Along Came Jordan (17 page)

"Do you have any idea what I was thinking?"

She rubbed the sides of her forehead. "I can guess. Lately, I'm too exhausted to wonder about anything."

The hardness on her face softened, and for a second, she looked like the old Mom. Sarah walked up behind me and leaned against my back.

"Let's sit." Mom's voice was quiet now and soft. "Come on. You too, Sarah."

We followed her to a bank of chairs around a low coffee table piled with magazines. We all sat. For a long minute, there was no sound but the soft bustle of nurses and the clinking of bottles on a tray some chubby man in white carried from room to room.

Mom studied both Sarah and me. "So, you were asking for help for Sarah?"

I nodded. "She needs counseling."

Mom's expression was solemn, but there was no anger. My breathing slowed, and my heartbeat relaxed.

"They wouldn't help you?" she asked.

"No."

"They wanted an adult."

"Yes."

"How were you going to pay for this counseling?"

I reached into my pocket and pulled out the now wrinkled bills. I offered them to her. "My down payment."

One of Mom's eyebrows shot up. She took the money and counted it. "Hmmm. Seventeen dollars. I imagine they were mighty impressed."

Her words were so ridiculous, I laughed. Mom's face loosened, and she smiled. My paltry amount of money seemed beyond absurd. The receptionist guy was probably still smirking over the dumb teenage sister. I bit my lips together, but my laughter kept coming.

Mom's expression contorted, and she laughed with me. She held up the money like a fan and waved it, making a breeze. "Seventeen dollars! Counseling is going cheap these days!"

It wasn't funny, but it was hilarious. I couldn't stop laughing. It came rolling up from the pit of my stomach, cracking through months of stored tension. A nurse scuttled out from somewhere and told us to be quiet; we were in a hospital, and people were trying to recover. Mom and I apologized and fell against each other in a heap panting. When I ventured a glance at Sarah, she was smiling.

Smiling.

Beautiful.

Mom wiped her eyes, stood, and adjusted her shirt. She looked down at us and, for the first time in a long time, there was no frustration or annoyance on her face. Affection softened her features, and for a moment, I had the distinct impression she was proud of me.

"Girls, if you'll excuse me." She turned away and retraced our steps back toward the mental health area.

I sprang off the couch and followed her, staying far enough behind so she wouldn't see me. When I got to the end of the hallway, I paused behind a rubber potted plant right inside the lobby area and watched her approach the same curving counter I had just left. She bent down below the partition and spoke to the young man, who by then must have thought we were a bunch of loonies. I saw him nod and look at his computer screen.

Mother stood again to her full height and waited. The guy put something on the counter, wrote on it, and passed it to my mother. She stuck it in her purse.

I scurried back down the hallway to the couch where Sarah sat waiting.

Mom rejoined us. "Thursday, the fifteenth, three o'clock."

She patted her purse where she'd stashed what must have been an appointment card. It was a small gesture — but one full of promise for a better tomorrow.

"Girls, shall we go?" Mom opened an embrace, and Sarah and I went to her. She tucked each of us under an arm, and we flanked her down the hall toward Dad's room.

****

More people showed up at the hospital around dinnertime. I guess relatives got off work and came in to visit. I was the only one with Dad, because Mom had taken Sarah to get some burgers and fries. The doctors told Mom earlier that Dad was showing steady improvement and would probably be released from ICU the next day. He'd be transferred to a regular room, for maybe six to eight days. I was happy for Mom — it wouldn't be a two-week stay after all.

Dad slept nonstop. It was the best thing for him, but it was boring. I meandered out of his room and sat on the bench across from the nurse's station. I leaned my head against the glass and watched as the nurses scurried from one room to another.

I closed my eyes, and my mind drifted.

"Emili?"

It was Jordan's voice. I squeezed my eyes tighter, afraid if I opened them, he'd be an illusion.

"Emili?" he repeated.

I dared to look, and he was bending over me, tender concern written on his face. My heart surged and filled me with a fluttering hope. "Jordan, you came."

"Margo told me you'd be here. I had to come." He took my hand, and his touch was warm and firm. The tightness in me unwound as he spoke. "How's your dad doing?"

"Better. Much better."

"I'm glad." He eyes searched mine. "Emili, I was worried."

"He's going to be fine. The doctors all agreed."

"No. About you."

My gaze fell to our clasped hands. His hand was so big that mine was almost hidden inside his.

"I wanted to talk about last night…" he said.

"You don't owe me any explanations. You didn't know Pamela was coming, and of course you wanted to see her." My words were self-inflicted wounds, but I had to say them. We weren't an official couple, and his arrival could mean a thousand different things.

Jordan said nothing, but when he removed his hand from mine, my hope died. I pulled my hand back into my lap. It felt strangely empty, like I'd taken off all my favorite rings.

"I'm glad for you and Pamela," I said, swallowing past the growing lump in my throat.

"Emili…"

"It's not often you get a second chance." My heart squeezed. I'd never gotten a second chance with Marc, and I'd barely gotten a first chance with Jordan.

"Will you please be quiet?" His voice was firm.

My eyes darted to his. He looked at me with such kindness I had to force myself not to fall against him and bury myself in his chest.

He gripped my shoulder. "You don't give a guy a chance to say a word." His voice became soft, teasing, and his tenderness filled me with wonder. "Pamela apologized for how awful she was to me. She said she was trying to protect herself. Her mom warned her and warned her about long-distance relationships at our age."

The muscles in Jordan's jaw twitched. He stopped for a moment and took a deep breath. "At first, Pamela ignored her, but her mom wouldn't stop. So Pamela started to listen and even to agree."

He moved closer to me until our noses touched. "She
listened
, Emili. I still can't believe she would do that. She gave up on us before we had a chance to even try."

I backed away so I could look into his eyes. What was he saying?

"Four years. We'd been together four years. How could she give up so easily?"

I saw the hurt cloud his eyes. I said nothing, and he went on. "She shouldn't have listened to her mom."

"But now she's changed her mind, right?" I asked, and dark dread moved through me.

"Yeah, she has."

And there it was, the end of Jordan and me, before we even got started. I expected him to back away, but he was motionless, and I sensed an urgency behind his expression.

"The thing is, I wouldn't have listened to such advice, and I don't think Pamela should have either." He took an expansive breath. "What's really strange is I don't even care anymore. While she was talking, all I could think about was you."

He shifted his position, and I saw his hands clench and unclench at his sides. "Emili, if it had been you and me, would you have listened?"

The question hung between us, alive, pulsating, waiting for an answer.

I shook my head. His shoulders relaxed, and the urgency behind his eyes cleared. He gathered me into his arms, and his lips brushed mine, tenderly, lightly.

"No, I wouldn't have listened," I said against his lips. "Not even a little."

"I didn't think so." Jordan nuzzled my neck, and I leaned my head on top of his, feeling his smooth hair rub against my cheek. I wanted to burrow into him, to stay next to him forever. But I knew it wouldn't be fair. He wasn't the only one with baggage dragging him down. I squirmed out of his arms.

"I was horrible to my ex," I whispered, my voice barely audible.

Jordan's hands dropped to his sides and he moved away.

"Yeah, I know," he said. "You've already told me."

He reached into his coat pocket and pulled something out. It was a piece of folded cardboard, and he handed it to me. I unfolded it, and there was my copy of our ball picture, the one I'd left on the table. It was crinkled and creased but still intact. I gazed at us, smiling for the goofy photographer.

"The thing is, you're not that girl anymore," Jordan said, pulled me back into a tight embrace. "I trust you."

I shook my head, afraid to believe he was really there and afraid to believe he was holding me with such affection I could barely breathe.

But I did believe it. I snuggled into his shoulder, and it dawned on me he was right — I wasn't the same girl as before. I wasn't the same girl who'd dumped Marc. She was gone — different, changed. I leaned back and smiled up at Jordan.

"So are we together then?" I asked.

"We're together then."

I raised my head, put my lips to his, and kissed him.

Hard.

More than once.