Wake (67 page)

“No.”

Jem glares at me. I feel like a little kid in trouble. “What were you fighting about?”

“He was talking shit about my sister. And you.”

Jem swallows. “What about it?” He puts my glove back on, hiding the bruises.

“That I was an idiot to get close to you. And he knows what I did to her—he acted like I should be gratefull that he wants anything to do with me.”

Jem murmurs my name and kisses my hair, like I’m a child telling a parent about a nightmare. The arm around my shoulders squeezes me tighter and he tells me that I’m better off without Luke.

“I might not be able to go with you on Thursday after all. Once Frank finds out I’m going to be grounded till Christmas.”

“Even though Luke started it?”

“I threw the first punch. And I almost broke his arm.” Jem looks so surprised that I can’t help but laugh.

“I also threatened to run him over with my car.”

“Jesus, Willa.”

“You’d do the same if someone said shit about your family. He said I was crazy to hang out with you because you could die tomorrow and I’d go insane again.”

Jem wraps his other arm around me in a soothing hug. “Now when you say you
almost
broke his arm…”

“I definitely sprained his wrist.”

“Good girl.” Jem kisses my head again. He says he’s sorry I hurt my hand and thanks me for sticking up for him.

“Jem?”

“Yeah?”

“You’re an idiot.”

He laughs. I think he’s the only one who can take my insults in stride. ‘Go to hell ’ is a nice euphemism for ‘I love you,’ but so few people understand that.

Jem’s nose brushes lightly across my cheek. It’s like he’s asking for a kiss.

“We still need to have that talk.”

He sighs like I’ve just told him to go clean his room. “We only have twenty minutes left before class. We won’t have time to finish talking about this if we start now.”

“Fine. Tonight?”

“I have a doctor’s appointment.”

“Honestly? Or are you stalling again?”

“You think I’d lie?” he says with a smirk. “Really, I do. Cancer is one of those things that you have to check up on from time to time.”

“Are you worried?”

“No. I’m feeling better.” He smiles as if to prove it. It’s total bullshit. He’s blown me off for days because he’s been feeling so poorly. I refrain from pointing out that feeling lightheaded and shitting his guts out are hardly big improvements on his physical condition. He probably already knows, whether or not he wants to admit it.

“Fine. Tomorrow.”

Jem finishes his juice and lies down to rest before the bell rings. I lay down with him, lending Jem a little bit of warmth. The blanket on the cot is pretty threadbare.

“I’ll try to make it through Soc,” he promises as he lays his head on my shoulder. His arm is around my middle, mooching warmth.

“If you can’t I’ll walk you back here.”

“Thanks,” he murmurs. His cheek feels so cold against my collarbone. He needs to eat something, soon. I consider swinging by the cafeteria one more time before class. He can sip another bottle of juice during the lecture. Jem shivers slightly and I rub circles on his back, trying to warm him up. If he stays here instead of going to Soc, he might as well steal the blanket off the other cot, too.

Jem lifts his head and looks up at me. His expression is troubled. I adjust the blanket to warm him further but he leans away from it—toward me.

Jem kisses me very softly, just like the first time on the porch. We were supposed to talk about this first…

The door of the nurse’s office opens and Jem takes his sweet time pulling away. I have to put a hand on his shoulder and push him back, and by that time it’s too late. The other student in the door is watching us with red cheeks.

“Um…is the nurse here?” she squeaks. I don’t know this girl, but I’ve seen her before. She’s a freshman, skinny and still suffering through the first awkward stage of puberty.

“She’ll be back soon.” I get off the cot and swat Jem away when he reaches to take my hand. “Are you sick?”

She bursts into tears. How do I know it’s a Monday? I guide her to a chair and make her take deep breaths. She looks perfectly healthy to me. The nurse’s office is pretty sparse, but all the basic equipment is here. I ask if she came here for an icepack or bandage and she just sniffles and shakes her head.

“Do you need anything before the nurse gets back? Water, maybe?” I pass her the Kleenex box to wipe her nose.

She takes out a sheet of notepaper and writes the problem down, too embarrassed to just say it. I go to the supply cabinet and dig through the drawers of gauze and towels. The school must keep some feminine supplies around…

The only pad I find is thick enough to soak up the entire yearly rainfal of the British Isles. I can’t believe any woman could bleed enough to need this and still survive. I give it to the freshman and she takes it into the washroom, still sniffling.

“She okay?” Jem asks from behind the room divider.

“Shut up, Jem.”

She calls through the door, “I have a question.” She wants to know where she’s supposed to stick the adhesive tabs on the sides. I can’t believe that’s an actual question and want to tell her to take a wild guess, but that would be mean. I answer her question and Jem snickers behind the divider. Jackass.

The girl emerges a few minutes later looking flustered. I have to assure her that the giant pad isn’t visible through her jeans to get her to calm down, and send her away with the rest of the Kleenex box.

Poor kid.

Jem gets up and shuffles around to the other side of the divider, weary but smiling. We have to leave for class soon.

“Do you think she’ll tell anyone what she saw?” He nods to the cot behind him.

“No. Then she’d have to explain what she was doing in the nurse’s office to begin with.”

He nods, satisfied that I’m probably right. The freshman will be too embarrassed to admit that she was ever in here, let alone that she saw anything. “We’ll talk,” he says. “Promise. Tomorrow.”

“I believe you.”

*

I finish my homework when I get home, and when I head downstairs to make dinner I find company in the house. Luke is at the kitchen table, sporting a black eye, a fat lip, a tensor support, and talking to Frank like everything is just fine and dandy. They’re discussing plans for an overnight fishing trip with Doug and Mr. Thorpe.

“Hey Willa,” Luke says. He sounds so cheerful, like I didn’t beat the living shit out of him last night.

“What happened to your face?” I chal enge him.

“Boys being boys,” Frank says with a smirk. Luke has already lied to him.

“Do you not know how to block a punch?”

Luke gives me a look that tells me not to push my luck. I suppose he thinks I owe him now, since he lied to my brother and covered my ass. No harm in being delusional.

I fry up some fish for supper. It makes Frank happy, and after the dishes are done I don’t linger. I don’t want to give Luke any opportunities, so I head out. It’s as good a night as any to volunteer at the hospital.

*

“Pick up, it’s me.” I lift my head and look at the clock. It’s one o’clock in the morning and I really have to change that ringtone. And I actually mean it this time.

I pick up the phone. “Mmmph?”

“Help me.” I’m wide-awake and sitting up with one foot on the floor before I realize I’ve moved.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s not working.” The pain in Jem’s voice is so palpable it gives me chil s.

“What’s not working?” My bare feet hit the carpet. There are jeans on the back of my desk chair.

“Heartbeat,” he answers shortly. Oh God, he’s hurting.

“Take another dose.” He still has an open prescription for Oxycontin. He can take as many as he needs until he’s ready to be off painkillers, which he obviously isn’t. The zipper on this sweater is stuck.

“Can’t. Not till five.”

“Take it. You’re in pain—you need it.”

“I’d have to wean off it again.” Jem blows out a sigh that breaks with a wince of pain. I’ve had this conversation before.

My keys bite into the skin of my bare hand.

“Then you’ll wean off them again. You need it now. Take it.” Before I lose my mind, please.

“Please, just help me. I don’t want to take—”

“I can’t help you.” I want to. “There’s no shame in it.” My voice cracks as I repeat myself. “You need…

you need to take another dose, okay?”

“Willa…” I shut the car door and Jem’s breathing changes. “Don’t come over.”

“I’m not.” What a ridiculous thing to say. Then I realize that I’m sitting in my car, in the driveway, and Frank’s bedroom light just came on. I even have one hand poised above the ignition slot.

I drop my keys on the passenger seat. “Just take your medicine, okay?”

“Please, just…talk. I don’t know. Keep my mind off it.
Please.
”

It hurts more to cry quietly than it does to sob, but I don’t want him to hear me. I think he does anyway.

“Um…” I’ve got nothing else, so I sing. It’s an old Dutch lul aby, one that Oma sang to me when I was a kid and needed soothing. I don’t know what the words mean and I can’t remember the third verse so I repeat the second, voice wobbling with emotion until I run out of verses.

Frank opens the car door and demands to know what the hell I’m doing. I push his hand away.

“Are you crying?”

“I’m sorry,” Jem says.

“Take another dose.”

“Just a few more hours.”

I can’t fucking stand it. I hang up on him and dial his house number. It’s Ivy that picks up. She sounds worried by the lateness of my call .

“Jem needs another dose. Force him if you have to.” I hang up on her too, drop my head against the steering wheel, and fall thoroughly to pieces.

Tuesday Jem isn’t at school today. I find myself thankful for that. If he’s not here it means he’s at home resting, and I don’t have to look at him and think of last night. He’s so stubborn, just like Tessa was. I used to slip small amounts of powdered painkillers into her food on the worst days, but most of the time she caught me. She could tell when she started to get high and I would get scolded.

Tessa was stoned—not my fault—when the hospital’s social worker first brought up the DNR paperwork. Tessa couldn’t have located her feet at that point. Mom was still convinced that Tessa was going to live, but my sister just chuckled and said she didn’t want machines doing her living for her. “I’d much rather you just held a pillow over my head,” she said. And thus began another fight.

Holding a pillow over her head probably would have been a cleaner way to go.

I’m in a lousy mood when lunch rolls around. I arrive at the table and everyone suddenly stops talking.

The hell ? Diane has a mean smirk on and looks away from me with a snicker.

“What? Do I have ink on my face?” I was chewing on my pen in class…

Paige makes a very conspicuous change of subject, leaving me to wonder what they were saying about me. I have this paranoid feeling that Luke might have said something, but how would the rumor have gotten around my school? Luke doesn’t even go here.

I tell myself to stop being a twit and put the whole thing out of my mind. Whatever Diane is smirking about, it probably isn’t worthy of my attention.

*

I drive over to Jem’s house after school with a feeling of dread. What if he’s still in pain? I don’t want to make him feel bad about calling me last night, but he must know that it hurt me to listen to him in agony.

We’ll have to talk about that. We need to find a balance…before he sucks me dry. And before I let him.

Ivy welcomes me into her home with a hug. “He was asking for you earlier,” she says of Jem. There are no pencils in her hair. She must not be getting much work done, taking care of her son all day.

“He was?”

“Thank you for calling me last night. Jem wouldn’t have said anything. He’s back on a full dose,” she assures me. “It’s made him a little loopy after weaning off. I wouldn’t take anything he says seriously. He probably won’t remember the conversation in a few hours.”

“Is he still hurting?”

“No,” she says gently but firmly. Ivy puts an arm around my shoulders and walks upstairs with me. It’s nice to have someone to make these marches with. Mom and I never even held hands on our way in and out of the hospital. Even before Tessa died, opinion divided us with tension. I put an arm around Ivy’s waist, enjoying the companionship.

We stop outside Jem’s door and Ivy nods to the library. “I’ll be down the hall if you need anything.”

“Thanks.”

I expect Jem’s room to be dark, but the drapes are wide open to let the light in. He’s lying in bed with his flannels on, tucked in and dozy. His eyes open when I come around to the side of the bed, but he looks dazed and distant.

“Hey.”

“I am so sorry,” he murmurs. Jem reaches out a hand to take mine and misses. He has poor depth perception right now. I give him my hand and he squeezes my fingers.

“I upset you.”

“Yeah.” I sit down on the edge of the bed. It’s a struggle for him to look up at me. His eyes don’t want to stay open and his pupils are really narrow. He’s high as a kite.

“When did you get here?” he says curiously.

“Just now.”

“Did I call you last night? Or the night before?”

“Last night.”

“I shouldn’t have called you.” Jem bends forward, lifting his head off his pillow to lie in my lap instead.

“You’re a good friend,” he says drowsily, and pats my knee.

In the back of my mind I’m scolding myself for wanting to laugh at him right now. Snarky Jem Harper, talking like a sentimental drunk.

I don’t need to tell him about how bad it hurt that he refused to take his pill s, or that he kept me up all night worrying. Jem doesn’t need that right now—if he can even comprehend it in this state. The guy just needs a hug and a blanket.

I help him put his head back on the pillow and lay down beside him on top of the comforter. Jem immediately rolls to lay his head on my shoulder.