The Honor Trilogy: Books One, Two, and Three of the Honor Trilogy (47 page)

“Ahem.” Ethan clears his throat, reminding us that he is still there.

Storm backs away with a smug expression on his face.

“I’m sorry, Eeth. I didn’t...”

“Don’t apologize. I just didn’t want to watch this sappy display of affection.”

It occurs to me that before my most recent hospital stint, Ethan was trying to get me to be his girlfriend. Now I feel bad about looking at Storm the way I did in front of Ethan. “I am sorry though, Ethan.”

“It’s fine,” he says standing from his chair. “I should be going anyway.”

“Nooo. You can’t. We didn’t even talk about what happened when everyone saw you heal Storm. The government. What about the media? They had to be after you. Tell me, Ethan. What happened?”

Pulling the chair closer to the bed, Ethan looks at Storm. “It
ain’t good,” he says. Looking at me, he says, “But it’ll be okay. I’m working things out.”

“Really?” I ask, hopeful. Only because I don’t want to lose hope do I believe him when he says he’s working things out.

“Really. And as for the media, well, the government put an end to that right away.”

“The government? So they’ve already talked to you?”

“Yeah. They have.” His voice sounds so serious now.

“Are they going to take you away?” I ask, scared I’ll never see him again.

Shaking his head, Ethan answers, “Not the way you think, Honor. I promise. I’m going to be okay. I’m just glad they got to me before they came back for you.”

“Why? They came to me first. You shouldn’t have to be involved.”

“Honor,” Storm cuts in. “You’re too weak for them right now. Ethan’s a good alternative. Besides, he can bring people back to life too. They don’t know that you can do that, so let’s just keep that quiet. Okay?”

“No. It’s not okay,” I say. “Why should Ethan pay for something that I started?”

“
You
did not start this, Honor. I did. By coming here and alerting them to the fact that you existed. Your parents…Hanna and Daniel…did what they thought would be the best way for you to stay hidden. And Mr. and Mrs. Stevens continued that privacy. I’m just trying to correct a wrong that I made. I wronged you, Honor, and now I’m trying to make it right.” Ethan stands again, this time more abruptly. “I gotta go.” He covers his face with his whole hand. I think he’s trying to hide the fact that he’s crying. But I know better. And it’s not because I can
feel
it. I just know Ethan well. He’s too proud to let me know this bothers him.

Storm gets up to walk him out. I can’t help but feel sad for Ethan. His life is going to change, especially with the government on his back. I wish I could do something for him, but I could barely do anything for myself right now.

“He’ll be fine, Honor. Don’t let this hurt you.” Storm sits back down on the bed, this time up at the headboard. “You can’t start straining your heart feeling other people’s pain anymore.”

“Storm?”

“Yeah?” He drapes his arm around me, and I lean my head into his shoulder.

“I don’t think I
can
feel other people’s pain anymore.”

Pulling away from me to look at my face, Storm says, “What? Really? Like, you’re not an empath anymore?”

I shrug. “I don’t think so,” I say quietly. I think back to when I’d first woken up after the surgery. I remember feeling different. Not as burdened.

“Hmmm. Just like what happened to me,” Storm muses. “I wonder if it has to do with your new heart or the fact that you were actually…dead…on the operating table.”

“Dead?” I cringe when I say that word.

“Sorry, princess, I meant…well, shoot, that’s exactly what I meant. I died and when you brought me back, my empath stuff was gone. I thought you healed it out of me, but maybe once I died, it just died along with me.” Storm shrugs. “Maybe that’s what happened to you.”

“So.., all we have to do to get rid of our abilities is die?”

“As long as there’s someone there to bring us back to life, sweetness.”

Leaning my head back down on Storm’s shoulder, he squeezes me tight. “I’m glad you’re alive, princess. So glad.” The kiss he plants on the top of my head is just sweet enough to put me to sleep.

During my slumber, my heart grows warm and I get this overwhelming urge to eat a cinnamon roll. The kind you pop out of a
can and bake in the oven. I don’t think I’ve ever had them in my life, yet I can taste the sticky sweetness on my tongue. My mouth waters and I wake up ravenous.

“Good nap, princess?” Storm’s warm breath blows at the top of my head.

“Yes, but I’d really like those cinnamon rolls right now.”

“What? You never eat sweets.”

I push my hair out of my face and shift to face Storm. “I know. Isn’t that crazy? I, like, dreamed about them."

Shaking his head and laughing, he stands from the bed. “Well if that’s what you want, that’s what you’ll get. Besides, your mother said when you woke, she needed to take your blood pressure and give you your medicine, so I’ll run to the store while she does that. Want anything else?”

“Yeah. A bottle of cream soda.” Surprising myself, I blurt out, “Geez, why all the cravings for sugar?” before I adjust myself to lean back against the headboard.

“I don’t know, princess. You’re sweet enough, though.”

I laugh and grab the People magazine that mom had put on the end table.

Flipping through the pages, I learn that yet another celebrity is vacationing on some exotic island. Naturally, this brings me back to
my
island vacation and the plane crash. Though I haven’t thought of that crash in a while, I’m suddenly drawn to the image of the devastated mother who was screaming for her burning daughter. My instinct is to reach out and hug her and tell her it will all be all right. But it
is
all right. I
saved
her daughter. My eyes were witness to the restoring of each and every burn on her body. Her eyes opened white and healthy.

So why do I want to cry for this mother? After feeling no one’s pain since my surgery, why am I suffering inside for this mother?

Mom enters the room with our new portable blood pressure machine.

“Mom. Do you remember that mother and daughter from the plane crash? The daughter who was burned from the engine that caught fire?”

“Yes. What about her?” Mom’s cool hand touches my skin as she wraps the band around my upper arm.

“I don’t know. I just…I’m thinking about the mother. I’m feeling something.” My heart sinks into my stomach a little. “I guess my empath stuff’s coming back.” My words taper off.

“Oh, Honor. You need to fight those feelings.” Mom stops taking my blood pressure. Her expression takes on that of someone very exhausted from worry. “Please, honey. Please try to ignore them.”

Nodding, I appease her. “I will, Mom.”

Ignoring that mother’s suffering is not an option. Three days have passed since she and her daughter entered my consciousness. The heaviness of my heart devoured any happiness I had about my physical recovery. Though my body was growing stronger by the minute, my heart felt strained again. The symptoms were not reminiscent of before, when my heart and body both deteriorated at the same speed.

Of course, explaining any of this to mom would just gnaw at her sanity, leaving her shredded and wounded. So I talk to Storm.

“And you don’t
feel
anyone else’s emotions? Not mine or your mom’s or dad’s?" Storm is trying to help me sort through this.

“No. Not like that. It’s so strange. I just keep getting these flashes of the two of them. Like an accident, but they are not on a plane.” I pause to collect my thoughts. “Actually, the accident only involved the girl. I keep seeing the mom at her side in the hospital.” I run my finger over my bottom lip. “I see her like I saw my own mom sitting next to me when I was lying in the hospital bed…back when I, you know, came out of my body.”

“Hmm.” He scratches his temple. “It could be…”

I interrupt him. “Maybe I’m just hallucinating from these drugs I have to take.”

Storm nods. “Or…did they give you any information about whose heart they gave you?”

Snapping my eyes wide, I say, “No. I don’t want to know.” The thought of knowing whose heart is beating inside me scares me. If my empath abilities come back, and I know the name of the person who lost their life so I could live, I don’t think I could ever smile again. I’d carry that around with me forever. My chest burns thinking about it.

“Honor. I know this may be hard to hear, but I think you should find out about the donor. It may hold the clue to why you’re feeling this way.” Storm pulls me up from the chair I’ve been sitting in all morning and hugs me, holding my head against his shoulder. “It may be scary, but I really think you need to find out…so you can move on.”

Because I love and respect Storm so much, I agree.

A week later, with the hospital bed finally returned to the medical supply place, my foot twitches repetitively against the couch. Mrs. Cooper is expected any minute.

“You okay?” Mom asks, absentmindedly rearranging the fancy teacups she purposely puts out for company.

“Yeah,” I say quickly, because I’m really not okay.

“It’ll be fine, sweetheart,” my dad tells me.

“He’s right, princess. You’ll see. This will be good for all of you.” Though I usually take pleasure in one of Storm’s back rubs, his hand running up and down my back at the moment is stifling. Shifting to get comfortable is a wasted attempt. When the doorbell rings, I jump to my feet, crossing and uncrossing my arms. I don’t know how to stand when she comes in. Do I walk up to the door and shake her hand? Do I wait for her to come to me? Do I stand? Do I sit? Oh my God, I wish it were tomorrow already. This would all be over with by then.

“Mrs. Cooper, this is my daughter Honor.” My mom’s introduction is stilted.

Mrs. Cooper smiles at me with the side of her bottom lip caught between her teeth. She moves to speak, but no sound comes out. Her hand flies to cover her mouth and tears well up in her eyes. Seeing her again brings back all of my emotions from the plane crash in the Bahamas. But I also get images of the car accident that caused her daughter’s death three weeks ago.

“I can’t believe it’s you,” she says through her tears. “When they told me it was you, I had to sit down. I almost passed out.”

My hand covers my mouth now. It is so hard to hold back my tears. Looking in her eyes, I see the same desperation that was there the day she was screaming for her burning daughter.

“What are the chances,” Mrs. Cooper asks, “that you would save Trisha only for her to save you a few months later?” I know there are two ways to take this, but I choose to hear the sincerity in her statement and not the resentment.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Cooper,” I say quietly, a large sob threatening to escape. I have this urge to hug her, but I don’t even know her. “I’m so so sorry.” Unable to keep them reigned in, my tears rush out. To me, this feels like her daughter’s episode. It’s distant like my empathic sufferings, but it also feels so personal.

Unable to restrain her own emotions, Mrs. Cooper takes both my hands, looks me in the eyes, and pulls me into a strong bear hug. In two seconds, my shoulders are wet with her many tears. “Oh Trisha. I miss her so much.” The pain in my chest is unbearable. The regret I feel is unexplainable.

“Mrs. Cooper?” I ask apprehensively into her shoulder. “I think your daughter is sorry for leaving you.”

Holding me at arm’s length, she widens her eyes. “What?”

I shrug and Storm, standing next to me the whole time, pushes my hair behind my shoulders. “I just think some of these feelings I’m getting are from her.”

Mrs. Copper closes her eyes and smiles. “She still exists,” she says mostly to herself.

I nod. “I feel her.” With a hand to my chest, I say, “Right here. I feel her. I feel her love for you.” Which is the truth. Deep in my new heart, there is a place set aside for Trisha Cooper’s mother. Their bond must have been close.

“Thank you, Honor,” Mrs. Cooper says. “I needed to hear that.”

After a few silent seconds, Mom dries her own tears and offers refreshments.

“A cup of tea is fine, Mrs. Stevens,” Mrs. Cooper answers.

“Oh please, call me Lea.”

“And call me Terry.”

“I’ll help you,” Storm says.

“I’ll have a glass of cream soda, Mom.”

I sit down at the dining room table when Mrs. Cooper announces, “Cream soda? My Trisha
loved
cream soda. Drank a glass every morning before school.”

“With a cinnamon roll?” Storm asks innocently.

As her mouth drops open, Mrs. Cooper’s skin fades to white. “How did you know?”

Storm answers apologetically, “Honor’s been craving them.”

“Really?” she mumbles through her hand, holding back more tears.

As difficult as meeting Mrs. Cooper is for me, I realize it must be one hundred percent harder for her. This thought impels me to say, “I’m sorry, Mrs. Cooper. I’m so sorry you had to lose your daughter.” My own eyes fill up again. “So sorry.”

“Thank you,” is all she could manage to reply through her tears.