chapter twenty-four
Tara insisted I stay hospitalized until a specialist could see me, which meant I spent the next week cooped up in bed watching the small array of channels available on my in-room television and wondering why they couldn’t pony up for HBO. I’d seen enough hospital bills to know they could afford it. Ibuprofen at eight bucks a pop? I think that paid for access to
Game of Thrones
. Cassie snuck in lunch and dinner as often as she could so I wasn’t stuck eating watery Jell-O and overcooked chicken.
My mother refused to leave the hospital, even to run out for necessities. She’d been in such a hurry to get to me that she’d left without a suitcase, so Jess brought her jeans and t-shirts. It was a sad fact that I’d never seen my mother in a t-shirt except for our one failed trip to Disneyland when I was seven. Tara only left my side to go on brief constitutionals, which made her sound old and British, but gave me a few precious minutes to myself.
Today I watched the clock, waiting for five minutes until two in the afternoon when Tara would stand and stretch and announce her intent to walk around the halls for a few minutes. As soon as she stood, I sat up in bed.
“Going for your walk?” I asked her. I couldn’t bring myself to say constitutional.
Tara paused and studied me. “Hot date?”
I winced and shook my head.
A guilty look immediately settled over her face. “I’m going to take that constitutional now.”
As soon as she was out the door, I hurried into the bathroom to grab one of the candy bars Cassie had brought me. I’d shoved them in my toiletries bag as Tara saw refined sugar as one of three major threats to the continued sovereignty of America. Apparently, carbs were going to take the country the way of the the Mayans. I had about twenty minutes to eat it, but when I popped back out of the bathroom, I wasn’t alone in my room.
Liam was sitting on the edge of my bed, a plate of waffles and a box of Chiclets laid out on the table.
“Waffles for lunch,” he offered. He wasn’t lounging or relaxed. In fact, he seemed ill at ease here, his hands clutched in his lap.
“Did Jess tell you I was here?” I asked him.
“Does it matter? I’ll leave if you want, but...”
I crossed my arms over my chest, aware I was in a paper thin hospital gown the color of pea soup, and waited for him to find the rest of his sentence.
“But?” I finally prompted.
“But I don’t want to go.”
“Liam, you’re a sweet guy. Believe me, I’m doing you a favor,” I said, hoping he couldn’t see my lower lip quivering. I needed him to get out of here now before I started to cry. Having Liam here crossed a line I wanted to keep intact. The hospital was where sick people stayed. It was full of death and disease and the horrible acrid scent of bleach. Liam belonged to the world of vanilla and kisses in the rain.
He stood and gestured for me to get back in my bed, but I hesitated, which sent him the wrong message. When I didn’t climb back in, he pulled me to him and slid his hand around the back of my neck.
“I don’t need any favors,” he whispered. “I only need you.”
I licked my suddenly dry lips and shook my head. “There’s no cure for Parkinson’s, and it’s only going to get worse. In a few more years—”
“Do you think I haven’t read every goddamn book on Parkinson’s in the Ellis Library?” he cut me off. “And I talked to Jess.”
My eyes narrowed. “It wasn’t any of her business.”
“Don’t be mad at Jess. I confronted her about it after the off episode in your living room.”
“You knew?”
Liam nodded. “It took me a while to get my head around it. I wasn’t sure I could handle it.”
He had known the whole time and he had stayed away. I wasn’t sure what hurt worse: Jess’s betrayal or that he’d confirmed my biggest fear. “Well, it’s only going to get worse, so I hope you have better luck with your future girlfriends.”
“I said I wasn’t sure.
As in past tense.
You wouldn’t talk to me, chicken.”
I melted a little when he called me by the nickname. It felt so right after so much wrong.
“But then I realized I didn’t need to handle it,” he said. “My job is to help you handle it.”
“I don’t need help,” I said, a wave of stubbornness coming over me. I ducked out of his arms and dropped onto my bed, out of his reach. “I don’t want pity.”
“Good, because I’m not offering any.” Liam hovered over me, a variety of emotions flashing across his face. He didn’t know what to feel any more than I did.
“Then why are you here?” I asked.
“To bring you fucking waffles and tell you that I love you!”
It was possibly the angriest declaration of love in the history of time, and it didn’t matter one bit, because my heart burst at his words and somewhere deep inside me a smug voice said
I told you so
.
But for the life of me, I couldn’t say it back to him. Not here. Not like this. We were in a sphere I wanted to keep separate from this fledgling love. Liam waited and I searched for something to say, anything to say that would break the awkward silence in the room.
“You also came to bring me Chiclets,” I pointed out.
“I cannot deny you Chiclets.” Liam grinned barely before his face grew solemn again. “I understand if you don’t want—”
I held up a hand for him to stop. “It’s not that. It’s this place.” I gestured to the anonymous hospital room we were in. “Hospitals are where people come to die. If we’re going to have a second chance, it shouldn’t be here.”
“You forget that hospitals are where people come to be born, chicken. It’s where people come to be healed. I know you have a different perspective on them than I do, but hospitals are all about life. You can’t only see the scary parts. If you do, you miss all the awesome.” He sat on the edge of my bed and gripped one of my ankles, massaging it softly. My skin sang where he touched it, and I realized how much I had missed him.
I wagged my index finger, beckoning him closer. He scooted closer and arranged himself cautiously over me.
“Yes, chicken?” he whispered.
“Thank you for the waffles.”
“I will make you waffles anytime,” he promised. The vow slid around me like a warm blanket. It was comforting and thrilling at the same time.
“I need to get out of here so that you can make good on that promise.” I tousled his hair with my fingers and then brought my hand down to his chin, urging him closer to me. His breath was hot against my skin as he lowered his lips closer to mine. Anticipation surged through my body, lighting up my nerves until every part of me was tingling. When he finally kissed me, it was soft and sweet. His arms held himself suspended over me, but they pressed close to my sides like he was tucking me against him. As he slipped his tongue into my mouth, my back arched up, trying to close the space between us.
“Careful, chicken,” he warned me in a low whisper. “I had to sweet-talk a nurse into letting me in here. If we set off your heart rate monitor, they’ll kick me out.”
“I unhooked it when I went to the bathroom. You are free to pound me.”
Liam smirked at my choice of words. “I am, huh?”
“I mean make me pound…err, make my heart pound,” I corrected, flushing a little from the heat raging through me. “Although the other stuff sounds good, too.”
“When are you getting out of here?” He fingered the tie of my hospital gown.
“Not sure,” I said, “but we’re alone now.”
“I’m not making love to you in a hospital bed,” he said, shaking his head. “I need you in a much bigger bed for that. Preferably soon.”
The pulsing in my body jumped into a full-blown frenzy, and I pushed up on my elbows so I could press against him as I kissed him again. Through the thin layers of cotton separating us, his heart raced. It was the most precious rhythm in the world—the beat of his heart—and just feeling it made me kiss him with a desperate, hungry passion. How could I have denied this? It was a lost cause to try to stay away from him, and I was no longer interested in trying to escape that fact.
“You should eat,” he whispered, barely pulling away from me.
I clutched his neck, drawing him back toward me. “I don’t want food.”
“Well, pardon me,” an annoyed voice said, startling us apart.
Tara stood at the door, her arms crossed so tightly over herself that her fingernails dug into the fleshy skin of her upper arms. Despite how understanding she had been when Liam had come up before in conversation, she looked none too pleased to see him now.
“Mrs. Nichols, it’s nice to see you.” Liam jumped off the bed, but I caught his hand to keep him from getting too far away.
“Have either of you heard of the expression ‘the appropriate time and place?’” she asked us.
My eyes narrowed. “No, but I’ve heard of ‘location, location, location!’”
And right now I was up for kissing Liam anytime, anyplace.
Tara scowled at us until Liam pried my hand from his and moved to sit on the couch. He was trying to please my mother, but the gesture left a cold emptiness in my chest and did nothing to wipe the anger off Tara’s face.
“I ran into your nurse in the hallway,” she informed me, not giving Liam a second glance. “She said the specialist will be in to see you this afternoon.”
“Finally,” I said with a groan, falling back against my bed. “Maybe I can get out of here.”
I shot Liam a quick raised eyebrow, but Tara saw it and shook her head.
“Jillian, your priority needs to be on managing this disease. I’m sure Liam has plenty on his plate right now. Maybe it’s best if you both focus on your needs separately for the time being,” she suggested. She turned toward Liam, as though waiting for his support on the matter.
“I know what Jillian’s dealing with—” Liam began.
“You do, do you?” Tara cut him off. “So then you know she’s in that hospital bed because of the fight you had, and it took you how long to even visit her? I thought you were good for her, but now…”
“I didn’t want him to come,” I stopped her. “I made Jess promise to not tell him I was here.”
“And now it’s time for him to leave,” she said. “The doctor is on his way.”
“I don’t want him to leave.” Liam was right. I didn’t have to face this disease on my own anymore. Having Tara around wasn’t a very comforting thought. She was all business when it came to my Parkinson’s. I’d spent the last two years struggling to deal with changes in my body while Tara asked questions about cost, always heavily insinuating that it would be better for me to drop out of school. Her recent interest wasn’t more than a fluke to gain my trust.
“I’m here as long as you want me,” Liam said in a soft voice. He leaned forward and extended his hand to me.
“Forever,” I murmured.
“This is family business,” Tara said. She kept her gaze on me, pretending that Liam wasn’t here. “Can I have a minute alone with you?”
“Whatever you have to say, you can say it in front of him,” I said. A dizzying wave of déjà vu swept over me. I’d heard that line at least one hundred times in my life in movies and TV shows, and now I was saying it. The whole thing was a little absurd.
“You’re being dramatic,” she warned me.
“You’re being a bitch,” I said. Liam squeezed my hand, which was either a warning of his own or moral support.
“I am your mother,” she said. “And I deserve—”
Her speech was interrupted by the entrance of an older man in a lab coat embroidered with the name Dr. Fales. His name didn’t do a lot to inspire confidence in me.
“I apologize. I can return later.” He gestured toward the door, but I shook my head. There was no way I was going to wait any longer for information, even if it gave Tara an aneurism.
“Dr. Fales.” Tara extended her hand and shook his limply. “I’m Tara Nichols, Jillian’s mother and this is Jillian.”
“And this is my boyfriend, Liam,” I said. “I’d like him to stay.”
“That’s perfectly fine,” Dr. Fales said, and my mother frowned behind him. He smiled warmly at me as he picked up the chart off the end of the bed. “I’ve been looking over your case, Jillian. It sounds like you’ve had a rough time of it lately.”
“Clearly, her condition is getting worse.” Tara tugged at a small pearl pendant as she spoke. It didn’t match her casual ensemble.
“Do you feel like you’re getting worse?” Dr. Fales asked me.
I hesitated. I wasn’t really sure. Things had been strange in general lately.
“I see,” Dr. Fales said. He hooked the chart back over the end of my bed. “Early-onset Parkinson’s is fairly rare, as I’m sure you know.”
He glanced to Tara who was bobbing her head like she was an expert here for a consultation.
“So each case can vary drastically in terms of symptoms and disease progression.”
I swallowed hard and risked a glance at Liam. “And my case is bad?”
“Actually, it’s not. Based on your tests, I’m surprised that you’re having this level of difficulty.” He paused to let this sink in.
“Then this is in her head?” Tara asked. I stared at her. I couldn’t help being surprised because she’d been the one to see symptoms in everything I did. All roads led to Parkinson’s with Tara. For some people that might have given them a free pass, but to Tara, it was just another disappointing fact about my existence. She would be unbearable if she thought I was imagining episodes.
“I’m not saying that. I think we’re dealing with a compounding condition. The notes I was given mention that several recent episodes seem to have been brought on by stress. Is that correct?”
The question was meant for me, but Tara answered. To his credit, Dr. Fales ignored her, waiting for my answer.
“Yes,” I said. “They were both after fights.”
Liam’s hand gripped my fingers more tightly. I wished we were alone so I could tell him that this most recent episode was the result of a lot more than our confrontation behind Garrett’s, but I didn’t want Tara to have any more ammunition for her case against him.
“I assumed as much. College can be a stressful time period and dealing with a life-altering illness makes things even more difficult.” The doctor’s words were kind, but I balked at what he was saying.