Forgiven (Ruined) (20 page)

             
Emmy shows up a few minutes later, bringing me a teddy bear and a potted plant as if I'm going to be here for a month.  I'm not even sure how she found out about it.  It's possible Emmy's psychic.  Just kidding.  I think.

             
The nurse shows up a little while later and forces everybody out.  They go unwillingly and I think unnecessarily since I'm not sick and don't need "my rest" no matter what the nurse says about shock and the aftereffects of adrenaline.
             

             
Until they're all gone and after about one minute of feeling lost, I sink down in the bed and feel exhausted.

             
Which is when Emmy slips back in.  "Just wanted to let you know.  I texted Dex at DCTV.  You're covered till you're back on your feet which they expect – "

             
"In about 15 minutes?" I ask.

             
She nods.  "That was the impression."  She turns, looks behind her, grins contritely and leaves.

             
The nurse shakes her head at me and follows Emmy, as if herding her.

             
Which is how Kellan gets back in, before the nurse has even gotten one room farther away.

             
I laugh.  It feels good to know there are people who don't want to leave me.

             
"I can't stay," he says.

             
"Yes, you can," I argue.

             
He eyes me.  "Well, I do have you in bed, which is nice, but – "

             
I roll my eyes.  "You could talk to me."

             
"That's what I came back for."  He leans over the bed and gives me a very long, very hot, very wonderful kiss.  "I came back to tell you I do too."

             
I know what he's saying.  But after what he's done the last few weeks, does he think he's going to get away with this?

             
I feign confusion.  "You do too what?"

             
"You know." 

             
"I hear the nurse coming."  I don't.  "You should tell me quick."

             
"You're impossible, you know that?"

             
"Yes.  Didn't you have something to tell me?"

             
"How do you know that wasn't it?"

             
"Because that could have waited.  Besides, I knew that."

             
He grins lazily at me.  I don't think it goes deep.  He's still tense, watchful, like he expects someone to come in and shove me out the window or something. 

             
I'm a little afraid myself.  I like having him here.

             
"The police will look for Stacee Jacobs.  Willow, I'm so sorry, I never – "

             
I put a hand on his mouth, because this time I really do hear the nurse.  "Kellan?"

             
His eyes find mine.  He looks deep at me, suddenly serious enough my fight or flight kicks in.  I'm not the girl for deep conversations.  I've been no more than surface deep for four years. 

             
I'm scared.

             
Kellan brushes my hair back from my face.  "I love you, Willow Blake," he says.

             
I'm scared.  But I can learn to get past it.  We can lean on each other.  We can learn to feel that everything isn't ruined after all.

             
I reach up and touch his face.  He kisses my palm.

             
From behind him the nurse says, "Visiting hours are
over
."  But she's smiling.

             
Kellan nods over his shoulder.  "Jealous, I suppose?" he asks so she can hear.

             
The nurse snorts.  "Come along, let her rest."

             
Because yes, I'm sure sleep will knit up the raveled sleeve of care.  And the broken bone of leg.  Not to mention there's no way I'm going to manage to sleep.

             
And the next thing I know, it's morning, bright sunlight is shining on the dazzling lino floor, and Reed Miller is standing at the foot of my hospital bed.

             
This is like some sort of dream, right?  A recurring dream that keeps changing, just a little each time.  As soon as I'm properly awake, I'll say something and Reed will accuse me of forgetting something I was supposed to do, and Kellan will appear out of nowhere, annoyed that Reed is there.  They'll stalk around each other like angry, possessive wolves and –

             
"Are you awake?" Reed asks.

             
"Sort of."  I might have been drifting there.  Whatever they gave me, it knocked me out but good.  "How did you get here?"

             
He tilts his head slightly and narrows his eyes.  "By car?"

             
"Funny.  I mean, how did you know to get here?"

             
He starts to answer, undoubtedly meaning to explain the directions, and I finally manage movement, shoving myself up in the bed, then holding a hand up to forestall him.  "I mean, how did you know I was here?"

             
He nods.  "Emmy told me."

             
Yeah, that's about right.  Why, though?  But I don't ask.  If Kellan and I are really going to get somewhere, it's time I'm unapologetic with Reed about being with Kellan and time Kellan understands that not all my friends will be female. 

             
Or maybe that's just the drugs talking.

             
Reed sits down in the chair next to the bed and studies me.  Because of course what I really want after I've hurried along hot city streets at sundown, run along the sidewalk, gotten shoved into traffic and hit by a car, and spent the night in hospital without benefit of toothbrush, hairbrush or makeup, is somebody to sit there and –

             
"You're beautiful in the morning," Reed says.

             
And render me speechless.

             
"Right," I say finally.  "Should journalists lie?"

             
He smiles, faintly.  "I came back to make sure you're all right.  Willow, I know you're with Kellan."  Only the slightest hesitation there.  Just enough time I can confirm or deny without being obvious he's waiting.

             
I relax back onto the now inclined bed and that seems to be enough to convince him.

             
"Right.  I get it.  I'd say I'm happy for you, but I'm not quite ready for that.  Instead, can I say I hope you'll be happy?"

             
I laugh.  Just a little.  "Not if you want to sound sincere."

             
He considers.  "I'll work on it.  In the meantime, the station looks great.  Your team is carrying on just fine."

             
I squint at him.  "I haven't been in a coma or anything?  It has only been one night?  During which they often get by without me?"

             
"Sarcastic little cat."

             
I smile benignly.

             
"What happened?" 

             
He stands beside the bed, as solid and intractable as the police had been.  I have the feeling he won't go away until I tell him everything. 

             
"Emmy told you what?"

             
"Emmy told me you got hit by a car and broke your leg."

             
I nod, making a moue with my mouth.  "No, I got hit by a car and getting hit by the car broke my leg."

             
He seems to be losing patience with that one.

             
"Someone has been stalking Kellan," I say, and as his eyes widen, I explain about the fallout I never expected from the forgiveness series.

             
When I finish, he's pacing, alternately staring out the window, staring nervously at the door as if he hopes very much to avoid anyone else coming to see me.

             
I agree.  I'd like to get through everything before the doctors or my family return.

             
The story strikes different listeners different ways.  Not just because they're different people but because they've been involved in the story in their own individual ways. 

             
For Reed, guilt isn't a second language like it is for me and Kellan. 

             
"Man, Willow, I never saw that one coming."  He slaps a hand against his leg, climbing out of the arm chair he'd fallen into moments earlier.  Runs a hand through his dark hair, turns to the window and then back to me.  "Did you?"

             
I grin goofily at him and then at my own leg where it lies in the cast.  "Not so much."

             
Reed rubs his hands over his eyes.  "It's just going to fire up the
violent games mean violent crimes
folks."

             
Squinting, I say, "Um.  What?"

             
He waves his hands.  "Freedom of speech.  Journalistic integrity.  Making a positive difference."  Long look at me.  "Versus somebody getting hurt."

             
"I'd do it again."

             
"She tried to kill you."

             
"She would have tried to kill Kellan otherwise."

             
"You don't know that."  He's staring out the window at that stellar view.

             
"I don't
not
know what, either.  She was hurt, angry, not the forgiving type.  Even if I'd never even thought to do this she'd have known who Kellan was and what he did.  She'd have known when he was getting out.  And she might have decided to kill Bruce.  Or Carmelita.  Her message was eye for an eye."

             
"Meaning not literally," Reed says.

             
"No, meaning literally.  Meaning, you took someone I love.  Now I'm taking someone you love."

             
That shifts our relationship.  I'd told him earlier.  He'd wished me well, or at least wished that he could.  But this one thing, one statement that wasn't about convincing him about Kellan, is the thing that's finally convinced him about Kellan.

             
I see his face change as he makes a decision. 

             
"Willow, I met someone." 

             
And that does surprise me. "The blond from the club?"

             
He looks almost like he doesn't remember who I'm talking about, convincing me more than ever that she was a cover that night, that he had come hoping we could somehow end up together.

             
Wow!  That sounds vain. 

             
"No.  Not the blond from the club.  Her name was Vivian."

             
"No one is named Vivian in the twenty-first century," I tell him.

             
"Um," he says to that non sequitur.  "Anyway, the girl I met, I haven't met yet."

             
Did they give
him
opiates?  "Come again?"  If he were Emmy he'd get a double entendre out of that one.

             
Reed blushes.  The way he did the day he stole my keys in math class so he'd have an excuse to meet me.  I want him in my life.  As my friend.  Kellan will have to deal.  So will Reed.

             
"I met her online.  Friend of a friend of a friend, through social media."

             
A few warning bells clang in my head, but no one would try to hurt Kellan through Reed, right?  New resolution: Get hold of the rampaging paranoia.

             
As if in answer, my leg gives a good throb.  Maybe not so paranoid after all.

             
Before I can ask him anything else, there's a sound from the hall outside my room.  Not the squish of nurse shoes or the tap of visitor shoes, not voices or a metal cart or bed wheels, but the irritating whine/click of a camera.

             
Our heads jerk around in time to see the man from the apartment building behind my house, the one who'd been standing with his camera the day Reed went back to Boston after he'd come down for the DCTV meeting at the station and stayed the weekend.