From The Wreckage (9 page)

"No!" she warns; her head popping up from her mother’s embrace and shocking everyone with her vehemence. "Don't go."

"Jules..."

"Please? I need you here. I don't think I can do this without you..." She trails off in despair, but hates the sound of her pleading.

She hears his dad's deep voice of warning. "West?"

"I'm not going anywhere," he promises. Taking her hand from his leg and grabbing her hip, he pulls her back into his arms.

Completely ignoring their parents, Jules wraps her arms around his waist with a sigh and curls her legs beneath her. She cries into his shirt and leaves wet spots on the cotton as the deluge of tears fall. West rubs her back in small circles with one hand while his other holds her head gently pressed to his chest.

Behind her, her mother finally speaks. "You look exhausted. Can I get you some coffee?"

It takes Jules a moment to comprehend that her mother is talking to West's dad, and after his deep 'Thank you', their retreating footsteps indicate she and West are alone.

They sit there on the hardwood floor of her foyer for an indeterminate amount of time before she is finally able to speak.

"What happened to her?" she says with a sniff; her face pressed to his chest.

Jules feels him take a deep breath.
Maybe I really don’t want to know
, she thinks, as she tells herself she does.

"I don't know. My dad was with the crew that found her and two others." His voice is ragged and laced with his own tears.

"Two others?"

"There are a lot of casualties, Jules. All over town." His voice sounds as broken as her heart is, as he explains some of the devastation. She groans again and sits back, her face only inches from his now.

"That could have been us. We could be
dead
right now."

West's hands cup her face. "But we're not. We made it," he insists, and the intensity in his eyes reminds her how lucky they are.

"Yeah, we did." She breathes deeply and covers his hands with her own before adding, "But who else didn't?"

West’s eyes begin to water as they stare at each other. "I don't know. I'm just glad it wasn't us." His lip quivers just enough to show Jules he is on the brink of breaking down himself. "I know that's selfish, but I was scared as hell last night," he admits on a choked sob, bringing her back into his arms.

She has no idea how long they sit on the floor wrapped in each other’s arms. She is relatively sure she's cried every last ounce of water from her body, though. Her eyes ache and her throat is sore. She can smell the coffee and hear their parents’ low voices in the kitchen. When her backside goes numb, they shift to sit on the bottom step next to each other. She nestles her head into his chest and leaves his comforting arm around her shoulders. She feels the light trail his fingertips make along her bicep and she shivers.

"Did you stay at the hospital for very long last night?"

"Um, yeah. I stayed there pretty much all night. My dad was busy."

"We should have given you a lift home…I'm sorry." She tries to pull up to look at him, but he tightens his hold on her.

"It was fine, Buffy. I saw a lot of people come in. Jeff and I hung out for a while. I saw Tommy Parker, Ruben and Mark. It felt good to see people coming in and knowing they were safe."

Her stomach flips when he calls her Buffy, and she listens intently. "Tommy? He was probably one of the last people to be with Tanya before she-" She stops short of saying
died
. She can’t use those two words together in the same sentence. Not yet.

"He didn't know what happened to her. He said they were separated in the crowd. I wish-"

"What’s
this
?"

She jumps at the sound of Stuart’s raised voice, and the glass porch door barely makes a sound as he opens it. West's arm falls from her shoulders and she stands as quickly as her still-jumbled brain will let her.

"Stuart!" She flings herself into his arms as tears begin to fall again. "What happened to you? I sent you a text but you never called back, and then the storm hit. I thought you were dead. Tanya's de...she's gone." She spews the words out in rapid fire, and Stuart simply stands there with his hands wrapped around her waist.

"I'm fine, Jules. You thought I was dead? Are you kidding me? I was crazy worried about you after hearing the radio reports, but my parents refused to let me leave the house last night. I finally told them it was too bad and left an hour ago. The streets are a nightmare. Thankfully I saw your dad on my way here, and he told me what happened last night."

"Jules?" her mom calls from the kitchen. "Do I hear Stuart?" she asks as she walks into the foyer with West's dad on her heels. "Oh, Stuart! I thought I heard you. I'm so glad you're okay. Jules was worried sick about you last night!" she exclaims, and gives him a quick hug.

"I'm fine. I was worried about her," he offers, and looks down at Jules as she pulls away from him.

The five of them stand there in an awkward silence before West finally speaks up.

"Well we better get going now, dad."

Stuart pulls Jules to the side as West crosses the foyer to the door. For one, fleeting moment she thinks he’s going to simply walk out without another word, but he stops and turns to look at them; his eyes revealing a world of hurt. She feels Stuart's fingers flex in her side and wonders if he sees the look too.

"Take care of her," West tells Stuart; his face tight. "She got a concussion last night and passed out again this morning."

If Stuart acknowledges what West said, she doesn’t notice it. She is too busy staring at West, and her heart picks up at the thought of him walking out her door. She wants to stop him; to reach out, grab his hand and pull him into another long hug.

The thought makes her wince. That she can possibly think of him this way while being huddled next to Stuart confuses the living daylights out of her, so she simply nods his way instead. She nods to acknowledge both West and his father, who are now holding the glass door open after saying goodbye to her mother.

"Thank you for making sure we got the news," Jules offers.

West nods stiffly, his eyes focusing on her hand firmly clasped with Stuart's.
It makes her feel sick and she pulls her fingers free; feigning the need to fix her hair. Stuart's arm goes around her waist instead, and she leans into him out of habit more than need.

"You take care, Jules." His father gives her a soft smile.

West nods one last time before he turns and follows his father down the path to their truck sitting at the curb. The whole time Jules watches them leave, she feels a tug at her core.

Fear.

For some strange and unknown reason, she feels afraid. Of what, she doesn’t know, but the moment West Rutledge is out of her presence, the feeling takes over. Suddenly, inexplicably, she wants
—
no, she
needs
—
West by her side.

* * *

"Have you ever felt like that? Like the one thing you needed to keep afloat, to keep moving, just walked out the door on you? I have. Twice, actually. It was the most bewildering feeling I've ever had, Tanya. Imagine my surprise as I stood next to the boy, who less than twelve hours before I was thinking about giving my virginity to, and then BAM! I was smacked in the face by this freaking MACK truck named West Rutledge."

“In a matter of minutes on a Friday night, I lost my school, my identity, the security of my first love, the personality of my sweet fearless brother, my best friend, my town, everything as I knew it. Everything changed.” 

“Minutes
—
that's all it takes to change your entire life. How do you deal with that? Not very well, apparently."

Jules shakes her head ruefully as she recognizes she's gone off track. She takes another sip of her sweet tea and starts again.

"Sorry, let's not skip ahead. So there I was, standing with Stuart, who apparently hadn't heard of your death yet. He was sweet, T. We spent the afternoon on the couch, barely speaking as I sat in shock. I slept a little; my head was still hurting so badly. Jason came downstairs from the nap my mom forced on him since he'd been up, terrified, most of the night before, and my mother and father sat him down with us to explain what happened.”

“You know, for all the annoying things Jason used to say about you and Katie, he cried. He jumped to my side and hugged me something fierce, too. His small hands gripped my neck so tightly I thought he was going to strangle me. He sat between me and Stuart on the couch, holding my arm and watching television, until he fell asleep.”

“Stuart left soon after promising me he would call when he got home, and I had to remind him we had no phone service. He pulled his cell out of his pocket and we both stared at it; like how in the world can these things
not
work? He kissed me gently and brushed over my bruised cheek with his fingers as he told me how grateful he was that I was safe. We never talked about it…about what I went through, or what had happened with him to delay him from ever reaching the Ice Shack before the twister. It didn't matter. None of that mattered to me anymore.”

“I took the steps to my room slowly. I felt like someone who'd been beaten and dragged through the town. I could barely pull myself to my room. My body, my head and my heart were all shattered and tired. I remember falling onto my bed and looking at my alarm clock. It was a little after ten o'clock. Ten o'clock. Twenty-four hours ago, we had no idea of the storm heading towards us. At that moment, as I rolled into a little ball and allowed myself to shed a few more tears, I had no idea the storm was only the beginning.”

Nine

"When all was said and done, forty-five people died. Forty-five. Twenty-fourteen, and forty-five people can die from a tornado in the United States."

Jules bites down on her lip in thought. "I would have thought it was impossible before it actually happened. Crazy thing is, it's happened several times in the last few years. There were huge storms in Joplin, Missouri and Tuscaloosa, Alabama that surprised everyone. Despite the early warning systems, modern weather forecasts and all our technology, Mother Nature wins every time."

"I slept in Sunday and stayed in my pajamas for the majority of the day, just thinking..."

* * *

Jules is lying on her side across her bed, staring at the bulletin board over her desk covered in pictures of her friends, when the peal of a phone startles her. The house phone rarely rings, since both she and her parents have cell phones, but they keep the home phone for Jason. A knock on her door sounds a few moments after, and her mom sticks her head in.

"Sweetie, Stuart's on the phone."

She rolls onto her back and takes the wireless receiver from her with a small smile. Her mom pats her head lightly and closes the door behind her.

"Hey," she answers; her voice hoarse from all the crying she's done over the past two days.

"Hi, how are you today?"

Jules makes a semi-groaning sound into the phone for an answer, and she hears him chuckle softly in response. It isn’t meant to be disrespectful, and she knows that. It’s just awkward. All of it is. Nobody ever knows what to say to people when someone dies, and Stuart is obviously as uncomfortable as Jules is with how to talk about it.

"That bad, huh? It'll get better, Jules. My parents keep telling me that we should be grateful."

"I am," she mumbles half-heartedly, and waits impatiently for him to get to the point of the call. She ignores the stirrings deep down that cause her to feel this way.

"Listen, I'm heading to Houston for a few days. The grandparents freaked out on my dad and want us to come see them."

"When?"

He pauses before answering and sighs. "Today. Right now, actually. We're already in the car."

"Oh."

"I'm sorry, doll; it was just flung on me, you know?" He lowers his voice to a covered whisper and says, "You know my mother."

Thankfully Stuart can’t see her face. She knows his mother, all right, and can certainly imagine how quickly she set to packing when she realized the twister was going to disrupt all of her normal social appointments and routine.

"No, I understand. When will you be back? Will you be here for…?" She stops.

"We'll be back later this week for the funerals."

"Funerals? Is there someone else you know that died?"

"Yeah, a lady who worked in dad’s office." Jules hears his mom say something in the background and Stuart sighs. "Hey, I'm in the car with my parents. Can I call you later so we can talk more?"

"Sure."

"Jules? Are you feeling okay today?" His voice finally displays a little more worry than it did previously.

"I'm fine, I've been sleeping. I'm not as dizzy today."

"Good. I'll call you tonight, ‘kay?"

"’Kay."

They hang up, neither of them saying ‘goodbye’ or ‘love you’, and Jules sticks her head under her pillow; falling back asleep again.