Angel (8 page)

Eleven

When you start to confuse the effects of mitosis and fibrosis, you know you’re in trouble. And that’s exactly where I was—
deep
—as I watched the final few minutes of the mid-term tick by, staring at a blank essay question.

I was already so far behind and this was just another step in the wrong direction. Sometimes I wondered why I bothered at all. My entire freshman year was wasted on business classes I thought I’d need until I switched majors. I didn’t get to complete my second semester sophomore year because of the move. And now I was trying to make that up by taking classes I was just going to have to retake again later, anyway. What was the point? At this rate, I’d be a corpse before I’d be a doctor.

“Time’s up. Leave your exams on my desk on your way out.” The professor leaned against the board and scanned the room as students began filing down the stairs to drop off their test papers.

The guy couldn’t have been more than a few years older than me and it made me seriously question what I was doing wrong. How was it that he stood up there with all the answers, while I sat here with none? What had gone so right in his life, or so
wrong
in mine, to make that the case?

There was only one answer I could come up with
, and I hated myself for it.

“Caulder!” Beth squeezed her way through the line to catch up with me as I neared the bottom, trailed closely by Marjorie.  “Hey. Glad that’s over, huh?”

“Yeah.” At least it couldn’t get any worse.

“We’re going to The Post tonight with some people to celebrate.” Beth collected my test along with the two Marjorie carried and stacked them all neatly on the professor’s desk as we filed by. “You
wanna come?”

The Post was your typical college town bar: loud, rowdy, and crowded. Not my usual scene,
but tonight it sounded like the perfect place to get my mind off more depressing things. “Sure. What time?”

“Around nine?”

“Sounds good.”

Marjorie winked at Beth, earning herself a stiff jab of Beth’s elbow in return. “Great. See
ya there.”

***

There was a reason I’d only been to The Post once before. Once was once more than enough. And twice . . . That was just stupidity. A bunch of drunken idiots bumping into each other and spilling drinks everywhere. And it wasn’t even ten, yet.

I was running late. Beth had texted me while I was driving to let me know they were all there and seated in a booth near the corner. I dodged three teetering girls in short shorts and belly shirts, and took the long way around what looked like the making of a bar brawl waiting to happen, scanning table after table for a familiar face.

Bartenders shouted, people laughed and hollered, and the music pumped loudly enough to rattle the floor boards.

“Caulder!
Caulder,
over here!” It was Marjorie’s red hair that I spotted first, though it was Beth who was waving me down.

Relieved just to escape the madhouse of the dance floor, I slid onto the torn plastic
chair beside Beth. “Hey. It’s crazy in here.”

"Yeah. It’s usually too much for me, but every once and a while you
gotta cut loose and blow off some steam. This is a great place to do it. Mainly because everyone’s too drunk to remember anything you did or said the next morning.”

I laughed along with her. “Good point.”

“Hi, Caulder.” Marjorie was grinning at us across the battered wooden table. The thing had probably had more alcohol poured on it than the lining of an alcoholics stomach.

“Hey, Marjorie.” I made the round of ‘hellos’ to everyone else at the table. Tom, Alex, and Ashley from class, and two other girls I didn’t recognize.

“What do you want to drink? The waitress comes by about once a year, so you have to grab her when you can.”

“Um . . .” I wasn’t a stranger to the bar scene. Back in Cali, I’d set sail with Captain Morgan more times than I cared to remember. And I was sure there were
a few that I couldn’t. But things were different now. My priorities had shifted. And I’d had an up-close and personal look at the other side of alcohol. What it could do to a person, and what that could do to the people in that person’s life. “I think I’ll stick with water.”

“You sure?” I’d swear Beth looked almost disappointed. “I thought we were blowing off steam tonight.”

“Probably not a good idea.” Even if I could find a way to blow off steam, I’d likely take the roof with me.

“What?” Beth leaned in closer, her shoulder bumping against my arm, and tilted her head to better hear me.

“Nothing. Never mind. What are you drinking? I can make a run up to the bar.”

“Brave man.” Marjorie giggled and slid her empty glass to me. Not her first refill, I was guessing. “I’ll take a rum and coke.”

“An amaretto sour, please.” Beth flashed a smile as I gathered up her empty cup, as well, and extracted myself from the relative safety of the table.

What the hell was I thinking? No bottle of water was worth all of this. Chaos surrounded the bar, people jockeying for position with no rhyme or reason. Everyone out for themselves, not giving a damn who they had to step on to get what they wanted. It was a zoo.

When I finally managed to hail someone down with the use of actual coherent language skills, I ordered the drinks and dropped a couple twenties on the bar. There was a snowballs chance in hell I was sticking around to wait for change.

“Here you go.” Sliding the glasses onto the table, I dropped down beside Beth and sighed with relief. “Enjoy ‘
em because the next round is through the waitress.” I wouldn’t be making that mistake again.

Marjorie took a sip of hers and screwed her nose up in disgust. “
Ew. You got me regular? I only drink diet.”

“Sorry. I don’t think you mentioned that.”

“Well, duh.” She shoved the glass aside and returned to a conversation she’d been having with Alex.

Duh
. There went ten bucks and a half-hour of my life I’d never get back. And I couldn’t even get a thank you?

“Sorry.” Beth accepted her drink and took a large gulp. “She’s not usually like that. She’s just drunk.”

“Mmhmm.”I cracked my water bottle and downed nearly half of it in one swallow. The temperature may have taken a nosedive outside, but in that mob scene it was scorching.

“So, how do you think you did on the test?”

“Okay.” I’d failed. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that no matter what I did for the remainder of the year, my grade for the course was beyond saving. I wasn’t even sure if I’d keep attending. But that was not a conversation I wanted to have. “How about you?”

“Good. I think I did pretty well. The study group really helped, don’t you think? We should do it again for the final.”

I wouldn’t know. Of the handful of sessions I’d actually attended, I’d managed to pay attention about a quarter of the time. “Sure. Definitely.”

Ice cubes clinked against the side of her glass as she stirred them with her tiny red straw. “Maybe we could—”

“
Hey!
What do you think you’re doing talkin’ to
my
girl?” Tom grabbed Alex’s shoulder and wheeled him around, nearly toppling him from his chair.

“I wasn’t—”

Tom growled and Alex, not being a fool, threw his hands up in surrender. “Whatever, man. She’s all yours.”

Continuing to prove himself smarter than ninety percent of the bar
’s patrons, Alex got the hell out of Tom’s way. Which, unfortunately left no buffer between him and Marjorie, who did not looked pleased to see him.

“What the hell is your problem,
Tom?”

“
You!
Talking up other guys right in front of me like that. Playing stupid friggin’ games. Are you
trying
to make me jealous? Because it won’t work. I’d have to actually give a damn about your ass to be jealous, stupid bitch.”

Marjorie’s eyes flashed.
“Screw you, Tom.”

“You’d like that wouldn’t you? I bet you’d just love to screw me right here on this table in front of everyone. And him.” Tom thrust an angry finger in Alex’s direction. “And him.” That same finger swung toward me and I felt my skin prickle. “And every other guy in this place, you little
slu—”

“
Enough!
” I was on my feet and in Tom’s ugly face before the foul word could pass what was about to be a fat lip. “Why don’t you watch your mouth?”

“Why don’t
you
mind your own damn business?”

“You made it my business when you decided to turn a private matter into a spectacle for the whole damn table.” Sometime during my intervention Marjorie cleared out and disappeared into the crowd.

Tom reached for his beer bottle and I shoved it away, not sure if he intended to use it for a drink or as a weapon. “I think you’ve had enough.”

Tom was tall and worked hard to look scary, but I was bigger and I knew, if it came down to it, I could kick his scrawny ass. “You should go. Now.”

Words didn’t seem to be having much of an effect on him, but my hand planted in his shoulder did the trick. He stumbled backward and grabbed ahold of the table. I waited while Tom decided if he wanted to make this into something more, but he must have had at least a few brain cells still in operation because he turned, scooping up a stray shot and downed it on his way to the door. I just hoped he wasn’t dumb enough to get behind the wheel.

“Stupid ass.” My arms felt sore from how tightly flexed my muscles still were when I reclaimed my seat. I almost wished he had made it into something. I could have used the release.

Beth’s eyebrows were practically at her hairline. “Caulder, relax. He didn’t mean it. He’s just—”

“Drunk? I’m getting really sick of listening to people use that as an excuse to act like assholes. Drunk is not an irreversible or unavoidable condition. Drunk is a
choice
. Just like how you
choose
to treat other people.”

“You’re right. It is. But I’m sure he didn’t mean it. When he sobers up he’ll feel bad. He’ll apologize and—”

“Words cause more damage than they can heal. A simple ‘I’m sorry’ is not going to put back all the pieces they can break a person into.”

Beth stared at me as if I’d grown a third head. “Caulder, I don’t think Marjorie’s going to break over this. Truthfully,” she took a quick peek at her friend who was tearing it up on the dance floor with Alex and two other guys, and a slight smile tipped her lips, “I’m not even sure she’s going to remember.”

Shit
. She was right. Marjorie was hardly some defenseless girl that needed my protection. In fact, I wasn’t sure Tom’s assessment of her character flaws was entirely off target. I’d overreacted.

“Sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
Bullshit
. I knew exactly
what—or
who
— I’d been thinking about. And it wasn’t Beth, or Marjorie, or even dickhead Tom who needed to be on the receiving end of my long overdue lecture. “It’s been a long day.”

“It’s okay.” Beth nodded me straight off the hook, though it was nothing more than another lame excuse to act like an ass. “It’s
kinda sweet that you’d stand up for her like that.”

“Yeah, well, I doubt Tom would agree. I think I’m
gonna call it a night.” I felt the beginnings of a headache taking root, and if I stayed there any longer, my head might actually explode. “You want a ride home?”

“Uh . . .” Her dark chocolate eyes slid past me again to where all of her friends were acting wild and crazy, and having a blast. Where she should be, celebrating her achievements, instead of trapped at the table with me and all of my crap.

“You stay. Have fun. Just promise me you’ll call a cab later.”

“Promise. But I wish you’d stay.”

“Maybe next time.”

With a smile and a gentle squeeze of my shoulder, Beth slid out of her seat and scooted past me into the melee to join the others. In the center of the chaos, they threw their hands up in the air and swayed to the music. They laughed and jumped and smiled. They had
fun
.

I felt like an interloper, watching from the table in
the shadowed corner. As though I watched through glass, something I wanted, but couldn’t quite touch. The only thing standing in my way was myself, but I knew . . . Even if I went out there and went through all the motions, I’d never find what I was looking for. It was buried too deep, beneath all of the other garbage inside of me.

I wasn’t sure I’d ever find it again.

Twelve

Groaning into my pillow, I rolled over and slapped at the clock on my bedside table. Would I ever get a good night’s sleep again? I’d laid awake for hours before exhaustion finally pulled me under and I was nowhere near ready to get up again. My fumbling fingers sought out the snooze button, stabbing at it repeatedly, but the noise refused to stop.

“What the—?”

Lifting my head, I blinked at the clock. And blinked again. 12:47? What the hell was my clock going off at nearly one in the morning for? Only it wasn’t my clock. It was my cell phone . . . And it was ringing . . . At nearly one in the morning.

Shaking my sleep muddled brain into gear, I snatched it up and slid my finger across the smooth glass screen. My heart pounded against my ribs, knowing who it was, knowing something was wrong, before her soft voice ever hit my ears.

“Jade? What’s wrong?”
             

“I . . . can’t . . .” She gasped and choked on her words, sending my own lung function into overdrive.

“What? What happened?” No response, only more tiny gasps and a frightened whimper. “You can’t
what
, Jade?”

“Breathe.” The word was barely audible, but it’s what I’d been expecting, so I heard it loud and clear.

“Okay.” Easing off the bed, I aimed to keep my voice calm. Her desperate, stuttering breaths were scaring the crap out of me, but she was in the midst of a panic attack and if I added to that fear it would only make things worse. “Slow and steady.” I pulled the phone away from my ear long enough to tug on a shirt from the foot of my bed. “Inhale . . . Exhale . . . Just breathe.” She was trying. I could hear her trying to calm herself, but I knew firsthand how hard that could be. How painful. Panic attacks could make you feel like your lungs had sealed up. Set your whole chest on fire. “I know it hurts. Just breathe through it, Jade. Are you at home?”

“Yes.” The terror filled word tore through me and I clenched my phone hard enough to make my bones ache.

“Is anyone there with you?” She didn’t have much of a support system, I knew that, but she wasn’t going to be able to break through the attack alone.

“My-my mother’s . . . passed . . . out.”

Goddammmit. There were a host of things I would have liked to call that pathetic excuse for a human being who had the nerve to call herself a parent, but it wasn’t the time. Panic attacks weren’t nearly as life threatening as they felt while having one. Worst case scenario she’d pass out from lack of oxygen and start breathing normally again on her own. But it was so much worse than that. She was upset, hurting, in agony, and all alone. I knew what that felt like and I’d be damned if I’d let her face it on her own.

“I’m on my way. Just keep breathing. I’m on my way.”

It’s entirely possible that I broke just about every traffic law known to mankind and set a new land speed record on my way to her apartment. The thought of her in pain, needing me, plagued my mind, adding lead to my foot.

I knew which building was hers and had since wrangled her apartment number out of Kiernan. If he
wondered why I wanted to know, he hadn’t asked. I flew up three flights of stairs, ignoring the rickety banister and dangerously sagging steps that otherwise would have aggravated me to no end.

Knocking, without really expecting an answer, I
got none. Much to my simultaneous relief and distress, I found the door unlocked. Something else to worry about later.

“Jade?” I stepped inside, scanning the cluttered living room and froze when my eyes landed on the scene in the corner. Blood and glass covered the floor, streaks of it smearing down the hallway. “Jade, where the hell are you?”

I followed the gory trail to a hollow wooden door that stood open in a cracked frame.

For one eternally torturous moment, I thought I was too late. Blood streaked her face and hair, and she lay unmoving, clutching her chest on a small cot-like bed, which occupied nearly half the tiny room. When her eyes
fluttered open, I sucked in a lungful of air I hadn’t realized I needed. I even welcomed the fear and pain shining through them.

“Hey. Hey, it’s okay.” In two strides, I stood beside the bed and knelt to scoop her from the flimsy mattress. I honestly couldn’t say if having her in my arms did more to sooth her or me, but I couldn’t
not
hold her. She was so light, so disturbingly thin, cradling her small body like a child’s was easy. Carefully, I lowered us both onto the bed so that she was settled in my lap and eased her head to my chest. “You’re okay.”

“I think . . . I’m having . . .
a h-heart attack.” She trembled in my arms and I held her closer, knowing that fear, knowing how it added to the terror and thus the pain in a vicious, endless cycle.

The first time I’d experienced a panic attack like that wasn’t long after Kiernan had been diagnosed. It lasted over an hour and I was convinced I was going to die. The pain was almost unbearable, but the fear and the loneliness . . . those were worse. I never told anyone and it wasn’t the last time it happened. But each time they became easier to recognize and control.

“You’re not having a heart attack.” The key to overcoming panic was to relax. My hand drifted up and down her rigid spine, seeking to ease some of the brittle tension from her body. “I know it feels that way, but you’re alright. It’s just a panic attack. It’s completely normal. Just breathe. Breathe for me. Put your hand on my chest.”

If I could get her breathing under control, the rest would follow. She continued to shake uncontrollably as her tiny hand lifted and flopped limply against my chest. It took all of my concentration to keep my breathing slow and steady beneath the warmth of her gentle touch, and I could only pray she wouldn’t notice the frantic rhythm my heart had fallen into.

“There you go. Now concentrate on my breathing.” Inhale. Hold. Exhale. Repeat. “You do it. Copy me. Just like me, Jade. In.” I took a deep breathe, filling my lungs to capacity and drawing in the sweet scent of her hair. “And out.” All of that air escaped in a silent gasp as I fought for control. “Keep going. In.”

Intentionally shifting my face away from her, I continued the age-old cycle until I felt her falling into a similar, steady pattern and the tension began to ease from her body. 

“There you go. That’s better.”

Her body slumped heavily against mine, weak from fatigue and the lingering effects of the panic.

“How did you know?” Her voice was a frail thread of sound.

“That it was a panic attack?” She nodded, not bothering to lift her head from where it rested directly above my heart, her soft hair brushing against the underside of my chin and throat, and I spit out the truth—something I’d never told anyone—without a second thought. “I’ve had one or two myself.”

“And someone talked you through them?”

“Not exactly.” With one problem under control, it was time to concentrate on another. “Now, where are you hurt?”

She sat up slowly, the look in her eyes telling me she had no clue what I was talking about. Was it possible she didn’t even know she was injured?

“There’s blood all over your face and in your hair, Angel. Where’d it come from?”

Confusion clouded her gaze and concern about a possible head wound started to creep in until her eyes widened in sudden realization and she gingerly peeled open her hands, baring tattered, bloody palms. Slivers of glass like I’d seen in the living room were still embedded in the torn flesh. Her face fell as whatever led up to the panic attack came crashing back and I felt her pain as though it were my own.

“Jade . . .” More than anything I wanted to take that pain away, draw it in,
give it a place to grow and fester, and erase it from her life. But I couldn’t. That pain was hers to bear and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it.

“I didn’t mean to.”

“I know.” There was another pain I
could
do something about, though. “Come on, let’s get you cleaned up.”

Jade stumbled twice in the less than twenty feet between her bed and the bathroom across the hall and it took every last ounce of my self-control not to reach out and steady her. The mirror above the sink housed three poorly supplied shelves, which I scanned as she plunked down on the toilet lid. A few outdated prescription bottles, a half used tube of toothpaste, two toothbrushes, a comb, and a
handful of little black pins. Not much to work with.

“Do you have any gauze?”

“Actually, I think we do.” She tipped her head sideways as tiny thought lines creased the skin at the top of her nose. “Try the top drawer under the sink.”

I had to shimmy the thing just to get it open and when I did it was littered with an array of random crap, everything from loose pills that looked like aspirin to yellowing Q-tips. In the corner sat a small roll of unsealed gauze that looked anything but sanitary.

I did manage to dig out a pair of tweezers from the mess and located a pale blue washcloth in the narrow closet beside the shower. Not exactly the supplies I would have liked to have at my disposal, but they’d do.

Her hands were a mess and given the disaster area in the living room, I could only imagine how they’d gotten that way. I was no stranger to stupid, self-destructive behavior myself, but watching the blood ooze from the open wounds in her palms made me angry. I wanted to yell at her for being irresponsible enough to cause herself that kind of pain. But
that would have made me a hypocritical ass and it definitely wasn’t what she needed from me.

“I didn’t see any peroxide.”

“Huh?”

“In your cabinet. Do you have any?” Picking the last of the glass from her skin, I was relieved to see that at least the cuts all seemed to be superficial.

“Peroxide?”

“It’s an antiseptic.”

“We don’t have anything like that.”

Of course they didn’t. “Then we’re going to have to clean them up as best we can and keep them covered. You don’t want to get an infection.”

Letting the water run warm before I wet the washcloth and wrung it dry, I focused on tuning Jade out. This was going to sting like a bitch and I couldn’t handle the thought of being the one to cause her pain. For her part, she stayed still and made very little noise while I cleaned and bandaged her hands. 

“They don’t look too deep. You shouldn’t need stitches, but keep this on and rewrap them
every morning.” I hesitated to go any further, knowing it was none of my business. And knowing I wouldn’t rest until I had an answer. “So how’d you do this to yourself, anyway?”

Jade ducked her head, allowing a waterfall of dark, silky hair to conceal the crimson blush creeping into her cheeks. “Got in a fight with a clock.”

She acted like that was something to be ashamed of when anger was a perfectly natural response to the kind of situation she’d been thrown into.

“I put my fist through a wall. Not quite as symbolic, but it did the trick.” Sometimes the pressure could get to be too damn much inside. Sometimes you had to find a way to let some of that pain out or you’d feel like you’d explode. Jade peeked at me through the curtain of hair, a sad hope glowing in her eyes that maybe she wasn’t alone in feeling that way. “Mom was pissed. Yelled at me the whole way to the hospital and the entire time we sat in the waiting room. I kept waiting for her to lose her voice.”

She never did. At the time I hadn’t been particularly receptive to her outburst, but now it made me smile. It was just a broken hand, but she acted like I’d thrown myself into the path of an oncoming train. I was bigger and stronger than her, and yet she still felt the need to protect me. Even from myself. It’s one of the reasons I loved her so fiercely. The kind of love she taught me. The kind she showed me my entire life. And looking at where I was, knowing Jade’s mother slept right down the hall, while her daughter cried and bled and broke . . . It was one of the reasons I knew how damn lucky I was.

Following my train of thought around to the girl in front of me, I found her smiling back at me. And it took my breath away. The girl was beautiful—inside and out—I’d known that for a while, but when she smiled . . .

“Thanks, Cal.” She pushed off the toilet and her smile instantly tightened into a pained grimace.

“I saw that. Where else are you hurt?”

She didn’t even bother trying to lie, plopping back down on the toilet lid and lifting her feet from the water stained floor.

Tucking away my temper, I sighed and settled back on my heels. “You don’t do anything halfway, do you?”

I had to wipe away the blood to be certain, but there didn’t appear to be any glass embedded in these wounds. Not an easy task. She wiggled and squirmed, twisting her feet out of my grasp repeatedly, while she attempted to control herself and her laughter.

“Hold still.” I gripped her ankle tighter, paying particular attention to the curve of her foot where she seemed to be the most ticklish. It may have been cruel and unusual, but it was all in the name of health. Plus, I would have done just about anything to hear her laugh a little while longer. “
They don’t look too bad. I'm gonna wrap them up just to keep the blood off your sheets for tonight, but by morning they should be alright. Maybe just wear a second pair of socks for some extra cushioning. And don't go running any marathons."