Shattered: An Extreme Risk Novel (35 page)

Then it’s time to say good-bye to Timmy and I tell myself it’s no big deal. That I’m okay with it—and with the knowledge that I’ll never see this kid again. That the next time I hear his name it will be somebody telling me that he’s dead.

Except I’m not okay with it. Not okay at all. The knowledge crashes through me as he flings his arms around my waist and hugs me tight.

“Thanks, Ash! Thanks so much! I’ll never forget this week, ever.”

Fuck. His words are arrows that tear straight through me and for a second I’m tempted to lift a hand to the ache in my chest, to hold it there to staunch the blood I know must be flowing. But there are no arrows and there is no blood. There’s just this feeling inside me. This desperate, empty, aching feeling that has as much to do with Tansy speeding off to the hospital in that red SUV as it does this kid who’s clinging to me for dear life. This kid I’m clinging to just as tightly.

My throat aches and it occurs to me that my damn eyes are leaking again. I bring a surreptitious hand up, wipe at them behind Timmy’s back. Mrs. Varek sees, though, and she smiles sadly at me. I try to smile back, but even as I try I know the result is more grimace than grin. With everything that’s happened between yesterday and today—with Timmy, right here, so thin and insubstantial as he hugs me with everything he’s got—it’s taking every ounce of concentration I have not to scream.

And then Timmy’s pulling away, hugging Z and Luc, Cam and Logan. Then it’s time for him to go, for all of us to go, and I don’t know what to say. I don’t want to let him out of my sight. If he stays right here, in front of me, then nothing bad will happen to him.

It’s a crazy thought, a ridiculous one, and I shove it back down as Timmy, Ericka and his parents call one last good-bye. And then they’re leaving, climbing into the limo Z has waiting for them and speeding away to the hotel where they’ll spend the night before flying home to Boulder.

I watch them drive away, just as I watched Tansy leave a few minutes before. Then I turn away, head toward the car that will take Logan and me home. And tell myself the agony ripping through my chest is nothing. Just a pulled muscle. A result of holding my breath too long. An asthma attack. Because it isn’t … it can’t be … I won’t let it be … the beating of what’s left of my shredded, shattered heart.

“So, how’d it work out?” Anna asks, perching herself on the side of my hospital bed. Dr. Gardner’s taken the precaution of admitting me, even though he’s cautiously optimistic about the fever not being a return of the cancer. It’s indicative of something, though, he told my parents and me earlier, and he would prefer to know exactly what that is. Just in case.

Which is why I’m sitting here, staring at the ugly cream walls of yet another hospital room. It’s why my mother has been hovering over me since Ash carried me off that damn plane, why my father is pacing the hallway outside my door, why my brother is inhaling every chocolate bar in a three floor radius and why my sister is even now sitting on my bed, trying to distract me. It’s what she does.

What they all do.

And sitting here, letting them, is what I do even when it makes me crazy. Even when all I really want is to be alone.

I can’t say that, though. Ten years is a lot of routine, a lot of habit, to try to break.

“I’m back in the hospital for the three thousandth time,” I tell Anna with a roll of my eyes. “I’m pretty sure that means it didn’t go well.”

“I don’t mean the remission,” she tells me. “I mean Operation Get Tansy Laid.”

“What?” My mom whirls around from where she’s been standing by the window, looking out at the world beyond my hospital room. It’s a good view, but I haven’t bothered looking. It’s the same view I’ve had off and on for a decade now. I’ve pretty much got it memorized, which is a really depressing thought. As is the thought that nothing has changed. That nothing will change. I’m right back here, where I always end up.

“Nothing, Mom,” I tell her before she can get herself worked up. “Anna’s just talking crazy.”

“No, I’m not. Tansy met a guy in Chile.”

“Oh, yeah?” My mom comes closer to the bed, looks more interested than she does scandalized. Which, considering the way my sister originally phrased things, is totally weird. And not something I even want to think about right now. “What’s his name?”

“Seriously? We’re doing this?” I glare at Anna.

She just shrugs, smiles. “Seems like a better way to pass the time than watching reruns on the Food Network.”

“I like the Food Network!”

“Yeah, well, we’ve seen this episode of
Barefoot Contessa
about a gazillion times, so … tell us about Ash.”

“Ash? Ash Lewis?” my mom asks. “The guy who carried you off the plane yesterday?”

My brows shoot up. “I didn’t know you knew anything about snowboarding.”

“When my daughter takes off halfway around the world with a man, I learn what I need to,” she answers. “So, what exactly happened? Are you guys dating now?” She sounds almost thrilled.

“No!” I can feel myself turning red and this time I’m pretty sure it has nothing to do with the fever.

“Why not?” Anna demands. “He sounded like he was totally into you. Did you not visit those sites I sent you?”

“Oh, I visited them,” I tell her with a glare. “And we’ll talk about that later.”

“What sites?” my mom asks.

“Nothing!” Anna and I both answer at the exact same time.

“Really, Anna Michelle Hampton?” my mother exclaims with a glare. “You sent your sister to porn sites?”

I’m not sure which of us is more shocked, Anna or me. Either way, we sit there gaping at my mother, mouths flapping like fish out of water, until she rolls her eyes. “I’m not ninety, you know. Nor am I an imbecile. But, geez, surely there’s someplace better to learn about sex than that?”

“Oh, God.” I think my head just exploded.

“Don’t look like that, Tansy. I told you girls a long time ago that you could talk to me about anything—”

“Oh, God!” Anna screeches. “Is this the sex talk? Please tell me this isn’t the sex talk. She’s nineteen. I’m seventeen. We don’t need the sex talk!”

My dad sticks his head in from where he’s pacing in the hallway. “Everything okay in here?”

“Everything’s fine, honey!” my mom tells him. “Go away. We’re having a girl talk.”

He nods, gives me a wink and then disappears back into the hallway.

I sink down lower in my bed, pull the sheet over my head. This is my family and I love them, I really do. But Oh. My. God. If there is one thing I have no intention of talking about—ever—it’s my sexcapades with Ash Lewis in Arpa, Chile.

Beyond the total eew factor of the situation—which is significant—there’s also the whole
broken heart situation. Which is ridiculous. It’s not like I didn’t know the rules, not like I didn’t help set them down myself. Because I did. I totally did.

And it’s not like I didn’t know things were going to end when we got back to America. How could they not when I am—literally—the worst person in the world for Ash right now? He’s already got so much to deal with, has already had so much pain in his life. The last thing he needs is a girlfriend who might die at any moment.

I’ve known that all along, and yet here I sit, with a heart that currently feels like it’s been run over by one of those damn snowcats we rode around in Arpa.

Completely flattened, in other words.

“So tell us about Ash,” my sister says into the sudden quiet. “I’ve been dying for the details since you texted me!”

“Yes!” my mom agrees, settling on the bed next to me and wrapping an arm around my shoulder. “All the details, please!”

Somebody shoot me now.

But in the end, I end up spilling about Ash, telling them all about the trip to Chile and the fun I had with him—minus certain, strategic bedroom and patio scenes, of course. My mom might be all into the girl talk, but there are some things that no parent needs to know.

“So, that’s why he carried you off the plane!” my mom squeals, when I get to the end of the story. “The boy is in love with you.”

My blood runs cold at the very idea. “No. He’s not. Weren’t you listening? We were just having fun!”

Anna snorts. “I’ve had fun with a lot of guys—” She breaks off when my mom shoots her the evil eye. “Not that kind of fun, geez, Mom!” She turns back to me. “I’ve hung out with a bunch of guys, Tansy, and they don’t do those things you just described if they aren’t totally gone over a girl.”

“She’s right,” my mom says. “I saw his face when he walked off that plane with you. I was too concerned about your health to spend much time thinking about it at the time, but that boy loves you very much. He’d probably be here right now if your father and I had given him the choice.”

My heart drops to my toes at just the thought. There’s a part of me that’s screaming, “Yes!” That’s having a party and praying that my mom and sister know exactly what they’re talking about. But there’s another part, a bigger part—the part that loves Ash and understands just how much pain he’s in—that prays that isn’t true. He’s been through so much and he deserves so much better than this. So much better than sitting around a hospital waiting for someone else that he loves to die.

“God, I hope that’s not true.”

“Wait—what?” Anna looks totally confused and even my mother seems a little startled by my answer, the satisfied look on her face fading away.

Suddenly, I don’t want to talk anymore. Rolling over, I face the wall, and try not to freak out at the idea that I’ve somehow managed to do what I swore I wouldn’t. That not only have I fallen for Ash, but I’ve let him fall for me.

It’s a terrible thought, one that makes me shudder deep inside. It’s bad enough that I feel like this—my heart torn and bloody and exposed, so exposed. The idea that Ash is going through the same thing after everything he’s already experienced … Just the thought has my stomach roiling and panic clutching in my chest.

I wouldn’t wish the roller coaster of the last decade on anyone, let alone Ash. I’ve already spent too many years watching the people I care about suffer because of this damn disease I just can’t seem to shake. The last thing I want is to condemn Ash to the same fate.

“I bet he’s trying to figure out what hospital you’re in right now,” Anna tells me.

“Absolutely,” my mom agrees, patting my back in a rhythm I know she means to be soothing, but that just feels suffocating instead. “You’re both just a little upset about the situation—and who could blame you? Give him a little time to get his head around all this and he’ll be back. I saw how he looked at you. Feelings like that just don’t go away.”

I know she’s only trying to make me feel better—they both are—but they’re only making it worse. “I’m tired,” I tell them abruptly, uttering the magic words that experience has taught me will shut my family up instantly. “I want to sleep.”

It works like a charm, just like it always does. “Okay, baby,” my mom says, brushing a kiss across my cheek. “We’ll go down and get something to eat. Let you rest. But we won’t leave the hospital, so text if you need us.” She makes sure my phone is charged and within reach.

“He’ll come,” Anna whispers to me, squeezing my hand in a way I know she means to be encouraging. “This is a lot for him to wrap his head around, but he’ll come.”

I don’t tell her that that’s exactly what I’m afraid of.

Even if I’m not sick this time, even if this is just some weird virus that’s kicking my weakened immune system’s ass, I don’t want Ash to see me like this. I don’t want him to come around because he feels obligated like he does with so many other parts of his life.

And I don’t want him to come around because he loves me, either. It’s better for him if he just moves on, just forgets about the strange girl with the weird clothes and weirder cancer.

As if just thinking about him conjured him up, my phone buzzes from its spot next to the water pitcher. I roll over, pick it up gingerly, like it’s a snake that might strike at any second. But it isn’t Ash texting me. It’s Cam, checking to see how I’m feeling.

I type off a quick, flippant answer, then scroll through my other missed texts. From Luc and Ophelia and Z. Logan has sent me one, too, because he wanted “to check in.” There’s also a
text from Timmy and his parents, thanking me again for the trip and asking me to let them know how I’m doing when I get out of the hospital. Even Ericka has written something.

For a girl who’s spent most of her life being the odd one out—bald, skinny, sick—the sudden overwhelming influx of friendship feels odd. Good, important, terrifying, but odd.

I take a few minutes to answer each of them, even manage to respond to their answering texts. As I do, I tell myself I’m grateful that Ash is the only one who didn’t try to check on me. The only one who didn’t text.

And as I roll over to face the wall again, tears slowly tracing a path down my cheeks, I even believe it. Better a fast break now than a slow, agonizing one later. Ash deserves better than that … and maybe, so do I.

“Pizza or Chinese?” I ask Logan from the doorway to his room. He’s currently sitting on his bed, sulking, and pretending to play Xbox. But I’ve been standing here for a couple of minutes now, and haven’t seen his thumb move over the controller once.

He shrugs. “Whatever.”

“Anchovy and mushroom pizza it is, then.”

Even that doesn’t get much of a response, just a quick glare before he goes back to staring blankly at the television screen.

And maybe it’s a mistake, maybe I should just give him more time, but I can’t take the almost silent treatment for one second longer. Not from him. Not after that plane ride from hell. Not after saying good-bye to Timmy at the airport and watching Tansy drive away to the hospital
without
a backward glance.

No, patience is not something I’ve got right now and it’s past time that Logan figured that out.

“Hey,” I tell him, as I cross the room and sit down at his desk. “I want to talk to you.”

He shrugs again, doesn’t even bother looking away from the game.