Time Mends (15 page)

“
Her name is Jessi, which
you should know since we went to school with her for thirteen years
and your brother took her to the Fall Dance in eighth grade. And
she already thinks you’re on drugs. Maybe we could go through a
drive-thru or something if you’re still hungry.”

My binge was equal parts a need for calories
and an attempt to assuage my shame. The deer hunting scenario
didn’t play out quite as planned. Finding a deer? Not a problem.
The entire Land Between the Lakes area is overrun with the vermin.
Chasing it down? Easy peasy. I could’ve run all night. But after
that…

“
She’s too busy to notice
what we’re eating,” I said, surveying the room stuffed full of men
in ratty t-shirts and baseball caps filling up with a greasy
breakfast before heading out for a day fishing.

Talley was stacking plates and picking
discarded silverware off the scarred wooden table. “I managed to
brush against her arm when she was giving Charlie his third plate
of hashbrowns. She thinks we spent the entire night engaged in
righteous pot smoking and have the worst case of munchies she’s
ever seen.”

“
I went to a dance with
Jessi Poston?” Jase’s top lip curled as he regarded our waitress.
Her hair was brown at its three-inch roots, a dull black the rest
of the way down and appeared to be the consistency of dry straw.
She had on blue eyeliner and green eyeshadow. To my super-sensitive
nose she stank of cigarette smoke and booze. I could even catch a
hint of vomit off the stain on the collar of her shirt.

“
Well, she wasn’t quite so
skanky in the eighth grade.” Talley followed Jase’s gaze with
sympathy. “She really started going downhill after her mom got
cancer our Sophomore year.”

“
Great, now I feel guilty
for thinking she’s nasty,” Jase said.

I had no doubt that was Talley’s original
goal. She always saw the best in everyone and gave them the benefit
of doubt. It pained her that the rest of us were less generous in
our opinion of others.

When Jessi came back to leave our bill I
made it a point to smile and actually look at her, not just her
chipped black polish manicure and asymmetrical butterfly neck
tattoo. I was rewarded with a sneer and more than mildly rude
inquiry as to whether or not I needed yet another chocolate
milk.

Well, at least I had one less thing to feel
guilty about.

“
I’ve got this,” I said,
snatching the small mountain of ordering tickets off the
table.

“
Seriously? Thanks!” Jase
looked as if he just won the lottery. “Although, if you had
mentioned it earlier I would have gone with a steak instead of
sausage.”

“
Let me —”

“
No, Charlie. It’s on me.
Really, it’s the least I can do after robbing you of your fresh
venison buffet last night.”

Jase choked out a laugh while Talley gave my
hand a squeeze. “I think your sensitivity to animal rights is
admirable,” she said. Jase gave in to a full-on laughing fit, and I
could have sworn the corners of Charlie’s lips twitched
upwards.

“
It’s Walt Disney’s
fault,” I said through tight lips. “He brain washed me, and now I’m
too busy worrying about poor orphaned Bambi to do my
job.”

It was perfect. Once we settled into the
hunt we didn’t need to rely on Talley at all. We knew each other as
well as we knew ourselves, and our animals were in perfect sync.
Then it came time for me, the Pack Leader, to deliver the killing
blow. Instead, she looked at me with those hugemongous doe eyes and
I couldn’t do it. I just stood there and let her go.

“
Talley isn’t wrong, you
know,” Charlie said. “To have enough control to override the wolf’s
instincts…” The muscles in his jaws jumped. “Not every Shifter can
do that.” He threw back the remainder of the sludge Jessi claimed
was coffee before giving me something that may have passed for a
smile if you didn’t bother looking at his eyes. “Should’ve known
you would be pulling super-Dominant stuff on your second Change.
You never could stand for me and Jase to be better than you at
anything.”

“
That’s not true. You’re
both much better housewives than me. I mean, you can clean,
cook…”

“
There are blind three
year olds more skilled at using a stove than you. That’s hardly an
accomplishment,” Jase countered. “Actually, that’s probably why you
couldn’t kill the deer. It was too much meal preparation for you to
handle.” His remarks were light-hearted, but I could tell he was
somewhere between annoyed and disappointed with me.

“
I know. I’m
sorry—”

“
Stop.” Charlie reached
across the table as if to grab my hand before realizing what he was
doing. He quickly jerked it back to pick up his now empty cup.
“You’re doing a good job, no matter what JoJo the Idiot Brother
says.” Jase opened his mouth, but Charlie smacked a hand over it.
“Jase says he’s sorry.”

Jase’s eyes said he was considering taking a
chunk out of Charlie’s hand.

“
Awww…. Jase, it’s okay. I
know you’re impaired by a debilitating combination of testosterone
and lack of conscious. I forgive you,” I said, falling easily into
the familiar banter.

“
Jase thanks you for your
generosity and further apologizes for having to eat and run, but we
both have jobs requiring our presence.”

“
You know, it’s really
rude to accept a meal from someone without sticking around to
socialize. What would you do if one of your dates ran off before
you could ‘talk’?” I added both air quotes and a wink for
emphasis.

Jase provided his favorite hand gesture.

It took a few more minutes of groveling on
Jase’s part (with Charlie providing the monologue), but eventually
I deigned to let them leave, my heart miraculously light. I didn’t
even mind too much that Charlie had somehow managed to sneak the
tickets into his pocket and pay for them on his way out.

“
That’s the most he’s said
to me in a lifetime,” I said to Talley as they slipped out the back
door.

“
Give it time,” she said
as we watched the boys through the window. “Alex’s death has
damaged you both. It’s not the sort of thing that is going to fix
itself overnight.”

I shrugged, some of the ease and comfort
slipping out of the parking lot with Jase and Charlie.

“
Scout, we need to
talk.”

I still didn’t look at her. I could tell by
her tone this wasn’t a conversation I wanted to have.

“
I heard you last night
before you shut me out. I know what you’re thinking, and you’re
wrong.”

“
You don’t know
anything.”

“
He’s dead, Scout. You
were there. Not even a Shifter could survive that much
damage.”

I concentrated on finding abstract images in
the maple syrup on my plate.

“
You went to his funeral.
He’s dead. You’re going to have to accept that before you can start
to heal.”

I snapped, all the feelings and thoughts I’d
been trying to deny since the graveyard raging to the surface.
“He’s alive. I know it. I’ve seen him. At the funeral and in the
woods. He’s trapped in his wolf form, but it’s him, Talley. I know
it.”

She reached for my arm, but I jerked
away.

“
I know you want to
believe it’s him—”

“
It is him!”

“
No, it’s not, Scout. We
buried him two months ago.”

“
We buried an empty
casket!” I finally looked up and met her eyes. “He wasn’t in there.
He’s out there, alive. I know it.”

Talley’s eyes went wide. “How..how did you
know the casket is empty?”

“
I don’t know how I do,
but I know it’s true. The moment I felt of the casket I knew there
was nothing inside.” I needed her to see the truth. “Don’t you get
it? He somehow managed to Change back to his wolf form and heal. We
just have to figure out how to let him Change back. Maybe all he
needs is time to heal completely, or to be around people and
remember who he is.”

Talley did not reflect my optimism. “Oh,
Scout. You have to know that’s not possible. You know he’s
gone.”

“
The casket was
empty!”

“
Because we cremated the
body!” Her mouth snapped shut, trying to recapture the words that
were already out. Several heads turned our way.

I felt like reality was fracturing around
me, hope floating away like ash. “You what?”

Her eyes were pleading. “It’s Shifter
custom. We can’t risk someone doing an autopsy.”

“
How…” My mouth was
moving, but nothing was coming out. “Nevermind. I don’t want to
know.” I took deep breaths, willing my extravagant breakfast to
stay in my stomach. I lost myself in the bubbles floating to the
top of my soda for several minutes, waiting for something that
resembled an emotion to break through.

“
He’s dead.”

“
I’m sorry, Scout.” I felt
her hand on my back. My skin was still tender from the Change, but
the pain was muted. Everything was muted. “I knew you wanted to
believe he was still around, but I thought it was just a normal
part of grieving. I never thought you really believed he was still
alive. I should have said something sooner.”

“
And the dreams? They’re
not real either, are they?”

“
Dreams?”

“
At night I meet him on
the same patch of beach where…where he died. He talks to me, helps
me. I thought…I thought they were real. That he was reaching out to
me the only way he could, through Dream Walking.” The words I
hadn’t even allowed myself to think came tumbling out. I laid my
head on the table, ignoring the stickiness clinging to the surface.
“It felt real. It’s like the dreams from before, 3-D
smell-o-vision, the works.” My voice hitched. “I could feel his
arms around me. But, then again, I could smell him in the forest
today. I could see him.” I lifted my eyes to Talley. “Something’s
wrong with me, isn’t it?”

“
Nothing is wrong with
you, Scout. You went through something horrific. Your brain is
trying to find a way to deal with the physical and mental pain you
were buried under.”

“
I need to go.” I raised
up my head, losing a few strands of hair in the process. “I need to
get my clothes, and Mom has to work today, and…” I took a deep
breath, trying to steady my voice.

“
I’ll come
with.”

I shook my head. “I need some time.”

I knew I was hurting her feelings, that I
should let her ride along, but I couldn’t. If she was there I would
have to pretend I wasn’t falling apart. I wasn’t up for the
challenge.

I don’t even remember driving across town or
hiking the mile down the path where I tossed my clothes. I was in
such a fog I had to rummage around for a while to find the right
bush. I could have just followed my nose, but it wasn’t my scent
leading the way. It was a scent that didn’t really exist. Couldn’t
exist.

She’s wrong. He’s been
here. I can
smell
him.

Except, I knew it was a lie. In so many
ways, I had known it all along. But when faced with the option of
believing in the impossible and accepting that you can no longer
trust your own mind, the choice made is not always the logical
one.

The fragments of my heart that had managed
to meld themselves back together were once again pulling free and
venturing off on their own, leaving my chest hollow and empty.

“
What’s wrong?” Alex
towered over the place where I collapsed once I found myself back
on the beach. I squeezed my eyes closed and refused to play along,
certain I could will myself into another dream.

I didn’t work.

“
You’re dead,” I finally
said without looked at him.

“
I’ve been that way for a
while now.” He sounded confused.

“
This isn’t
real.”

He sat down beside me and tried to put his
arm over my shoulders, but I moved away. “It depends on your
definition of real, I guess.”

“
My definition includes,
‘not just a dream Scout’s brain conjured to keep her from slitting
her wrists’. Yours?”

“
This isn’t a
dream.”

I laughed the laugh of the crazies. “No, I
go to sleep at night and start having conversations and make-out
sessions with my dead boyfriend. Not a dream.”

“
Scout…” He grabbed my
upper arm. I tried to jerk away, but he was too strong. “What
happened? What’s wrong?”

More maniacal laughter. “Wrong? Everything
is wrong. You’re dead, Alex. Really dead. The casket wasn’t empty
because you’re still alive. It was empty because the Hagans decided
to burn your body because, really, killing you wasn’t enough. And
if losing you and Charlie and, in some ways Jase, wasn’t enough,
now I’ve lost my mind, too.”

“
You thought I was alive?”
He brushed my cheek where tears should have been.

“
Just… just stop, okay? I
can’t do this.”

“
Do what?”

“
This!” I gestured at the
crazy dream lake with wild arms. “I can’t keep seeing you, touching
you, believing in you —” The last words were lost in an ugly sob. I
buried my face in my hands and let go. Hallucination Alex had
enough good sense to leave me alone during my stellar display of
self-pity fueled waterworks. When I finally gave it up, I found him
standing by the water’s edge, chucking stones into the lake with a
brutal force.