Remember Our Song (16 page)

“
No!
  How do we get out there? 
How the hell do we get out there?
”

Lloyd tried to get up, but cut his knee on a cruel looking piece of glass and crumpled back to the ground with a strangled groan.  I turned to the fire exit and burst through it, setting off an alarm that joined in with the sirens, now sounding like they were at the front gate.

The emergency exit lead to a metal stairwell that went straight out into the back lot, I hammered down the steps and on to the concrete, racing towards the wrecked aircraft.  The whole thing was barely recognizable as a helicopter, the tail was snapped off and the blades were simply gone, what was left was a twisted piece of cherry-red junk.

The door was wide open and as I reached
the wreck and looked inside, I couldn’t see Jeremy anywhere.  I looked all around the debris trying to find him until I spotted a bloody lump of clothes and limbs between the helicopter Jeremy had landed on and another one that had escaped relatively unscathed.

I felt the
color drain from my face as I went to him, seeing the side of his head covered in blood and one leg twisted sideways at a sickening angle.  His chest was rising and falling rapidly as he hyperventilated, staring straight up as if seeing nothing at all.

I knelt by him, my shaking hands reaching out but halting short of touching him.  I wanted to pull him into my lap and hold him tight, but I was terrified of
paralyzing him or something.  I gently stroked his cheek, the one not covered in blood, and wept where I knelt, my shoulders heaving with every sob.

“Oh God, Jeremy… it’s going to be OK, I’m right here with you.  I’m right here… help is on the way.  You’re going to be OK, you’re going to be fine... you’re strong, you’re going to be OK…”

I didn’t know if I was trying to convince him or myself, I didn’t even know if he could hear me, but sometime during my constant stream of untargeted reassurance his eyes slowly turned to me and I fell silent.  Jeremy licked his lips, wetting them and getting a taste of his own blood at the same time.

“Is it really… you?” he croaked as if finding it hard to breathe.

“Yes, baby, it’s me, I’m here… don’t… don’t talk, just stay awake, OK?”

“Do… you see… me?”

“I see you, Jeremy… I know you.”

Jeremy’s eyes squeezed shut and tears joined the mess of blood on his face.  My own vision blurred as I watched him open his eyes again, every shuddering breath seeming to make him wince.  Once more his gaze turned to me and I saw myself reflected in his eyes.  Just like I’d said I’d wanted, but not like this.

“Where’ve you… been?”

“I don’t know, baby, but I’m back.  It’s going to be you and me again, just like before.  Just you and me.”

Jeremy’s eyes left mine and returned to staring straight up.  I grabbed his hand and held it tight as I saw his eyelids begin to sag and the rapid rise and fall of his chest begin to slow down.  Barely audible, I heard him speak one last time before his eyes closed completely.

“Missed… you.”

“No, no,
no
!  Stay awake, stay with me, Jeremy!”

I began patting his cheek with the palm of my hand like I’d seen people do in the movies, trying to gently keep him awake without inflicting any more damage on his battered body.

“Wake up!  Wake up, wake up, wake up…”

Nothing I did seemed to have any effect on him and I felt the world begin to spin around me.  A brown fog crept in at the edge of my already blurred vision.  The ground seemed to be getting closer somehow, even though I felt like I was floating away, until I vaguely felt my cheek pressed against the concrete and my stomach clenched painfully like my body was finally giving up after days of stress and a lack of food and sleep.

I could hear a voice that I barely recognized as my own asking Jeremy to wake up, over and over again until it faded away and everything turned to black.

Chapter 16

Wake up… wake up… WAKE UP…

“Wake up!”

I sat bolt upright in bed, having woken myself up from another awful dream with my own pained cries.  At least they weren’t
every
night now, like they had been for the first few weeks, but they were still potent, recapturing those crushing feelings of hopelessness that had made me pass out next to Jeremy.

The sun streamed in through the open curtains that I’d forgotten to close the night before and lit a bright rectangle on the floor.  I swung my feet out on to the warm patch and wiggled my toes in the sunshine for a moment.

It was definitely a relief to get some emotional distance between myself and that black moment at Ozzy Aviation but a part of me was desperately trying to hold on to it because it was forgetting that made everything so awful in the first place.  Some kind of subconscious logic was telling me that I needed to remember everything in minute detail or things would get just as bad again.

My feet found my slippers and I stood up to look out the window over Lake Oroitz, which was as beautiful as ever. There was something about that view that was always able to calm me down and I felt the last chilled grips of my nightmare receding again before heading out of the bedroom and towards the kitchen.

The house was close to being livable full-time, the landscaping still had a long way to go, but it was fine for the occasional night here and there, and especially easy now that it was summer.  Jeremy had been right, I’d always been able to picture how the house should be right from the very start, and, once I’d remembered what I wanted, I was able to be the driving force that the project needed again.

Next to the sink was a bottle of bourbon, nearly full.  I’d been intending to pour it out the previous night.  I didn’t drink the stuff, so there was no point in keeping it around anymore.  With a twist of the cap I upended it and wrinkled my nose at the smell as it gurgled away down the drain.

I bent over and opened the cooler, pulling out a bottle of orange juice and a bottle of lemonade and mixing myself a drink before picking up the pile of magazines that I’d asked Debbie to send me.  She’d be coming down to visit soon and I’d give them back then, but first I had something I needed to do.

The bi-fold doors opened out on to the now-completed deck and I walked down along the three levels until I stepped out on to the first of several temporarily placed paving stones.  Hopping from one to the other to keep my slippers clean I eventually reached a picnic table with an umbrella sticking up through the hole in the middle, which would provide much needed shade later in the day.

I dropped the magazines on the picnic table dramatically and turned to my husband with my hands on my hips.  Jeremy was sitting on a chair next to the table with one leg resting on a pillow positioned on the seat, he looked up at me with a smile.

“Sleep well?”

“OK-ish, until the end.  I had the nightmare again, I thought you were going to stay in bed so I could make sure you were there when I wake up?”

“Sorry, Bea, I thought it had been a week or so since you had the nightmare so they might not happen anymore.  You looked so peaceful, and then I heard Lee arrive with the mail.  I went to open the door for him so he wouldn’t disturb you, then had him help me out here with some breakfast before he left.”

“Well, we’ve got to have a serious talk,” I pointed at the trashy magazines on the picnic table.

“That’s what, Debbie is it, sent you?”

“Yep, so don’t run away, just sit there and explain yourself.”

Jeremy looked from me, to the magazines, to his leg and then back to me.  “OK,” he said.

I picked up the top one and flipped to the page Debbie had marked with a colored sticky tab for my convenience.  Folding it back I held it out to Jeremy, showing him the picture of himself with a ‘mystery blonde’ woman.

“Just who in the hell is this?”

“Wait, I need my glasses.”

“You don’t wear glasses.”

“OK, OK.  That… is a lawyer who works at Wellsford, Sarge and Co.”

“What?  You’re Jeremy Holt, why aren’t you dealing with one of the partners?”

“I frequently do.”

“So why not this time?”

“Well, if it’s just a simple matter, they like their less seasoned staff to get a bit of experience,”

“And you just so happen to end up with the hottest little blonde lawyer on their payroll?  Couldn’t you have asked for someone a bit more… homely?”

“Don’t think I didn’t try.  I was as appalled as the next man by her beauty.  I asked if we could do something about it, like throw some acid in her face or something.”

“What did they say?”

“They said no.”

“Hmmm.  OK, I’ll let you away with that one.”

I put that magazine and brought out the next one, flipping to the page with him at some café with the Swedish princess.

“Aha!  I’ve got you now!  Princess Thyra?  Old flame rekindled is it?”

“No!  Lies!  She is an old flame, it’s true, but we split up a long time ago now.  Before I met you, believe it or not.  She was just in town promoting some line of perfume she’s launched.  I thought it smelled like an air freshener, personally.”

“But she’s a
princess
for goodness sake, you don’t want a princess?”

“Why would I settle for a princess when I can have an equal?”  Jeremy offered me a winning smile.

“OK… brownie points for that line alone, but we’re not done here.  Who’s
this?
”

“You really… OK.  Well that one, admittedly, is a prostitute.”

“
What?
”

“Gotcha.  That’s my sister.  Although I suppose she might be a prostitute as well as an accountant, I didn’t ask.”

I looked at the rest of the magazines and chuckled.  I knew Jeremy would have a good explanation for every one of the pictures, I could hardly believe how riled up I’d been when I’d forgotten what he was really like.  He was no player, easy as it would have been for him.  There was one more thing I wanted to know about though.

“Ever heard of a TV show called Billionaires Behaving Badly?” I asked.

“Sure, wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Jeremy rolled his eyes.

I described the scenes I’d watched, him with a scantily glad group of women who looked like they were just one subtle suggestion away from an orgy.  The body shots and lipstick, how much fun he looked like he was having.

“Not sure,” he said, “it sounds like my stag night.  You know, just before my wedding to
you
.  I don’t remember much, but some of my friends had video.  You said you didn’t want to see it, and in return I wouldn’t have to watch what you did on your hen night.  It was a good deal.”

Jeremy leaned forward and took my hand, pulling me towards him until I carefully climbed on to his seat and straddled his upper legs, careful not to put any weight on them.  I wrapped my arms around the back of his neck and put on my best coy-face.

“So you going to stand around all day and break my balls, or can I ask for a little wifely consolation?” he asked.

“What do you need to be consoled about now, Mr. Holt?”

“I had some very disturbing news in the mail today.”

“Oh?  What is it?”

“Apparently I’m not allowed to fly helicopters anymore on account of flying drunk.”

“You should let them know that we’re both detoxing for a month, I’ve poured your bourbon down the sink.”

“I’ll write a letter and be sure to mention that.”

“Don’t write it too soon, though.  I hate helicopters, baby.”

“I actually hate them too, Bumble Bea.  Now come here, I’ve got a lot of kissing time to catch up on.”

I bent down and our lips touched, as electric as our first kiss had been.  The scent of his cologne wafted up around me in the still air, the sounds of birds in the trees reached my ears, the morning sun
warmed my back.  I was home at last, and I remembered our song.

###

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