up a hundred times and rooms I knew better than my own.

Finally I found the correct station and started to ask after Brady, voice cracking so much I couldn’t get the words out.

“Quinn.”

It was his voice, strong, steady, relieved. I turned and saw him rushing toward me, stark white of the bandage on his head drawing my eyes. But he was
walking
, he was collapsing into me, arms tight around me, and I felt that numb ache snap. Everything came rushing back, tears pricking my eyes as my stomach flipped with the force of
relief
. I clung to him, burying my face in his neck, taking deep, hungry breaths of him. “Oh my God,” I whispered, words cracking around the edges. “You’re okay. You’re alive.” I pulled back to search his face, desperate to see him, to
feel
him, to know he wasn’t going to fade away. My fingers brushed against the bandage. “Are you okay?”