“I would like that a lot,” she whispered, and she could feel the muscles in his jaw moving against the top of her skull. Knew he was smiling.
While they stood like that, she watched her best friend and her oldest brother argue. It was comical, Ocean was easily six-foot-two, and big. Broad shouldered, broad chested. Zoey was a slip of a girl – so tiny, if she stood behind him, she'd be gone from view.
Ocean was quiet, and taciturn, and hated any kind of sassiness or attitude. Zoey was all attitude, and twice as much sass. Yet for some reason, they harmonized when they were together. Adele smiled at the thought.
They resonate.
“I'm cramping your style,” Adele sighed as she finally pulled away from her brother.
“What? You're the whole reason I came out tonight,” he told her. Adele rolled her eyes.
“Sure I am, and that blonde at the bar hasn't been making eyes at you this whole time.”
He didn't say anything at first, but when she looked back across the room, the blonde was wiggling her fingers at him. Adele gave him a Look, and he finally cracked a smile. Then he winked at her and walked off, joining the blonde for a drink.
Adele managed to slip away after that – August had found a group of fans to adore him. Zoey and Ocean were in it for the long haul, their argument shifting onto him being a pigheaded alpha male and her being a bitchy femnazi. River had his new friend. No one needed her.
What a depressing thought.
When she got back home, she was surprised to find Charlie moving around the apartment, and he smiled at her as he carried a stack of laundry into his room. His room – she never thought of it as “their room”. She didn't ask him what he was up to, just smiled back and went to her own room. Kicked off her shoes, then laid down in bed. Left the lights off and stared up at the ceiling.
What am I supposed to do? Who am I?
She was mired deep in those thoughts when she heard her door creak open. A slice of light fell across her bed, illuminating her legs.
“You okay, babe? Adele,” Charlie hastily corrected himself. She smiled at the endearment, but didn't look at him.
“Yeah.”
She could feel him hesitate in the doorway, then he moved into the room. She was a little surprised. He'd been beyond understanding and had given her more than enough space during her recovery period. He was also gentle in the way he treated her and spoke to her, but that was it, really. They didn't spend much time together anymore. A love turned stale had broken them up, and a four month coma had ended them for good. So when he sat down on the edge of her bed, she was caught off guard
“Sorry, I didn't mean to ... habit,” he apologized. She shook her head.
“No, don't be sorry. It's nice. I'm sorry I'm not ... not like how I used to be. I know this is all strange, and I should try harder to be ... to be ... normal. Nice. But I just ...” she let her voice trail off.
“Don't worry about any of that, just concentrate on being healthy,” he insisted, and she felt his hand rub up and down her shin.
“You're really amazing. I bet you're doubly glad we split up – now you can have a girlfriend who isn't broken,” she tried to joke. He didn't laugh.
“You're not broken.”
“I'm so broken I can't even be put back together.”
“Stop it,” he insisted, and his fingers squeezed tight around her leg. “You went through an incredible amount of trauma, and then you were unconscious for four months straight. You're alive, Adele. That's good enough for me. You could walk out that door tomorrow and never speak to me again, and I'd still just be thankful you're alive.”
The tears started again, but at least this time, they were silent. Just warm saline, moving over her skin.
“That's part of the problem,” she whispered.
“What?”
“I don't think I was alive.”
“Excuse me?”
She took a deep breath.
“I don't think I was alive. I think I was in Heaven. I was in Heaven, and I got to meet an angel, and now I'll never see either ever again.”
Adele started sobbing so hard she had trouble breathing. Sobbed hard enough that Charlie, her boyfriend from a former life, finally moved across the mattress and held onto her. It was a comfort because when one person holds another, it's comforting. But there was no feeling of love or security or faith in his arms.
It was just one stranger holding another while she suffered through an endless waking nightmare.
21
Adele walked down the hospital's entrance, pressing her fingertips hard against her forehead. A headache had started when she'd pulled into the parking garage, and now it was blossoming into migraine territory.
Great. First a coma. Then I wake up crazy. Now I probably have a tumor.
A few hours earlier, she'd been at the hospital for an appointment with her psychiatrist. It wasn't till after she'd gotten all the way back home that she'd realized she'd left her phone there. A quick call told her that she'd left it in a bathroom, and maintenance had turned it into the ICU nurses station – she could pick it up there.
Adele had spent four months in ICU, but had only spent a couple days awake in it, so she was unfamiliar with the area. She got turned around a couple times, going down the wrong hallways, and it was almost nine o'clock when she finally reached the station.
The hospital was fairly quiet, and a gaggle of people were behind the counter while a lone nurse leaned against the front of it, facing away from Adele. They were all laughing about something, completely unaware that a person had approached.
“Excuse me,” Adele sighed in a weary voice, stopping at the very end of the counter. “I was told my phone is here?” No one responded at first, and as they all erupted in laughter again, she faked a loud cough. Finally, one of the nurses noticed her and walked over.
“I'm sorry, did you need help?” she asked.
“Yes. My phone. I was told my phone was here, I lost it earlier today,” Adele managed to explain as the pressure behind her forehead increased.
“Hmmm, give me a second, I didn't hear anything about a phone. One moment,” the nurse said, then she moved around the area, checking in drawers and under paperwork. “Can you describe it?”
“It's a Samsung,” Adele's teeth were clenched together, her words coming out as a hiss. “Gold case. Picture of three guys on the screen.”
“Not seeing anything. You guys, anyone get a call about a missing cell phone?”
As the nurses all started to turn towards her, Adele dropped her head into her hands, rubbing her fingers around her temples. There was a chorus of voices saying no, they hadn't heard anything. Then one of them piped up.
“You were here earlier, Lund, did you hear anything about a lost phone?”
Adele wasn't sure why, but the name “Lund” sounded familiar to her. She started to lift her head at the same time whoever Nurse Lund was responded.
“Uh uh, but there was a code in room eighty-three, so I was gone for a while.”
There was a sharp ringing sound in Adele's ears. She gasped for air, but her lungs wouldn't cooperate. She knew that voice. A voice that had been her only salvation in a very dark place.
She lifted her eyes to look at the person who spoke, but her vision was blurring on her, turning everything into doubles. She managed to lock on to the employee ID tag hanging from his shirt pocket, and though it was blurry, she could still read “LUND” in large, blue, capital letters.
“I ... I ... I ...” she was still searching for oxygen.
“Are you okay, miss?” the male nurse asked her. His voice pierced through her mind like a gun shot. She winced at the sound of it.
“I ... I know you,” she finally managed to breathe at the same moment she looked him in the eye.
Time is such a funny thing. I just saw him six weeks ago, yet it feels like six years. Six millennia. How I missed him.
“I'm Johannes Lund, I'm a nurse here, I can ... oh my god. It's you! I can't believe it! I tried to find out you-”
Adele wanted to grab him and hold onto him and never let him go. She wanted to listen to him speak forever. Nothing else mattered. Just him and her and forever.
But this was Jones she was thinking about, of course it couldn't be easy. As she stared into his eyes and drank in his words, darkness closed in around her vision. Her headache turned into a runaway freight train, screaming through her brain. Just before she completely blacked out, she could hear everyone start to yell.
“She's fainting!”
“Get the cart!”
“Grab her! Grab her!”
Then arms wrapped around her, and the only voice she ever wanted to hear filled her head.
“I've got you, Adele. I'm with you. I've got you.”
22
Adele was running.
Running and running and running, yet she never seemed to get any closer to the shoreline.
She slowed to a walk. Turned in a circle as she moved, looking up and down the beach.
I know he's here. I know he's here. Somewhere.
But where was the sun? The sun was always up at the beach, and yet there was no sign of it today. Just heavy clouds, and in the distance, a hazy mist sat on the horizon. A stiff breeze kicked up, whipping her hair about her face.
She started running again.
“Jones!”
No matter how many steps she took, though, the ocean stayed the exact same distance away. So she turned and ran parallel to it, racing to her left.
“Jones!”
He's always here. Always. But so is the sun, and it's not here now ... what does that mean?
She turned again, throwing her hands up in frustration. She raked her hair away from her face, then started jogging in the opposite direction.
“Jones!”
She ran and she ran, and she yelled and she yelled.
And she never got anywhere.
ADELE WOKE WITHOUT opening her eyes. She held still for a long moment, trying to get a sense of her surroundings. A machine whirring. The sound of footsteps in the distance, the distinct squeak of rubber against linoleum. And a certain, familiar smell hung in the air.