Heartsick (24 page)

Chapter Forty-Nine

Sally makes Conrad take me home, but only because I refuse to go to the hospital. What are they going to do for me that my own body can’t do in the next few hours?

“I’m surprised Sally forgave Natalie,” I say as we walk, swirls of smoky smells trailing us.

“I bet it wasn’t easy. But Sally knows Natalie has had a rough time of things lately.”

“Do you think Sally will try to get Luke to drop the charges?” I ask.

“What do you mean?” Conrad asks.

“Well, she forgave Natalie, so...”

Conrad stops in the path. “Quinn, forgiveness is a powerful thing, but it’s not necessarily the same as absolution. You can forgive someone for hurting you while still seeking justice.” He puts his hand on my shoulder and looks down at me. “You know that, right?”

I scratch my cheek and look away from him. “No, I hadn’t thought about it like that.”

He squishes my shoulder. “‘If you hold anything against anyone, forgive him.’ Mark 11:25.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I say, and try to twist away, but he won’t let go.

“‘Learn to do good. Seek justice, correct oppression.’ Isaiah 1:17.”

I stare at him, palms sweating. I study him for a long time, healthy irises swimming. “What are you trying to get at, Conrad?”

“What, a gay guy can’t spout bible verses?”

I tilt my head.

He sighs. “I can tell you have something, tight, in here.” He points to my heart. “Don’t let more things fester there. ‘The truth will set you free.’ John 8:—”

“I get it.” I smile. I swallow and shut my eyes to keep the moisture in. He pulls me into a hug.

“I have a feeling you’ll be okay. And if you’re not, I have a lot more bible verses stored in my noggin.”

I laugh into his shoulder. “How many do you know?”

“Enough to impress closeted Christian guys.”

I giggle. The rest of the way, he entertains me with stories of the three times his recitation of bible verses have earned him kisses. My sides hurt from laughing by the time I get home.

I text Luke: Home safe. No response.

It’s time.

I slip off my shoes and pad along the floorboards toward Mandy’s room. My fingers trace the walls as I journey farther and farther, toward the threshold. My heart beats feverishly, it pulsates against my stomach.

My feet are warm along the hardwood. Gentle moans that announce my presence. Well, they would if anyone else was here to hear them. As no one is, I might as well not exist.

I turn the corner and look into Mandy’s room. The chaos disturbs me again. Like focal points in a painting, I dart to the spray of pencils across the carpet. I see the open closet door with sweaters half torn from hangers.

I force myself to look once again at the high corner shelf. Every part of my foot clings to the ground at each step. I climb on the bed. It feels playful, despite the mood I’m in. I reach for the dusty corner shelf where Wisey used to be. Where Wisey should be. I don’t know if I really expected to find something there, but feeling the postcard doesn’t surprise me.

It seems inevitable. I know what the image will be before I see it. The girl walking along the beach. A girl who seems invincible, but wasn’t.

I flip it over. Mandy’s flowing writing is simple, succinct. “I’m sorry. I thought he’d live.”

Waves come at me from every angle.

I run a finger along the child walking down the beach. The gray sky so calm. The tumultuous ocean so endearing.

I rub the postcard against my lip. I stand there for a long time, making little noises. Danny’s frozen purple eyes slip in and out of my thoughts and shivering sweat emerges along the nape of my neck. The bottle. The night I first brought Luke home. The streaks of blood on Mandy’s arm. It wasn’t an accident. It was Mandy’s first experiment. Danny was her second.

Chapter Fifty

I kneel on my couch and peer out the window. The street is pretty dead these days, so when I see the headlights brightening the gravel, I stay still. Chest tight.

He gets out of his car slowly and rubs the back of his neck as he approaches. I leap up and run to the door. I burst it open just in time to see him look up and smile.

His pace quickens. His hand goes to my waist, pulling me in. The other hand glides along my neck, his face crumbling in worry. “I wanted to check on you, but we had to get Natalie to the station first.”

“It’s okay, I’m fine,” I say as I carefully push back his bloody sleeve. He closes his eyes and winces. Now it’s my turn to give the worried expression. “But you’re not.”

He shakes his head as he guides me across the threshold and we close the door. “I’ve known Natalie since she was a kid. It’s just weird to think she was capable of that.” He puts his hands on his belt and stares at the ceiling.

I stare at his gun, still fastened at his side. I step toward him. “It’s hard to know what people are capable of.”

He twists his mouth and his eyes narrow at the cut on my throat. He takes my hand and pulls me to the kitchen. “Let’s clean that up. Magical healing disease or not, I don’t like seeing blood drip on your neck.”

“Fair enough,” I say.

I support myself with the kitchen table as he wets a cloth. He leans over me, pressing the warm cloth to my throat. “I’m sorry I had to use the gun.” His voice is deep but airy. Little breaths of thoughts. “That must have been hard for you.” He keeps his questioning eyes on mine as his hands tend to my wound.

“I wasn’t afraid of the gun,” I say.

“I wouldn’t have shot you,” he says.

“No, not if Natalie kept pressing the glass deeper?”

He shakes his head and grins. “I’m not saying I wouldn’t have fired, if it was necessary, I’m saying I wouldn’t have hit you.”

Luke sets the cloth down and takes both my shoulders. He’s still grinning. “I’m a really good shot.” He cocks his head and lets a delicious canine tooth glimmer. God I love his side smiles. Water trickles down my neck. I touch the liquid as it runs against my skin. I pull my fingers away. They’re slippery, but not bloody. I’m healing.

I reach to his shirt and unbutton it slowly, revealing the cuts on his skin. He watches my face as I undo each button. His chest rises faster and faster, the breaths come quicker the farther down I go. When I’m done, I pull the tucked-in fabric from his pants and push the ends of his shirt away from his pelvis. I meet his penetrating gaze. “Lie down. I’ll clean you up too.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he says. He looks over his shoulder as he heads to the bedroom. I run warm water over another cloth. The water feels good against my skin before it swirls down the drain.

I walk into my bedroom and squish next to Luke, who is sprawled across my comforter like a flying squirrel. I rub the cloth over his bloody chest. The water removes the red easily, and the skin underneath is almost healed. “When do you have to get back?”

Luke stares at the ceiling, the collage I made with my uncle. “Tomorrow,” he says, gruff. “Another detective is questioning Natalie. The chief thought I should go home, calm down.”

“Calm down?” I ask. Luke sits up, legs still sprawled on the bed. Kneeling next to him, my hands glide over his shoulders and push his shirt off.

“I hated that she hurt you,” he says, muscles twitching in his jaw as he stares straight ahead. “I was shaking as I drove to the station. I could barely handle even that.”

I focus on rubbing the warm cloth over his arm. I shake my head and try to hold back tears. “I hate that she hurt
you.
”

He cups my cheek, his fingers curling around the back of my jaw, under my ear. His lips close in over mine. His nose floats over my face as I drop the cloth and hold his scruffy jaw in my small hands. Our mouths connect over and over as though the briefest separation is unbearable.

Finally, I move my fingers to his waist. I run them along his belt buckle.

“Quinn—” He stops my hand. He looks down, shaking his head. A strange smile occupies his face. “I’m an idiot for saying this, but I can’t...” He bites his lip. I touch my feet, which are under me. My body practically vibrates.

“What’s wrong?”

The light flickers off his purple irises. “I thought I could handle you. I thought I could see you on your terms, no boyfriend-girlfriend shit. But...” He folds my hands into his. “When we fight, or when I don’t think I’ll see you again, I...” He sighs, and his shoulders shrink. “I need you.”

I nuzzle next to him, my cheek next to his. Warmth splays across my muscles. I thought the closer we got, the more my chest would tighten, the more I’d feel like I was hugging myself in a small box. But now, his skin, his warmth, it makes me feel powerful. It makes me feel like I could run all over town in quick, freeing bursts. “I need you too,” I whisper.

I pull back, slowly, but his hands envelope my cheeks and his lips press to mine. He kisses me again, but this time it’s like he’s been waiting to kiss me his whole life. Urgent. Feverish. I kiss back. Devouring. I have wanted him for so long. I just didn’t know it.

His hands fall from my face and move to my dress. I slide off the bed and stand in front of him as he sits. The outside of my standing knees brushing against the inside of his sitting knees. His fingers move under my dress, up my thighs, over my hips, up my back and to my shoulder blades. He licks his lips as I raise my arms. I giggle from the tickling sensation his thumbs spur as they move under my arms to get my dress off. He grins and tosses the dress in the corner before pulling me to him. He undoes my bra. He rubs his lips against my breastbone before his mouth meanders to even more fun parts of my chest. My breasts are a willing playground for his tongue.

He stands and lightly pushes me onto the bed. I wait, propped up on my elbows, as his pants join my crumpled dress in the corner. The pile is soon completed with my underwear. A jumbled mess of cloth next to our jumbled mess of bare skin and excited body parts.

His rough hands flow all over me. He’s concentrating, as though he will have to give an oral report on my body later. He makes me tingle in clandestine places. He climbs on top of me, purple eyes luminous and desirous. “You have no idea how much I want you.”

I reach for his rather ready member. “I think I do.” He shifts and groans into my neck, gushing hot breath on my skin. Warmth sprinkles up my spine as we start, well, you know. He smells like grass and leaves and I can’t help pressing my nose into his strong shoulder as he thrusts. The moans in the back of his throat just make me more insane. We flip around and jive and move. We frolic in the small world of the bed.

As the friction builds, my fingers press into his police-trained arms. The heat burns through me. My spine curves, my head presses into the mattress. All the fire centers on that one fervent spot. And then it pleasantly dissipates. I close my eyes and murmur something only angels could understand. When I open them, he stares at me. “That was beautiful,” he says. He moves slower now. It’s even better. As the heat splays across me again, his mouth opens. His stomach presses into mine as he dives into an intense arch, neck strained, face tense.

He takes a few breaths, his chest moving above me. My smile can’t be tamed. I can’t be tamed. Not when it comes to Luke. He falls next to me, enveloping me with legs and arms. It’s the same position, the all-encompassing spoon that he did to me in the field. But this time it feels tender, not suffocating. Warm, not heated.

His lips brush against my ear. “We should really do that again sometime.”

Chapter Fifty-One

Luke breathes next to me, his bare body twisted in my sheets. It’s creepy of me to watch him sleep, but watching him, for just a little bit, makes me feel safe. His chest rises and falls. Its smooth now, healed. His arm is fine too. I glide my fingers along my neck. No wound persists.

I stare at the collage on my ceiling. My uncle and I made the man and the girl using images from a spectrum of magazines. The darkest pieces were saved for the long shadows. My uncle used to say we could hide in those shadows. In the shadows you’re safe. You’re safe from every mistake. You’re safe from all your fears. All your faults. No one can find you, no one can see you. No one can hurt you. Whatever you did, whatever shame you have, it’s hidden in the shadows.

I told Mandy that. Sometimes we’d lie on my bed, after a night out or in the morning when she wanted to talk but I didn’t want to get out from under my comforter. We’d stare at the collage. Safe in the shadows.

Mandy’s in the shadows now. Outside the quarantine, with the help of some not-so-vigilant state troopers and some roofies. She’s anonymous. On the run. She’s safe from her dad. She’s safe from the law. For now. She ran from her shame, her guilt.

I forgive her. I do.

But I can’t protect her this time. I have to think of Danny. I have to think of the greater world out there, beyond the quarantine.

I turn to Luke. I rub his shoulder until his purple eyes crack open, and he stretches, sleepily. His hands reach for my hips, and he pulls me across the sheets until our bodies are close. “What is it, baby?”

“I have to tell you something.”

Epilogue

Conrad and I crunch along in the snow. I nod to the mayor as she walks by. “Merry Christmas, Quinn.”

“You too,” I say.

“Be sure to tell your parents I said hello.”

“I will, the next time I call them.”

She rubs her mittened hands together before passing us.

“Are they staying in Japan for Christmas?” Conrad asks.

“Yeah,” I say. They went back about a month ago, when I finally convinced them that staying at a motel outside the quarantine wasn’t doing anybody any good. This is our first Christmas apart. No caviar, which I won’t miss. No popcorn strings, which I will miss.

“What are you going to miss the most, you know, not going home for Christmas?” I ask Conrad.

He rubs his nose and stares into the snow. “How my mom wraps the gifts from Santa in white and my dad actually roasts chestnuts over the fire.” He puts his arm around me, hugging my cold body close. “But it’s time for new traditions.”

I twist too much to smile up at him and—in the effort to save the apple pie I’m carrying—I slip into a blast of snow. My bum is sore, but the rest of me shakes in laughter, along with Conrad.

He takes the apple pie first—priorities—before helping me up.

When we get to Luke’s house, I don’t knock. That would be weird. I just open the door and Conrad and I shuffle into the front hall, relieving ourselves of scarves and gloves and coats. Ginger dashes out from the kitchen to fuss about how the dogs, who swarm around our knees, should calm down.

“They’re fine,” Conrad says, giving the youngest one, Riley, a pat.

We head to the kitchen where Rachel stirs some potatoes and looks at her phone. “They made progress with the vaccine. They think it might be ready in just a few months.”

Conrad and Ginger sigh simultaneously, and Rachel and I share a look. We know what’s coming.

“Why would someone want to vaccinate themselves against this?” Ginger slouches, hands out.

“I know, it’s a gift from God,” Conrad says, his now purple eyes glistening with all the blessings he’s experienced.

“They’re talking about it being a voluntary vaccine, maybe,” Rachel says. “And, anyway, the sooner they make the vaccine, the sooner we can stop being stuck. I’m worried about this rationing talk.”

Ginger shakes her head. “No, the mayor promised to take care of us. We won’t be deprived. I believe her.”

“Me too,” I say.

“So you’re happy just staying here?” Rachel asks, brow furrowed.

I curl my fingers over one of the kitchen chairs and look at my feet.

“Quinn...”

“Yeah, I don’t know,” I say. “Obviously I don’t want to be trapped. But sometimes the things that you think will confine you, actually expand you.”

Conrad smiles. “Oh, that’s good. Can I use that later?”

I punch his shoulder gently as he grins.

With just the slightest noise coming from the front door, the previously lackadaisical dogs bolt to the entrance as a unit. Claws scrape against the linoleum as they pound toward the door. Luke. Following the dogs, I find him in the foyer, red cheeks below his five o’clock shadow. He crouches so he can be awash in snouts and tongues and fur, and he smiles up at me. “Hey beautiful,” he says, nodding his head to the back door as he tries not to fall over from the force of four wagging tails. “Want to help me take them out?”

I get my coat as he whistles and says, “Pees and poops, pees and poops, pees and poops.” The dogs frenzy and rush. I giggle.

Luke opens the back door. They spring out, swishing past his legs. “I would tell them to politely and gracefully use the facilities, but they wouldn’t understand that.”

“Pees and poops,” I say between hot laughs as we walk back into the cold.

“You can’t get over that, can you?” he says, side grin in full force.

We walk through the pristine snow, which is gradually becoming less pristine thanks to four dogs and their yellow creations.

Luke crosses his arms. Flakes rush against my cheeks. The world is eerie, quiet. It’s time for me to ask. He knows it. He’s waiting for it.

“Any news?”

And, just like every time before, his eyes crinkle, his chin stiffens. “No.”

I nod. No news is good news. Mandy is hiding. She is safe.

The three older dogs pounce back, ready to get back inside. It’s cold. But Riley has found a stick and insists on wrestling with it in the snow.

“Come on Ri-bear,” Luke calls. No response. He whistles. Riley looks up, but only for a moment, before lunging her jaws back around the unwieldy stick.

“Go in,” I say. “I’ll hang out with her.”

Luke scratches his chin. “I guess she just needs a little space.”

“Yes,” I say. “But soon she’ll want to come inside and be by the fire.”

He pulls me close, his hands pressing against my back, his warm breath spreading against my ear. “I’ll be waiting for you.”

“I know.”

* * * * *