Uncovering You: The Complete Series (Mega Box Set) (204 page)

I walk up to her softly. If she’s sleeping, I don’t want her to wake.

I hold on to the bed railing and look down at my best friend. I glance at the heart monitor. Her heartbeat is slow but steady.

Thu-thump. Pause. Thu-thump. Long pause. Thu-thump.

I sigh and sit down.

Summer stirs. “Bea?” she asks softly. “Beatrice, is that you?”

I’m back on my feet in an instant. “No sweetie, it’s me. Celeste.”

“Oh,” she says. She sounds… disappointed.

Well, maybe not disappointed, but more than a little bitter.

I don’t take any offense.

“How are you feeling?” I ask. I start to reach for her hand, then stop at the last second.

I’m not sure if she wants to be touched.

“Everything hurts,” she sighs. “But they’re pumping me full of morphine…”

She trails off. Her words are thick and heavy.

Then it hits me, it wasn’t bitterness or disappointment I heard in her voice, but sluggishness from the drugs.

“I’m such an idiot,” she says.

“What? No, Summer, don’t say that.”

“I am, I am, I am,” she continues. “I’m an idiot and a brat and a child and…” she starts to cry. “And now look at me! I can’t even lift my arms!”

“You’re going to make a full recovery,” I promise her. “I’ll help you. You’re going to be all better soon, Summer. It won’t take long—“

“Tell B I’m sorry?” she asks. “Please? Before I go, I want her to know that… that I’m sorry. And I love her, and I’m deeply, truly sorry, and…”

She dissolves into sobs again.

“I will,” I promise her. “I will, Summer. And go? You’re not going anywhere.”

“If I could…” she starts. “If I could, I would. I can’t, Celeste. I can’t speak to her. I only have you.”

“And I’m not going anywhere either,” I swear. “Summer, when I heard you were in an accident, I was so frightened…”

“Shit!” she suddenly swears. “The car! I totally ruined the car! My brother’s going to kill me.”

“No, he won’t,” I say firmly. “He’s going to be thrilled to know you’re alive.”

Speaking of…

“Does he know what happened to you? Why isn’t he here?”

“He knows, and he’s not going to come.”
Now
Summer sounds bitter. “None of my family’s coming. You’re the only one I have left.”

“What?” I ask. “Why? Why wouldn’t they come, Summer? Do you want me to call them for you?”

I’d always gotten along well with her parents and brother. Even if we haven’t been in touch much, I’m sure they’d take my call.

“No,” Summer says. “We’re not on speaking terms. None of us. My brother… maybe he’d care… but he lives too much under their influence to go against their will.”

“Their will?” I ask. “Summer, what are you talking about?”

It must be the drugs talking, because she sounds crazy. What parent wouldn’t come to their daughter?

“They… remember how religious they are? Forget it. Please, I just want to sleep. I want…”

She trails off.

A few seconds later I hear the steady breaths of slumber.

I sit down with a heavy heart. It’s not hard to put two and two together. If Summer told her parent about herself, as she did to me last night…

Well, that could have formed an insurmountable gulf.

The door opens. James comes in.

I stand up right away and bring a finger to my lips.
“She’s sleeping,
” I mouth, then point to the hall, showing James we have to go outside.

He nods but lingers for an extra second to look at Summer. I hear him mutter, “Christ.”

Once outside, James cuts to the chase.

“We need to talk about you.”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” I say.

His eyes darken. “Like hell there isn’t.”

“I told you, I’m not having surgery.”

“Why the fuck not?” he hisses. “What are you waiting for? Do it
now
while you still have the chance!”

I look away. “You’re not going to convince me.”

He grabs my elbow and jerks me back to him. “I spoke to the doctor. Your chance of survival isn’t ten percent. It’s nowhere close to ten! I don’t know where you got that number from.”

“Oh?” I challenge. “Then what is it, James? Tell me. Tell me what the doctor told you.”

“He said there’s a risk…” James hedges.

“And the number?” I demand. “What percentage did he give you, James?”

“The risk increases if we wait!” he snaps. “If we sit on our asses and do nothing, he said it’s almost certain the cancer will spread. Then what? Then what happens?” He grips my upper arms and directs his focused gaze in my eyes. “You might be fine letting fate do its thing, but I’m not, Celeste. I’m
not
leaving your health up to chance. If we can do something to make you better, believe me when I say we fucking will!”

I take his hands and ease them off me. “James,” I say softly. “Don’t you think I want to live?”

“With the way you’re acting, I don’t fucking know!” he explodes.

Someone to the side gasps. I look over and see that we’ve amassed an audience.

A nurse steps forward. “Sir, you’re in the recovery ward,” she says. “I need you to keep your voice down.”

James scowls at her, then looks at me, then grunts and spins away. He starts striding down the hall.

“Sorry,” I mutter to her, then step quickly to catch up.

James is fuming. I haven’t seen him this mad… ever.

I’m ready to be pissed, too. This is his fucking fault!

He
knew
what he was signing up for when he came back for me. I
tried
to spare him from this.

He refused!

“James,” I say when he gets to his car.

He shoots me a dark look and drops inside. He starts the engine.

He rolls the window down. “Are you coming in, or not?”

“James, I have to stay for Summer.”

“Fine,” he barks. His hand tightens on the wheel. He stares straight ahead. “You don’t know what you’re doing to me, woman.”

“I gave you an out,” I remind him. “You didn’t take it.”

He gives a cruel laugh. “If you ever thought you could get rid of me so easily…”

He shakes his head. “Good night, Celeste. I’ll talk to you tomorrow, once you’ve had a chance to clear your head.”

“I won’t change my mind,” I say.

He ignores me, instead reaching into the glove compartment to pull out two stapled stacks of papers.

He tosses it on the seat.

“Your last essay for my class,” he says. His words are clipped. “And Summer’s. You both passed.”

He revs the engine. “The ad-board agreed to use the marks I assigned. They waived exam requirements. You earned an
A.
Congratulations.”

He scowls at me. “Take it and go.”

28.

I spend the rest of the day in Summer’s darkened room. A nurse comes in every once in a while to check up on her. We don’t share more than a passing glance.

Summer slips in and out of consciousness. She doesn’t say much when she’s awake. I don’t pressure her.

My mind keeps going back to what Officer Cooper told me. Summer left a suicide note.

She meant to die.

She’d be mortified if she knew that I knew. I desperately want to talk about it, but I won’t trouble her now. She needs her rest.

Eventually, out of boredom more than anything else, I look at the essays James gave me.

There’s a mark on top of Summer’s. Sixty-one percent.

She passed, but only
just
.

I put hers down and look at mine instead.

There’s not a mark on it. In fact, the entire front page is untouched.

I leaf through it. I get to the very last page before finding the first mark on mine.

But it’s more than a simple mark. James has scribbled all over the margins of my essay in his tight, thin red handwriting.

I squint my eyes and start to read:

Celeste.

I have so many things I want to say to you. But whenever we’re together in person, I’m incapable of voicing my thoughts. I don’t know what it is. Fluency comes naturally to me. As naturally as… well, naturally as fucking.

Even though I’m still mad at him, I blush and smile at his candor. I keep going.

I don’t know where my head’s at right now. I certainly don’t know where yours is. Let me set the scene for you:

Minutes ago, I left you at the hospital. You told me to forget you. You told me to get out. You told me to leave.

Well, I can’t even do the first thing. I can never forget you, Celeste. Nor will I ever try.

You are unique, you are one of a kind, you are unforgettable, and you know what? You made me fall for you when my heart was bitter and cold. You made me yearn for you, you made me lust for you, but most of all, you made me love you.

And I do. I do love you, Celeste. Make no doubt about it, and never question it again. I love you, and I’m ready to stand on the rooftops and declare it to the world: I LOVE CELESTE ADAMS!

Of course, you don’t want me to do that. Not yet. You’re not ready. But I will get you there. We will get there together. If you could make a cynic like me fall in love… well, it’s not something you can do away with in a single burst of anger.

It’s not something you can do away with ever, Celeste.

Look at this—I’ve scribbled all over the page. Do you know why I’m writing you this note, Celeste? Because after you told me to leave, doing it was the only way I could stop myself from coming back. My mind is consumed by you. My heart, my soul, my body—you own it all.

So here I am, desperately trying to reconcile all the whirling emotions you stir in me.

This paper, your essay? It is the only piece of paper I have on hand. It’s quite fitting, actually, that this is where I write my letter.

So here it is.

I love you. You know I love you. You know it, woman, and yet you fight it still.

How can I get you to see that? How can I get you to understand I’ll never leave? How do I convince you that I’m yours for eternity, and—just as importantly—you are mine?

Celeste. I’ll give you space when you need it. Like right now. Right now, when you’re in that fucking hospital by yourself, and I’m stuck in this goddamn car.

I want to be there with you. Why don’t you understand? I need to be with you at all times, Celeste.

I don’t know what you’ve done to me. Or how you did it. You must be a witch.

(That was a joke.)

See, though? Do you see? Even my humor is failing me. When I’m away from you, I don’t know which way to turn. I crave you with every cell of my body. I need you with every bit of the ethereal substance that makes up my soul.

Maybe it’s because we’re so similar. Maybe that was the initial draw. Because our physical condition, our attraction, the magnetism that exists between us? It cannot be denied.

I’m tearing up and I don’t know why. James is pouring his soul out to me, and he’s not even here. It feels… surreal, almost. Surreal and very, very special.

I wipe my eyes and keep reading.

So that was the spark, right? The moment I saw you, Celeste. You were the only one at the party who I wanted.

As luck would have it, you fell right into my lap.

I had you once, and I thought it would be enough. I thought that before. Before I tasted your delicious skin. Before I feasted on your wonderful breasts. Before my mouth explored the extraordinary folds of your pussy.

But that first night happened… and I felt something in me shift. You aroused something inside that I haven’t experienced in a long time. Maybe never:

Need.

Need, Celeste. It was need. I needed you. I had to have you again. Once wasn’t enough. And oh! You cannot imagine the disappointment I felt the next morning when I woke up without you.

You were gone without a trace. And gone, too, was my first chance at happiness.

I’m being a bit histrionic, of course. I didn’t know that you were tied to my happiness at the time. Maybe deep down, I had an inkling of the idea, the barest formation of a thought, some hint of that all-consuming need…

But it was no more than a glimmer.

So, the real test came in the weeks that followed. I asked everybody I knew about you. None had any idea who the girl with the beautiful raven hair and stunning, shining eyes was, or where she’d come from.

I touch my hair absently. My heart is pounding hard against my ribcage.

James thinks my eyes are beautiful.

I continue:

I searched high and low for you. I was borderline obsessive. I thought, again, foolishly, that maybe one more night together would get you out of my system. Maybe one more taste was all it would take for me to return to my life and move on.

But you were lost. You were gone to me. You were there with me for one night, and then you were gone, like a wisp of smoke on the wind.

My mind could not release you so easily.

So imagine my surprise, my delight, my excitement, when I got my class list and found your face amongst my students. I was ecstatic! I was on top of the fucking world!

(I told you I memorize every student’s view book photograph so I know their names before the semester).

I didn’t know how you’d react to seeing me. But I planned to do to you what you did to me.

You were going to be mine, Celeste, and fuck everybody else!

And then we happened. Of course there were ups and downs. As there always are in relationships. I knew you were holding back from the first time I had you in my apartment.

I didn’t know what you were frightened of, but if you weren’t ready, I wasn’t about to push.

I sensed that you were skittish. I had to tread very carefully with you.

Fast forward to a few months later. You had utterly consumed me. Remember the day in my office? I promised you the world. “Let’s get out of here,” I said. “I want to take you away.”

You hesitated… and then consented.

It was the single biggest victory of my life.

Now, Celeste, listen carefully. Read these words carefully. Saying that it was “the biggest victory” is not an exaggeration. It is not hyperbole or melodrama or me being cheeky for effect.