A Safe Space (Someone Else's Fairytale Book 4) (16 page)

“No. Come on. Are you kidding? Of course I remember more than that. I did a donor drive for her.”

“Right.”

“And we found a donor.”

“You did, yeah.”

“So then what happened?”

He refuses to look me in the eye. “When you found her a donor, she was already too sick. She’d begun her terminal decline—and there was nothing you could have done about that. She was probably too sick even when you came for your visit. I called to tell you that we had a donor so that you’d have that memory, and I didn’t bother to fill you in on the rest, like that we hadn’t taken the next step and found out the donor’s name. They hadn’t found out ours, and we weren’t going forward. All the donor would know was that their donee wasn’t eligible, and that way, no one who’d followed your whole campaign could find out that the donation didn’t happen. You put so much work into it and you made such an amazing difference… I just didn’t want to upset you.”

Now is not the time to cry, especially not here. The tears well up anyway without my permission, and I take a deep breath to try to flush the sadness out of my chest. No dice. More tears slip down my cheeks and my shoulders convulse with a sob. This is an awful, selfish thing to do in front of Devon.

He doesn’t look irritated though. Instead, he stares at me as if he’s never seen me before.

“Sorry,” I gasp. “Really. I just…” Talking makes it worse. I bury my face in my hands.

I hear Devon move and feel the futon shift under me as he gets up. A shadow falls across my face as he walks past me, and a moment later, he’s back with a roll of toilet paper.

“Here. I don’t have Kleenex. I’m sorry.”

I tear off several squares and try to put myself back together.

When he sits again, it’s right next to me.

“I’m sorry,” I repeat. “This isn’t fair, me crying over your sister. It’s just that I remember her so well and I’ve been searching for her for years. I thought I was looking for a fifteen-year-old girl who was alive and healthy and…” More sobs close off my throat.

His arm slips around my waist and he holds me against his chest, his cheek resting against the top of my head.

I have
got
to pull myself together. Not that I mind being held by him like this. In fact, I don’t ever want him to stop. His hand strokes my hair then makes a fist and withdraws. In my imagination, I look up at him and he gives in and kisses me.

In reality, I look up at him and he releases me entirely. This is about to be a very awkward moment.

“Sorry,” I say. “You must be tired of comforting other people about this.”

“Not exactly.” He looks down, and my heart aches for me to hold him, kiss him, and just be with him.

His posture makes it clear that he wouldn’t let me.

“So, I wasn’t invited to the funeral or anything?” I say. “Because if I was and I didn’t show, I am really sorry.”

He shakes his head “We didn’t have a funeral. It was just her and me, and by that time, all of America wanted her to live. I just had her buried and prayed that no one followed up, and no one ever did. If they tried, they didn’t find me.”

“I’ve had this picture by my bed all this time,” I say.

He doesn’t reply.

“Looking at it made me feel like I’d done something that matters. That my fame isn’t just this big old circus.”

“You
did
do something that matters. Who knows how many lives you saved by getting all those people to sign up for the bone marrow registry?”

“Sure, but I wanted to do something that mattered to you guys.”

“Lizzie…” He shakes his head. “You did, okay? My sister and I had no hope until you came along.”

“That’s not much.”

“No, hey.” He speaks with real vehemence. “Listen. When Mackenzie got sick, our mother disowned her—tried to make her a ward of the state. Said she couldn’t afford the medical bills. I was nineteen, so I got custody of her, took her to Seattle Children’s Hospital, and basically lived there. Sat all day by her bed and slept at a special shelter for the families of patients. Nobody visited us or wrote to us or sent us flowers or asked how she was doing. All the other kids had visitors and different family members with them. So she was lonely. It hurt, you know? She started watching this cheesy show called
All About Veronica
and she wanted to write to the star. I tried to stop her. I was afraid she’d expect some kind of response and wouldn’t get it and that would just hurt her more, but the nurses didn’t care. They got your fan mail address and some paper and pens and she wrote that letter, and two weeks later, in you walk.”

He shifts his weight. “I’ll never forget that moment. There you were, looking exactly like you did on television, and you didn’t bat an eye at her sickness or her baldness or all the tubes and machines and stuff. You walked right in like we were family.”

“Well,” I say, “I don’t really have a family, so in a way, my fans are my family.”

He looks me over again. “So…anyway. You sat down, you spent time, and when Mackenzie woke up, there you were, and she was
so
happy about that. Had more energy than I’d seen in months. You made her day—or her
life,
more like. You gave her stuff, all that pink swag.”

“Including the sweatshirt you wouldn’t let me mock at the gym.”

“Including that sweatshirt, yeah. You asked if there was anything you could do, and my sister started telling you about bone marrow transplants and donors and stuff, and I was in panic mode. I didn’t want her to get her hopes up that you’d actually do anything. I expected you to give her a hug and walk off, not take notes and put up a video on your website and start talking to various news shows.”

“I had to try.”

“No, you didn’t. You didn’t have to. You chose to when no one would’ve expected it of you.”

“For her. Come on. You know what I mean.”

His eyes shine with tears and he presses his lips into a firm line for a moment. “Yeah,” he says. “If I coulda done something like that, I would have.”

“You took custody of her and got her treatment when you were still a kid yourself.”

“You were
twelve
, Lizzie.
You
were the kid.”

“The business grows you up fast.”

“Other stars don’t do what you did. They don’t take the time. Probably because then the whole world would expect the same treatment.”

“Yeah,” I agree, “but this was a special case. If I found another like her, I’d do it again, no problem. She had no hope of a transplant.”

“Right, so what you did meant… I can’t even say it without sounding cheesy. Meant the world to us? Meant everything? There just aren’t words. You were there for her, and you should be proud of that.”

“I’m not proud,” I say. “And I’m really, really sorry for how it ended.”

“We had three good months after you came to visit. We watched every episode of your show that we could.”

I do the math in my head. “Back then, the show was in its first season.”

“Yeah.”

“And none of the movies or albums were made.”

“Right.”

I stare at him.

He shrugs. “After she was gone, that was one way I could still feel connected to her. I’d watch the show and imagine what she’d think of it. I went to the movies and pretended she was sitting next to me. I own all your albums because…I know that she would have bought them and played them over and over and over again.”

The image of a younger version of him sitting alone in a movie theater watching Veronica Pryce tugs at my heart. “And you found me,” I say. “In real life.”

He folds his arms. “You think I’m a stalker?”

“I think you should have known you could walk up to me and say, ‘I’m Devon Schaller. Remember me?’ Except that you didn’t want me to know about Mackenzie, and I get that.”

“I wasn’t going to be all, ‘Hey, I’m some random guy you met on a charity visit.’”

“I should’ve recognized you right off the bat, but you’re kinda…different.”

He shakes his head. “And it’s been seven years.

“So how did you find me?”

He purses his lips. “The show got canceled while I was working in another branch of the gym in LA, and word spread through the grapevine that you went to the one in Orange County, so I transferred. I expected to just see you from the distance, not end up working for your roommate.”

I nod. There’s no way I can think of to tell him that, once I saw him, I wouldn’t have kept my distance anyway.

“And,” he says, “I expected to see you with your huge entourage living the superstar lifestyle, going from one hit show to another. I didn’t expect to see you so…alone.”

“Sure.” I could say the same. I expected to find Mackenzie’s older brother still smiling and laughing and taking care of his teenage sister, not all by himself with no attachments of any kind.

“I really didn’t expect to see you sad so much of the time,” he says. “I never knew what to say to you. Sorry if you don’t like being called Veronica, but…yeah. Anyway.”

The picture in my lap now feels heavy. All these years I carried Mackenzie in my heart and I had no idea she didn’t get to grow up, go to high school, have a boyfriend, or any of the rest of it. And all my dreams of finding her brother... They were so much less complicated than this. I trace an idle pattern on the glass in the frame.

“Anyway…” he says. “I’m sorry if you felt like I was rude to you. That’s the last thing I would ever want.”

“No, it’s okay.”

“So can we say goodbye as friends?”

I can’t even look at him now. “I don’t want you to go,” I confess.

“After how I quit my job they won’t want me back.”

“I can get you your job back if you want it.”

“No, you’ve done more than enough for me.”

I nod.

He leans down, trying to get into my line of sight. “What’s the matter?”

“I’m sad,” I say. “Here I’ve finally figured out who you are and you’re leaving.” That’s safer than admitting that I have feelings for him. Mackenzie’s brother was someone I’ve thought of so often over the years. Pair that with the guy I kissed in the closet, and I know I’m doomed. Two types of attraction, emotional and physical, have come together to create a gravity well I may never escape.

“So...what? You’d miss me?” he asks.

At least I’m smart enough not to nod with the enthusiasm I feel. Instead, I shrug. “We’ve got history.”

“You’ve got millions of adoring fans.”

“I guess.”

“Want me to walk you to your car? Actually, I’m going to walk you to your car whether you want me to or… You didn’t drive your ‘Vette here, did you?”

“It’s the only car I have.”

“Are you nuts? Do you know what kind of neighborhood this is? It’s probably long gone or been completely stripped down.”

“No, it has an alarm on it. And it’s pink, anyway.”

“And all car thieves are men, huh?”

“It’s kind of hard to resell.”

“Well, there is that. Come on.” He gets to his feet and holds out a hand to me.

I grasp it and get up, reveling in the feel of his skin against mine until he lets go. We exit his apartment into the cool night air and go downstairs to street level, where my car sits, unscathed, by the curb. I get out my keys, unlock it, and haul open the driver’s side door. It then occurs to me to ask, “Do you still have medical bills you’re paying off?”

He shakes his head. “They charge based on your ability to pay at that hospital.”

“If you did, would you tell me?”

“Not a chance.”

“Right.”

“Bye,” says Devon.

“Bye,” I whisper, my throat too tight to vocalize. I can’t think of anything else to say to stall, so I get in and drive off. Devon stands on the curb and waves, his form painted red by my tail lights.

“Hey, Cleo,” I leave a message on her voicemail. “I found Mackenzie. Or…found out what happened to her. She’s… She’s gone. She didn’t live long enough to get a transplant, so…anyway. I thought I’d let you know.”

I hit the button to end the cell phone call and wipe away a few more tears as I drive.

When I get home, both Kyra and Zach look up from their dinner, which they’re eating in our living room off the coffee table.

I must look like a zombie with my dead-eyed gaze and a photograph of a sick child dangling from one hand. At the sight of them, I pause, hoping against hope that they have some time for me tonight.