Cherry Red Summer (Emely and Elyas Book 1) (16 page)

“You’ve got two options, Emely,” he said. “You let me go up to your room with you and help you clean and dress your hand. Or I drive you to the doctor, and they do it there. It’s your choice.”

I arrived at my dorm room, fuming, with Elyas in tow. To make matters worse, Eva was nowhere to be seen, and the room was empty. I’d have preferred pulling the glass out of my hand myself, but I had to concede Elyas’s point that it would be “complete nonsense.” Since I didn’t feel like going to a doctor’s office and spending the afternoon in a waiting room, I had no choice but to take him up on his offer.

“Sit down,” Elyas said, pointing at my bed.

I still wasn’t feeling that great, so I obeyed him. God, I was like a toddler who couldn’t survive outside alone. I felt so pathetic having to feel that way anytime I was in Elyas’s presence.

I sighed and held my injured palm out to him. The more I looked at the wound, the worse it seemed to hurt. So I looked away.

“Do you have bandages and rubbing alcohol around?”

“In the bathroom cabinet,” I muttered. He dug around in there and returned to lay out the supplies neatly on the bed.

“For people who aren’t in the medical profession, you and Eva are amazingly well stocked,” he said.

“Well, I keep crashing my face into the ground. A lot of this stuff is from your dad, actually. Every time I see him, he unloads mounds of medical stuff like this on me.”

“Seriously?” Elyas said, laughing. I nodded, though not at all amused.

He suppressed a smile. “Can you really be that clumsy, Emely?”

I didn’t reply, looking at my feet instead. He laughed softly and disappeared into the bathroom again to fill a bowl with water. Once he had everything he needed, he knelt in front of me and gently took hold of my hand.

“Hold still
. . . ,
” he instructed as I flinched.

He gently cleaned around the wound with a wet cloth. Then he took the tweezers, and slowly pulled out each piece of glass, shard by shard. Somehow I couldn’t look away now, even though it wasn’t a pretty sight. “OK?” he asked after a while, and I answered with a mumbled yes as I watched him work. I was more than a little reluctant to admit it, but he was treating me with a great deal of care and a good bedside manner, trying his utmost not to hurt me. The only thing that bugged me was being so damned close to him. If I lowered my face eight inches, his hair would touch the tip of my nose. I held my hand as far away from my body as I could, but my arms were only so long. And clearly not long enough.

“There,” Elyas finally said. “You’ve survived the worst of it.” He dipped the cloth back into the water and thoroughly but gently dabbed the wound. He did one more careful check to make sure he’d gotten out all the bits of glass. “Looks good,” he said, satisfied with his work. As grudging as I was to admit it, I thought it looked good, too.

“Now, try to move your hand,” he instructed. I complied and made a loose fist. It hurt, no question about it, but everything seemed to work just fine.

“Very good,” he said, unwrapping a fresh sterile gauze pad and soaking it with rubbing alcohol. “This is going to burn a little,” he warned. I nodded as he began dabbing the wound, and I had to clench my teeth.
A little
was an understatement.

Once he finished, Elyas examined my hand one last time before applying a thick layer of ointment. Then he put two fresh gauze pads over that and wrapped my hand in a gauze bandage.

“Leave this on overnight, and then put a fresh dressing on tomorrow morning when you get up. If the wound gets red or pussy, or feels very hot, that means it’s infected and you’ll need to go to the doctor. Understood?”

I nodded and looked at my bandaged hand, which burned much less with the cool ointment.

“Now you need to take off your pants,” he continued.

I blinked at him. Seriously?

It took Elyas a second to understand the look on my face. “Because of your
knee
. You were limping pretty badly on our way here,” he said.

“Two words, Elyas: Forget it!”

“Can it be that my sweetheart is a little bit shy?” he teased as the smile he had suppressed since my accident now reappeared on his face.

“There is no way in hell ‘your sweetheart’ is going to sit here in front of you in her underwear!”

“OK, so you’re shy,” he said, grinning. “I admit that I think it’s cute and all, but it’s not helping me examine your leg. At least let me roll up the leg of your pants,” he suggested.

I grumbled but gave consent since rolling stiff denim up with one good hand would have been extremely hard for me. I was lucky I’d shaved my legs that morning.

He carefully took off my shoe and rested my foot on his thigh. I narrowed my eyes to watch him wrap his fingers around the cuff of my pants and slowly—too slowly, really—roll the leg of my jeans up. I got a weird feeling from it that I didn’t like. There was something about the way he looked at my exposed leg. Had they not covered the human leg in his medical school program yet, or was he hungry?

Illegal limb trafficking
sailed through my head. Or was I thinking of organ trafficking? It was something along those lines.
Better keep an eye on him, in any case.

I sighed. My God, what was my problem? He was just rolling up the leg to my stupid jeans. It’s not like he was sliding my panties down!

Elyas got the pants up over my knee, put his hands on either side of the injury, and studied it more closely. With the unpleasant sensation of his hands on my skin, my focus wavered from my injury. My heart beat faster. Undoubtedly from the shock of the accident. One hundred percent from the shock of the accident! No—a thousand percent!

Dammit, I hated myself for this stupid feeling.

He’s an ass, he’s an ass, he’s an ass,
I repeated in my head.

“It’s just an abrasion, although it’s quite large,” he diagnosed, looking up at me. “Why do you look so mad?” He frowned.

Did I look mad? With the muscles of my face all tensed up, I guess I did.

“It’s a reflex when you’re near me,” I muttered.

He smiled. “I like being near you.”

“Yes, I know. Unfortunately,” I said, to which he smiled again.

“Anyway,” he continued, “you’ve also got yourself a pretty decent bruise here. I’m sure it hurts.”

“It’s all right.”

“Not squeamish, huh?”

“No, and I don’t cry when I break a nail, either. So if that’s it, can I roll down my pant leg again?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, I’m sure it’s just awful sitting here in front of me
half naked
and all.”

“I’m only a fifth naked—and, yes, it’s awful. Are you done or what?”

“No, not yet,” he continued. “I need to clean this wound. And what’s so awful about me doctoring you up?”

I was sick of his stupid questions.

“Oh, Elyas. Get real. First you practically shove me in front of the bike, and then you come running with Band-Aids.”

He laughed. “Oh, so now I
pushed
you in front of the bike?”

“Indirectly, yes,” I said. He shook his head, still smiling, and started working on my leg. I swallowed as he dabbed the open wound with alcohol and rubbed the same ointment over it.

I thought it was finally behind me, but then felt the tips of his fingers slide down my bare shin. His fingers were not where they had any business being, and again I got that weird feeling.

“Are we done?” I said.

“Yes.” He sighed softly. “Unfortunately,” he added under his breath.

Unfortunately
my ass. But still—yay, we were done.

“At some point you need to show me the other half of your leg. Because I liked the first half.”

“Dream on,” I grumbled. At that moment Eva flung the door open and burst into the room. She froze when she saw Elyas, who was still kneeling holding my leg. She seemed to get the wrong impression, because she called out, “I see nothing!” and spun on her heels, vanishing from the room in a flash.

Elyas and I looked at the door before looking at each other.

“Will you call her back in here?” I asked, frowning and shaking my head.

He sighed and nodded before struggling to his feet. Once his hand was on the door handle, he hesitated and turned toward me.

“Just to revisit our topic from before,” he started, sliding his fingers over the metal, “you are
absolutely
my type.” With a brazen grin, he left the room without another word. I stared after him, my mouth agape.

C
HAPTER
11

N
IGHTMARE

H
i, Dad,” I said cheerfully into the telephone.

“Em-Em!” he replied. “How are you?”

“Good, thanks. And you guys?”

“Oh, I miss you every day—but otherwise everything’s fine here.”

I smiled. It felt so nice to hear his voice. “I miss you too, Dad.”

“You’re at college and having the time of your life. You shouldn’t be missing your old dad.”

“But I do, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

“Same old pigheaded Emely,” he said with an audible smile. “Is there a particular reason for your call? Is something on your mind?”

“No, I just wanted to find out how you’re doing. Why—am I disturbing you?”

“You never disturb me, Emely. It’s just that your mother has made plans without my knowledge, as usual, and conned me out of my cozy TV night at home. Apparently she’s dragging me to a party tonight.”

“Oh, you poor thing,” I said sighing. “What kind of party is it this time?”

“I haven’t the foggiest. You know your mother: she has acquaintances I’ve never heard of hidden in every corner.”

Yes, indeed I did know my mother. And my father had my full admiration because he always rolled along with whatever happened, with incredible patience.

“My condolences,” I said. “When do you need to get going?”

“We were actually supposed to leave twenty minutes ago, but Carla disappeared into the bathroom half an hour ago, saying, ‘I’ll be ready in ten minutes.’ I haven’t seen hide nor hair of her since. Oh—here she is.”

“All right, then, I don’t want to hold you up,” I said. “It was nice to talk to you, Dad, if only for a second. Tell Mom I said hi.”

“Emely says hi,” I heard him say.

“Hugs and kisses back!” my mother called from the background.

“You heard her?” he asked me.

“Loud and clear as always,” I said, grinning.

“Do you have plans tonight?”

“No. Eva’s spending the night elsewhere, and I think I’m going to take the opportunity to get some studying in.”

“Bookmarks are going to start growing out of your ears at some point, sweetheart.”

I grinned. “I don’t think you need to worry about that, Dad.”

“I’m not so sure, sometimes,” he said, sighing. “Studying is, of course, important, and good grades and a solid degree will undoubtedly benefit you in the future. But there’s something even more important than all of that, and that’s called
life
. So please do me a favor and don’t forget that, all right?”

“Dad, you’re overstating things. I’m not just sitting here behind a stack of books. Honestly.”

“I hope so. Otherwise there are so many beautiful things you’re missing out on.”

“Karsten!” my mother said.

“OK, I’m coming,” he replied, and then returned briefly to his conversation with me. “Think about what I said, OK? Have a good night, Em-Em.”

“I will. And thanks. Drive safely, and you guys have fun.”

“
You
have fun, my sweet girl.”

I hung up and set the phone back into its charger. My father was acting as though I didn’t allow myself even a second of free time, which wasn’t true. In fact, thinking of how many opportunities Elyas had to annoy me, I probably had too much free time.

I dismissed Elyas’s name from my mind, picked up my book, and started reading again. I had read only twenty pages before someone knocked at the door. I knew who it was, because only one person knocked so persistently. “Alex, what’s so important you can’t just call me?” I said, opening the door. When I had talked to her two hours ago, she had mentioned some “groundbreaking news,” but wouldn’t tell me what it was.

“Sebastian!” Alex yodeled and pushed her way into the room, laden with shopping bags.

“You saw him?” I asked, as she plopped onto my bed and dropped her bags everywhere, immediately filling the room.

“Ye-hes!” she said, bobbing up and down. “He came over last night!”

“Do tell,” I said as I sat next to her.

“He and Elyas were having a beer on the roof. After hemming and hawing and almost going crazy for a half hour, I finally went up there and joined them.” Her grin said that her courage had paid off.

“And?”

“Sebastian smiled when he saw me.”

“See? I told you he liked you. And what happened next?”

“At first they blabbed on about typical boring guy stuff.” She rolled her eyes. “I felt stupid sitting there with them and considered going back inside. But
then
,” she continued, her eyes twinkling, “Elyas suddenly said good night and went to bed.”

“God, I hope you two used protection,” I moaned, because I didn’t need a good imagination to picture how the rest of the night went.

“Oh, please!” Alex said. “We
talked
, Emely. What’s wrong with you?”

I frowned. “Talked?”

“Yes, two hours straight,” she said, melting. “He is so great.” She sighed. “There is something so calming about him. Emely, I think I’ve fallen in love.”

That wasn’t exactly news, but I pretended to be surprised.

“Really?”

She beamed and nodded, and looked so adorably happy that nothing could take away from the moment.

Maybe Sebastian marked a new beginning for Alex, and the end of the era of jerks.

“How do you think he feels?” I asked.

Alex tugged at her skirt. “I think he likes me, too. At least, he asked me out to a movie tonight.” Ah, hence the shopping bags—Alex was as transparent as glass. Anyway, she had finally gotten her long-awaited date with Sebastian, and I was happy for her.

“What movie?”

“Oh, I don’t care. Who’s interested in the stupid movie?”

“I’m guessing not you,” I answered, and a smile lit up her face even more. “And now you’ve found the perfect outfit,” I said, looking at her bags, relieved she hadn’t dragged me along with her.

“Exactly, except I desperately need your help. I don’t know which one to wear.” She had hardly finished her sentence before she began laying out the contents of her bags on my bed. I gazed with remorse at my book. I doubted I’d be seeing it again anytime soon.

Alex pulled her top off over her head and had a new one on in a split second. I sighed, leaned back against the wall, and at least
tried
to help her, though my fashion sense was nonexistent.

Two uninterrupted hours later—which felt like ten—and after umpteen costume changes, Alex had finally settled on a combination she was satisfied with. She still had so much energy, whereas I would have had a nervous breakdown if the whole ordeal had not ended when it did.

“What time does the show start?” I asked.

“Ten thirty,” she replied as though she had all the time in the world.

I looked at my clock. “You get that it’s nine thirty right now, right?” I was puzzled at how relaxed she was because I knew Alex liked to book the bathroom for at least two hours before important events. Getting ready was always a ceremony for her.

“What?” she yelled, leaping up from the bed. “Oh God!” She frantically grabbed her bags and stuffed her clothes back in. I helped her.

“If you hurry, you’ll still make the bus. There’s one that leaves in five minutes.”

“I can do this! I need to do this!” She quickly kissed my cheek and picked up all her bags. “Thanks for your support. I’ll return the favor soon,” she promised, rushing for the door.

“Don’t mention it. I’m crossing my fingers for you and Sebastian.”

“I need all the help I can get,” she said, waving at me and vanishing. The quiet that took over the room enveloped me like a warm bath. I sighed and fell back onto my bed. In some ways, I didn’t think I’d ever understand Alex. I was probably the worst person she could talk to when it came to fashion choices. I had exactly zero understanding of that whole world. People wore clothes so they didn’t have to run around naked. Why the huge drama about it? I liked to pick nice things to wear, just like anyone, but “Do my boobs look perky in this top?” and “Do these shoes match my lipstick?” were not questions I had ever asked or ever would ask.

There were much more important things in life. People who claimed they did the whole fashion thing not for the benefit of others, but strictly for themselves were big hypocrites. If you were the last person on earth, you wouldn’t give much thought to whether your freaking shoes matched your lipstick! And women went to such lengths to please men. It was pathetic. Although I had to admit Alex had a good point when she said, “Men don’t know what they want, so you have to tell them they want you.”

Apart from that, I thought
everyone
should dress however they wanted. The true art was in finding someone who accepted you as you were. If I never found someone like that, I’d as soon stay single.

Luca didn’t seem to have any problems with my style. And Elyas didn’t, either.

Dammit, there was that name again.

I tried to banish it from my head as fast as it had arrived. I had been thinking about that jerk too much lately, and I had to exercise more control. My book should help me do that. I rolled onto my stomach and got to work. It was a nineteenth-century novella by Theodor Storm,
The Dykemaster
. It’s about a man in charge of a Dutch dyke who watches his family meet a tragic end, and later the village schoolmaster describes sightings of
the dykemaster
’s ghost riding the skeleton of a white horse. I was proud I was able to slog through it—until the moment when, exhausted, I shut my eyes.

When I opened them, my palm, now healed, was near my face. Every time I had run into Elyas since the bike crash, he had wanted to check my hand. I couldn’t say I was thrilled. In fact, it was extremely unpleasant. Still, there was no denying he was genuinely interested in how well my wound was healing.

He should have long forgotten about it by now.

Why did he even care?

I took a deep breath.

Oh, and by the way, you’re absolutely my type.

No, I was not! Did I look like a cover model or something? I mean, seriously. But the way he looked at m
e . . .
For the love of God. I buried my head in my pillow. I couldn’t stop the name from going through my head. Elyas, Elyas, Elyas. This was not a good sign.

Logic was telling me it was fatal to waste even a second thinking about him, but I couldn’t turn the thoughts off. I was going crazy.

Elyas was playing a dangerous game with me. How could I be so stupid as to fall for it a
second
time? When we knew each other in high school, I was naïve and didn’t know any better. There was no excuse this time: it was sheer stupidity.

My phone rang. I looked at the clock. It was just past midnight. I frowned, got up, and took the phone from its charging cradle. An unknown number was on the screen. I recognized the area code for Neustadt—the town Alex and I had grown up in. I got a bad feeling in my stomach.

“Yes?” I answered.

“Ms. Emely Winter?” said an unfamiliar female voice whose tone was too serious. My throat hurt.

“Yes,” I confirmed.

“Good evening, Ms. Winter. I apologize for the hour. My name is Anna Schmidt, and I’m calling from Neustadt City Hospital.”

Hospital.

Mom. Dad.

Time froze. My thoughts dissolved, leaving only perfect emptiness. I stared into a void as my hand tightened around the phone.

“Ms. Winter, your parents have been in a car accident.”

My throat constricted.

“Wh-what happened to my parents?” I stammered in a voice that sounded like someone else’s.

“Your father will be OK,” the woman said. “He has a broken thigh and three broken ribs.”

OK, Dad would be all right. Though knowing that wasn’t reassuring me. There was an implied
but
in the woman’s sentence, and I started to tremble as I realized this.

“An
d . . .
Carl
a . . .
?” I asked.

The woman took a deep breath. “Your mother is currently in surgery. She arrived at the emergency room with severe internal injuries. At the moment I can’t give you any specifics on her condition, but I will call you immediately as soon as there is any news.”

I felt like a heavy metal chain had been wrapped around my body, keeping me from taking in air.

“Can
I . . .
speak with my father?”

“He’s still in shock and is sedated so he can get some rest, Ms. Winter. Before he fell asleep, he asked me to call you.” Her words sounded so final, as though there was nothing more she could have told me.

“Is
. . .
my mothe
r . . .
Is it very bad?” I asked.

“It’s very hard for me to say because I haven’t spoken with the surgeon, and I don’t want to give you any misinformation. Let me reassure you that the doctors in the operating room are doing everything they possibly can to help her.”

I swallowed, but nothing could ease the dryness in my throat. A thousand questions swirled through my head as an emptiness started to envelop me. I felt numb, but at the same time I felt as though something had hit me, with a thud that echoed in my ears. I slowly sat down at my desk.

“Thank you,” I said, hanging up.

I felt like I was tripping, badly, as though the hospital hadn’t
really
called. I couldn’t get my mind around what the woman had told me. Her words eddied through my head, but they couldn’t find a way to make sense.

My parents couldn’t have been in an accident; I had just talked to them.

I could hear my mother’s voice saying hello in the background during the call. That was the last time I’d heard her voice.

Mom.

How many times had I put off talking to her and failed to express how much I loved her?

Car accident.
The phrase
internal injuries
echoed, but it sounded like a foreign language. My thoughts were shrouded in a dense fog that had buried everything.

But I grasped one thing: I had to get back to Neustadt. I needed to get home.
Now.

Something inside me took over, as though autopilot had switched on and was now in control. In a trance, I swiveled to my laptop, opened the Web browser, and searched for train departure times. My trembling fingers made a few typos, and I lost patience. Why the hell didn’t I have my own car? Once I found and clicked the train schedule I needed, the page seemed to take forever to load. When it finally did, I felt like the wind was knocked out of me. The next train didn’t leave until 5:38 a.m.