TAG (35 page)

 Almost immediately, the phone rings. I stare at the caller ID for a second before I select
answer
. “Hello . . . ”

Chelsea sniffles into the phone, crying so hard she can hardly speak. “Is this Cali?” she asks weakly.

“Yes, this is she.”

“He just disappeared?” she asks.

“I don’t think he wanted me to see him sick. I think he was embarrassed.”

She laughs a little. “Yup, that sounds like Tyler. Always the hero.” She sighs. “When I ran into him in Nashville a month ago, he wouldn’t tell me much. He certainly didn’t tell me he was sick. I
didn’t ask questions, though. I knew whatever he was doing was for a reason,
and I’ve trusted him enough not to pry into his life. We were so close, Cali. So close. And then he had to go and join the Marines.”
She sniffles into the phone again. “You know it’s funny, he told me he carried a picture frame around with him with my picture in it. I’m his stupid little sister, not a girlfriend. But he said he carried it around because
he didn’t want to leave me. We were best friends. He said I was his motivation to make it home.” I hear her crying quietly into the phone, so I give her a minute. I remember seeing him look at a
picture in his bag the first night we were in the apartment in Massachusetts. “I’m sorry, I think I’m kind of in shock right now,” she says.

“I can understand. I know this was out of the blue, and maybe
you would have never known . . . but I thought you should know. My sister was taken from me at nineteen, and we had a similar
relationship
to what you’re describing.” I’ll spare her the details. “You’re not
alone. I feel your pain.”

“Thank you for letting me know, and thank you for sending me his message.”

“Absolutely. I’ll hold on to his phone, so, feel free to call if you ever want to talk.”

I hear her breathy sobs again. “Thanks again. I will.” Then I hear a click.

Now that I’ve started my day off even more miserable than I have for the past couple of weeks, I sit up, noting the time. It’s nine o’clock and an aroma is suddenly pulling me up from the bed. It smells so damn good in here again. Every morning, it’s like a wake-
up call. I pull my sweatshirt over my head and walk around the corner into the tiny kitchen.

“Hi,” I say quietly, looking over his shoulder into the frying pan.

“Hungry?” he asks.

I nod my head, because even after my four-course dinner last
night,
I’m starved again. Landon and Sasha work at the same local
restaurant. He’s the chef, and she’s the boisterous hostess. They aren’t officially together, only friends as she says. Although I’m pretty sure he sleeps over every night. I haven’t actually seen him arrive, but he’s here making breakfast every morning, so I’m not sure who she’s fooling.
He’s totally her type—on-purpose messy beach blond hair, dark eyes, soft-spoken and kind. He has a passion for cooking, or as it
seems, an
obsession. I won’t complain about the food part of all this. But as always, with each bite of food I place into my mouth, a tinge of guilt
washes through me when I think about Tango and Mom most definitely not eating the way I am.

I still regret letting them go. I shouldn’t have left their sides. I
should have fought for them. Having him in my life for such a short period of time made such an impact on me and now I have to realize how temporary he was, and how I need to move on from him. I’m supposed to be numb to heartache by now, but I did it to myself
again.

“Morning, love bugs.” Sasha meanders into the kitchen,
stretching
each arm slowly across her chest. Her hair is tousled into a curly mess, and I laugh a bit, noticing how little she cares about her
appearance in front of Landon. Even if her hair was lying perfectly across her shoulders, she’s still sporting purple flannel pajama bottoms and a stained university sweatshirt. Although, looking down at myself, she looks like she’s ready for dinner and dancing compared to the way I appear—but I’m not trying to attract anyone here.

Sasha sits down in the chair beside me and allows her eyes to
linger on Landon’s backside as he flips the last round of bacon. Her elbow plops down on the table and her chin falls into her fist.
“You’re too good to me, Landon,” she says.

He twists his head around and raises one eyebrow while giving
her a slight smirk. “I know,” he retorts. Landon’s smirk is purposeful to get a reaction out of Sasha, and it makes my chest hurl with jealous pain.

Landon decorates a plate with a heaping spoonful of scrambled
eggs, bacon, and homemade hash browns, and serves it to Sasha
whose
tongue is nearly hanging out of her mouth. Then he hands me a
plate, as well.

“I think I understand this arrangement thing,” I say. “You like to
cook,” I point my fork at Landon, “and you like to eat,” I pucker my
lips at Sasha.

“Precisely,” she confirms.

“But you two are definitely sleeping together.”

Sasha’s eyes burn into mine as her cheeks explode with redness. This is exactly what she did to me when I introduced her to Tango. Payback is such a bitch.

Landon drops the frying pan into the sink then pulls a dishrag off the stove bar and cleans his hands off thoroughly. “On the contrary, we’ve been sleeping together every night for the past four
weeks. You could probably just say that my cooking is the icing on the cake.” He gives her a devilish grin and winks, making him look quite sultry for the innocent looking gentlemen I took him for only moments ago.

Sasha’s head falls into her hands, hiding the spreading rosy warm color curling around the backside of her ears. “It’s true,” she
mumbles into her muffled hands. “I mean, look at him.” She removes one of her hands from around her face and gestures to Landon like a game show host.

“Well, that makes me happy. She needed to get laid. Bad,” I
rumble with forced laughter.

The motion of laughter causes my stomach to churn, forcing a
nauseating feeling up through my esophagus. Ugh. What the hell? I curl over, clutching at my stomach and clamping my eyes shut, hoping to tune out the queasiness. And while the motion of losing my breakfast subsides, a strange numb feeling spirals up the side of my body and I’m not sure what to make of it. I want to ignore it, but the room is spinning in slow circles . . .

Everything is muted and numb . . .

Breaths are short, skin is cold, head is heavy, and . . .

CALI

OH SHIT.
Oh Fuck. No. No. No.

White walls, white sheets, ammonia, machines, beeping, and a woman dressed in white. What am I doing here? Why am I in a hospital? Where’s Sasha?

“Good morning,” an overweight, mannish looking woman says
in a very deep voice. “Have a nice nap?” She lifts my wrist between
her fingers and checks for my pulse. “Don’t worry, hon, you’re going to
be fine. We think you might have some kind of head trauma or
possibly an ocular headache.”

“A what?”

“It could be caused by a variety of things. Have you hit your head recently or done anything out of your normal routine? We
found a pretty intense wound on your thigh as well,” she says while pulling the clipboard out of a bin.

“I fell on a garden tool in the backyard last week. That’s what the wound was from. But other than that, nope, work and home,” I say.

“Hmm. Well then—“ She taps the tip of the pen firmly down
onto the clipboard, clicks it, and shoves it into her black web of hair. “The doctor will be in to speak with you soon.”

 “Can I leave?”

She snorts with laughter and says, “We wanted to rouse you before we started with the blood work and tests. Those have to be done first, and if everything checks out okay, you’ll be free to go.”
She presses a
couple of colorful buttons on the wall above my head and turns to leave. “Another nurse will be in shortly for the blood work and to
take you for an MRI.” And with that she is gone.

I have to find a way out of here. My eyes scan the room
searching
for my clothes, for anything that will conceal my ass from hanging out of this thin, pale blue gown. There is nothing by the bed or the window and I’m about to wrap this goddamn sheet around me and
make a beeline for the front entrance.

I sit myself up and drop my hospital sock covered feet to the
ground. I wrap the sheet around myself like a toga and walk over to the long dresser sitting beneath the window. I open each drawer,
hoping to
find something to wear, but all I find are portable toilet bowls, latex gloves, and a spare set of blankets. I slam the drawer shut with frustration as a hand presses down over my shoulder. It startles me
and I turn around, hoping I didn’t miss my opportunity to escape.

“Sasha? What happened? Why am I here?”

“Cali, you passed out cold at the kitchen table. Landon called 9-1-1. The ambulance came and took you away. I followed you to the hospital. I don’t know anything more than that.”

“I wish you wouldn’t have let him call 9-1-1. I don’t want to be here.”

“Well, something made you pass out cold, Cali. It could be
serious,” she says, looking at me with large eyes.

“Please take me back to your house,” I beg.

She tries to pull me back to the bed, and as I start walking, I notice a bag of my clothes on a table near the door. “You need to
calm down. Everything is going to be fine. But I am worried about you and I’m not taking you home until they give you whatever blood tests they want you to have. I’m sorry.”

I glare at her for a minute, completely pissed off. But she doesn’t flinch. She crosses her arms over her chest. “I love you. And I’m taking care of you. Get back in that damn bed and stop acting like a brat.”

I do as she says, not because she scares me, but because I have no energy to fight with her. I still don’t feel great.

She sits in the chair next to my bed and flips through her phone for the next half hour while we wait for the doctors or nurses to come back.

***

It’s been two hours since they’ve taken my blood. I’ve cooperated
nicely, and I would really like some answers so I can get the hell out
of
here. With a knock at the door, I sit up in the bed and wait for
someone to come in with some news. A nurse walks in with a clipboard and sits down to give me the facts.

“It’s not as bad as it could have been,” the nurse says with a smile.

CALI

E
IGHT
M
ONTHS
L
ATER

I’VE PICKED UP
the pieces to the best of my ability. I can’t understand how someone can make such a large impact on my life after only
three
weeks and cause me so much pain and heartache for months to
follow. Maybe it’s because we weren’t given a fair chance. But life clearly doesn’t care about fairness. Although, one of the doctors who helped me in the hospital months back was finally able to remove the bullet
from my shoulder. Life threw me a bone, I suppose. The doctor said it had worked its way closer to the surface and further away from
my
artery. They thought it could have been one of the reasons for the
ocular headache they determined I had. But the headache could have been
caused from a variety of other things too. Whatever the case, my
bodily pain is now manageable and I’m off painkillers.

I’ve been working for a laborer placement company for the past seven months. Sasha’s dad had a connection and helped me get into a human resources position here. They’ve put me through training and they’re financially helping me work through the last few college
courses I need in order to earn my degree. The pay is great and the benefits are fantastic. It’s exactly where a girl my age should be. I
want
to forget about the last four years of my life, but that would mean closing the door on my entire family and Tango. And that door will
always remain open.

I don’t think Mom and Tango made it out of wherever they were. I’ll never know if they were killed or died on their own. I
sometimes think it’s better off that I don’t know the truth.

It’s been quiet at the office today and I’ve had my personal email
inbox open on my screen for the past couple of hours. Sasha and I send emails back and forth to each other throughout the day. It makes the
day go by quicker I suppose. I clicked on all the spam mail and
dumped
them in the trash, leaving me with only one unread e-mail, which
I’ve been staring at for the past ninety minutes.

Krissy’s last e-mail that she sent to me the day she was killed.

When I see her email sitting there all alone, I normally click out of the screen, but today would have been her birthday, so for her, I’m opening it. As I click on the e-mail, my heart hammers against my ribcage so fast, I feel a bit dizzy. But I continue on, knowing I’ve
already done the hardest part and clicked open.

Cali!!!