Then her gaze wandered over the amazing dress she was wearing before turning to the other people in the room, taking in all the finery around her. It was bizarre – here she was, trapped in a Disney movie with no ending in sight, and she was obsessing over her outfit.
But Jones had made a very valid point. There were no doors. There was no waking up. So maybe she should just go with it. Stressing out was doing nothing but making her feel sick all the time. If she just went with the flow, maybe it would at least pass the time until she could figure out what exactly was going on.
“There you are.”
Jones' deep voice startled her and Adele whirled around, pressing a hand to her chest. As she stared up at him, she finally noticed how very like Prince Charming he looked. The dove colored pants, the fitted jacket. He even had on thick white gloves. Combined with his classic good looks, he was every inch the prince to her princess.
“Sorry, I was just ... I needed a moment,” she explained.
“Understandable. Come with me, let's get you something to drink,” he held out his arm to her, and she placed her hand on it before they made their way through the crowd.
A door that hadn't been in the opposite wall a few moments ago gave way to a back room. There was a punch bowl filled with lemonade and he got her a glass.
“I don't know what to talk about,” she finally admitted after a lengthy silence. “I don't know you, and I don't know anything about anything here.”
“That's okay. How about I help? Tell me about your boyfriend,” he suggested.
Adele froze for a second. Boyfriend? She had to think for quite a bit, but yes, she did remember that she had a boyfriend. Didn't she? The words didn't feel right in her brain. She frowned and looked into her cup, struggling to sort it all out.
“He's ... in Los Angeles, I met him there, I think. He's older than me, a little. Maybe four years? Five? God, this is awful! How can I not remember him clearly? It's like ... like I know he exists, but he's still not ... real. He's not my boyfriend,” she tried to explain and failed miserably.
“Maybe you don't want to think about him.”
“That's awful. I didn't realize I was an awful person.”
“No, that doesn't make you awful. Maybe he's awful. Maybe you were going to break up. Or maybe he proposed and you said no. Maybe you already broke up. Who knows? It's upsetting you, so forget it for now. How about your friends?”
She felt a little guilty, but Adele gladly grabbed onto the distraction. Getting used to purgatory being her new residence was hard enough; she didn't want to also wrestle with being an awful girlfriend.
She talked about her friend Zoey Blanke. The strange, sour girl Adele had been assigned to room with her sophomore year. Zoey scowled way more than she smiled, and had a razor sharp tongue which she never put a leash on. She was also the tiniest thing, a waif, standing at barely five-foot-one. It always cracked Adele up, seeing how shocked people would be at the voice coming out of such a small woman.
They'd become instant best friends and wound up rooming together all through college.
She regaled Jones with tales of the two of them. Adele teaching Zoey how to knit as a form of anger management. Zoey cursing out the Starbucks guy for always shortchanging them. He laughed at her stories, and in turn, told Adele about some of his own friends. A man who was a stunt actor in Hollywood. A woman who was a professional boxer. An elderly man who struggled with diabetes.
“I like people who are different,” Jones finally finished, after they'd been talking for what felt like hours. Or possibly years. Adele looked through the doorway, surprised to see the ballroom was still packed, all the dancers still in full swing.
“Clearly. They all sound really nice, maybe I can meet them someday,” she said, and she meant it. He smiled tightly at her and put down his cup.
“Maybe. And then there's Marigold. She's only eight, I ... I take care of her sometimes. She's very special. She's gonna grow up to be amazing, I just know it. Smartest kid in her class! We're talking future president,” he chuckled.
“That's so sweet, you babysit?” she asked.
“Something like that. Look, we've been here a long time. Want to get some air?”
“God, yes. I'm dying in this dress.”
He grabbed her hand, and she decided her no touching rule was silly anymore. They'd just sat and talked to each for what felt like half a lifetime – if he wanted to hold her hand, she wasn't going to stop him. She followed in his wake, instead.
There were still no doors in the ballroom, but magically, there was now a staircase along one wall. Jones rushed up it, forcing Adele into a jog. The stairs went on and on, circling the room in a wide spiral. Up and up, so high she was scared to look down. Then they came to a rounded door and he pulled it open before urging her ahead of him. She let go of his hand and stepped over the threshold.
It was a stone balcony. She leaned over the parapet, expecting to see the creepy little town beneath them, but it was gone. There were only rolling green fields, a couple streams, and in the distance, an impressive cliff jutting out over the land. Above them, the moon was so big and bright, it almost hurt to look directly at it. It was absolutely gorgeous.
“Jones,” she breathed his name. “Have you ever seen the moon look like that?”
“It's beautiful,” he sighed, and she felt him standing at her back.
“I think I died. I think I died, and this is heaven, or purgatory,” she told him.
“Look at the moon, Adele. How can you see the moon from heaven? Wouldn't you be looking down on it?” he asked. She frowned at his logic.
“That doesn't make sense. Look at it, it's so big! I feel like I could reach out and touch it.”
“Do it.”
Without a thought, she lifted her hands. She brought them together at her wrists, keeping her palms rounded, and she cupped them around the form of the moon. Then she felt Jones' hands on her arms. Sliding across the skin, over her gloves, and eventually covering her own hands. He put pressure on them, forcing them closer together, and she sucked in a gasp when she actually touched the moon.
She could feel it. The craters and the rocky surface, even through her gloves. Men and women had died to reach it, people had been dreaming about it for eons, and here she was, holding it in the palms of her hands. As if it belonged to her now.
Jones' hands stayed over hers, holding them in place. His body was now flush against her back, keeping her warm while the cold night air crept into her bones. She didn't mind him touching her, not at all now. In fact, it felt ... right. Like something they'd done before; something they'd been doing their entire lives.
“How is this possible?” she whispered.
“Anything is possible, Adele,” he whispered back.
“Anything?”
“Anything. Close your eyes.”
She closed her eyes.
“Now what?”
“Now open them.”
6
River stood on the back patio of a crowed bar. He glanced around, looking for his little brother. He usually wasn't hard to find – they were all over six foot, all broad shouldered, all sporting the same mop of wild brown hair. All had big laughs and eager smiles, and all had the same eyes that looked violet in most lighting. No one fitting that description seemed to be in the bar, though, so he went back to sipping his beer.
“Looking for a date, stud?” a voice inquired from behind him. He swiveled around.
“No, I'm -, oh, hey, Zoey.”
His sister's quirky little friend, Zoey Blanke, stood a couple feet away. Smoke from a lit cigarette curled around her body, making her look even more mysterious than usual.
Adele was now in her third month of the coma, with no sign of coming out of it anytime soon. The family had essentially moved to Los Angeles, with only August flying back and forth between Pittsburgh and L.A. because of his contract with the Penguins.
It wasn't so bad, though. River had gotten some temporary work at a construction site, and he liked the guys on the crew. He liked hanging out with Zoey, too. She fit right in with the Reins clan, rolling with the boys' overbearing natures and dishing their shit right back to them.
The first time they'd all met, a couple years ago, August had fallen in love with her for about half a minute, and River supposed he could understand why, though he thought of her more as another little sister. She was gorgeous, her big eyes a pale shade of brown that reminded him of whiskey. Her style was funky, her hair a wild bush around her head, and he'd never once seen her smile.
Not until that moment, at least; she flicked her cigarette onto a nearby ashtray trash can, then quirked up the sides of her lips before joining him.
“Taking a breather, huh?” she asked, putting her purse on an empty table near him. “It gets so crowded inside. I'd be out here, too, even if I didn't smoke.”
“I like being outside, being in the breeze. The heat here, it's a little intense for me,” he explained, joining her at the table.
“And it's intense over at the hospital, too, huh. Nice to get away for a night to yourself once in a while.”
He knew exactly what she meant, and he nodded before saying, “yeah, it's rough, but I'm actually meeting Auggie here.”
“August, huh. Should I leave?”
August's crush on Zoey had only lasted half a minute because when he'd tried to put the moves on her, she'd stubbed out one of her cigarettes on his hand.
“Nah, he's cool now. Last I heard, he was dating some cheerleader back home. Or the entire squad, I forget,” he assured her. She actually laughed, shocking him a little, and she moved onto a stool.
“Good, I guess. Everyone should try STD-roulette once. You guys having a boys' night or something? Who's with Adele?”
“Oh, Charlie, and Mom, I think.”
“That's good. Your mom really loves Charlie, huh,” she grumbled. River shrugged.
“I guess. You don't?”