Chasing Impossible
Page 20
“Keep telling yourself that.”
I rap my head against the pillow—hating the loss of control, overwhelmed by the pain in my shoulder and the throb in my head. Wishing I could somehow rewind time and have chosen to leave with Logan last night instead of going back into the bar, rewind it back to before I walked into the garage months ago and decided to befriend Rachel, which lead to Logan, rewind it back to before Grams began to forget what day it was, rewind back to before my father made a tragic mistake and went to prison...possibly rewind all the way back to my birth.
I swing my arm over my eyes, loathing all the emotion raging through me. “I can’t do this. Don’t you understand, I can’t do this.”
“What’s this?”
Caring.
“Hello.” A nurse in Hello Kitty scrubs pushes a cart of medical crap in and she obviously has to work to hold her smile as she assesses me and Logan. There’s small stuffed animals clinging to her stethoscope and the cart and it dawns on me... “I’m in the pediatric ward?”
“Ironic, right?” Shit-eating grin still there.
“I’m not a child!” I shout.
And Logan loses his grin and storm clouds descend over his expression. “You’re right. You’re not.”
The nurse quietly walks over to me, scans my arm bracelet with a device, scans something on her cart, and before I realize it, she’s pushing something into my IV. Coldness spreads up my arm, a strange taste enters my mouth, and my head snaps in her direction. “What did you give me?”
“Your uncle and doctor want you to rest.” Condescending pity eyes in my direction and panic is a chaser to whatever she put into my bloodstream.
Wetness burns my eyes as I slam my fist against the mattress again. She stays silent as she messes with my IV machine, changes out the saline bag, then wipes her name off my nurse’s board and writes somebody else’s name and like the other adults in my life—she leaves.
I fight to keep my eyes open. Logan’s in danger. I’m in danger. Logan’s in danger over me. I can’t sleep, but even if I’m awake, if someone walked in here now, there’s nothing I could do. I have no weapon, I’m weak, I’m a sitting duck and now Logan is too...over me.
Another slam of my fist against the bed and I cover my eyes with my hand in case the wetness should try to spill over my cheeks.
Fingers over my hand fisted on the bed and I shake my head. I don’t deserve this contact. “Go away.”
“I can’t,” he says almost in apology.
“You can, but you’re too stupid to do it.”
“Crazy,” he corrects. “My IQ scores invalidate your claim for stupidity.”
I snort and want to kick myself that I permitted his humor to break through my anger. What’s worse, he’s not kidding. The boy is brilliant and totally crazy.
Logan keeps his fingers over mine and somehow, without realizing it, I have threaded mine with his. His hand is warm, the skin slightly rough in places, and I immediately think of Logan working on cars with Isaiah, him crouched over home plate daring the runner to take him out as he tries to score, and the one time Logan brought all of us to Bullitt County because Chris needed help baling hay.
I didn’t do anything more than sit on the bales and order everyone else around, but I remember watching Logan. His shirt off, his back glistening in the summer heat, the way his muscles moved in this fluid way and how my stomach flipped whenever he’d glance in my direction.
These hands belong to someone who’s strong, who’s physical, who’s loyal and protective and I hate that I permitted myself the luxury of becoming his friend. Stupid. I was stupid. “I didn’t mean to jack up your life.”
“You didn’t.”
“I did.”
“My life was jacked up before we met.”
Silence. More silence. So silent that even my own thoughts no longer disturb me. So silent that I hadn’t even realized my eyes had closed.
“Do you want this life, Abby?” he whispers. “If you had the choice would you walk away?”
I turn my cheek into the cool pillow, toward the lovely deep sound of his voice, and don’t bother trying to open my eyes. There’s no hospital room, we’re back on Chris’s farm. The sun was shining then and it was a warm blanket over my body. “If I could, I’d run.”
“But you need the money for her, don’t you?”
I nod and my voice sounds far away. “She was in a nursing home and they hurt her, stole from her...” I swallow then lick my dry lips. “I love her so I brought her home.”
“We’ll figure it out,” he says, but before I can argue a crackle of a bag and something soft is tucked into the crook of my elbow. “I bought you a bunny.”
My lips lift and I can almost feel its little nose sniffing my skin. “A real bunny?”
“Yeah.” But his tone is so light that I can’t tell if he’s kidding. “It’s real.”
A real bunny. I curl into it and toward Logan and let myself drift as Logan swipes his thumb over my hand in a slow rhythm. In the same rhythm as my breaths out and then my breaths in. In and then out. Over and over again until my thoughts fade and then there’s just sun, my bunny, and Logan.
Logan
Rachel: How is Abby?
Abby slept the entire time I sat with her at the hospital. She stirred, readjusted, but her hand never left mine. At times, her grip tightened. Other times, I was the one holding on. I’m grateful to be too exhausted to analyze it.
Me: Tired.
Rachel: How are you?
The same as Abby. Good.
Rachel: Are Isaiah and West overreacting?
Isaiah and West forbade Rachel to come anywhere near the hospital. Don’t blame them. Considering Abby was shot and I could have been hit in the cross fire... No. Don’t get ideas of riding solo. We’ve got enough on our hands without additional problems.
Rachel: You sound too much like them.
I’ll take that as a compliment.
The elevator doors open and I step out onto the main floor of the hospital. It’s one in the morning and West is on duty again. My head pounds. Could be a combination of my sugar level, exhaustion, and my messed-up eating and sleeping patterns. I’ve got to rein this in soon or I’ll end up in bed next to Abby.
“Logan,” calls a guy to my right and I glance over, but keep walking. I’ve already talked to the police—twice. Once at the scene then last night as I was leaving. This is starting to become a bad habit.
He catches up with me before I reach the double glass sliding doors. “I’m Officer Monroe. We met last night.”
We did. He’s late twenties, not dressed in uniform, and looks like the clean-cut younger brother of that crazy guy from Pirates of the Caribbean. I shove my hands in my pockets and wait. This guy was good enough to give me a lift to my truck and has kept his mouth shut on the diabetes since we talked. I can give him a few more minutes.
“I take it back,” he says. “I’m a detective now.”
“Congrats.”
“How’s your friend?”
“She was shot. How do you think?”
He studies me in this pensive way and then scans the room. “I know we’ve talked to you already, but I’d like to show you some pictures. See if you recognize anyone.”
The muscles in my neck tighten. Damn. Walking this tightrope is getting tougher and tougher. Isaiah talked about understanding where I stood on things. On Abby. On the drugs. Messed-up part, I’m more confused now than I was before and these police conversations aren’t helping.
We walk off to a vacant area of waiting-area chairs and he pulls out his phone. “Past twenty-four hours have been tough. Been trying to figure out who was the target and who was caught in the cross fire. Have you seen any of these people before?”
I think of Abby lying in that bed, cradling that stuffed bunny, and the elderly woman waiting for her granddaughter to return home. He shows photo after photo and I do nothing more than shake my head no. Not once do I have to lie and I’m not sure if I would if I did notice someone. Abby needs to see there are legit options.
He keeps swiping through photos. Some mug shots. Some not. “Searched you on Google. Congratulations on winning the baseball state championship this year. I played some ball back in high school, but I could never stomach catcher. Too many bats being swung near my head for my taste. Do you know this guy?”
“No.”
“You’re a good kid, Logan. The type I want my son to grow up to be. The last two guys, you sure you don’t know them?”
I shake my head again. I’ve never seen any of these people before in my life.
“See this guy?” Detective Monroe flips back to a picture of a guy about my age. He has blond hair, a big grin, too baby-faced for people to take seriously. “He died of a heroin overdose last week.”
My eyes snap to his and without changing his expression he flips to the last photo. “And this guy was shot in the head last night, execution style. I had to tell his mom and his brother. Hardest thing to do is tell someone that the person they love isn’t coming home.”
I take a step back and swallow the nausea crawling up my stomach. The girl who busted out of the alley, the one covered in blood, screaming...was that her boyfriend?
I rap my head against the pillow—hating the loss of control, overwhelmed by the pain in my shoulder and the throb in my head. Wishing I could somehow rewind time and have chosen to leave with Logan last night instead of going back into the bar, rewind it back to before I walked into the garage months ago and decided to befriend Rachel, which lead to Logan, rewind it back to before Grams began to forget what day it was, rewind back to before my father made a tragic mistake and went to prison...possibly rewind all the way back to my birth.
I swing my arm over my eyes, loathing all the emotion raging through me. “I can’t do this. Don’t you understand, I can’t do this.”
“What’s this?”
Caring.
“Hello.” A nurse in Hello Kitty scrubs pushes a cart of medical crap in and she obviously has to work to hold her smile as she assesses me and Logan. There’s small stuffed animals clinging to her stethoscope and the cart and it dawns on me... “I’m in the pediatric ward?”
“Ironic, right?” Shit-eating grin still there.
“I’m not a child!” I shout.
And Logan loses his grin and storm clouds descend over his expression. “You’re right. You’re not.”
The nurse quietly walks over to me, scans my arm bracelet with a device, scans something on her cart, and before I realize it, she’s pushing something into my IV. Coldness spreads up my arm, a strange taste enters my mouth, and my head snaps in her direction. “What did you give me?”
“Your uncle and doctor want you to rest.” Condescending pity eyes in my direction and panic is a chaser to whatever she put into my bloodstream.
Wetness burns my eyes as I slam my fist against the mattress again. She stays silent as she messes with my IV machine, changes out the saline bag, then wipes her name off my nurse’s board and writes somebody else’s name and like the other adults in my life—she leaves.
I fight to keep my eyes open. Logan’s in danger. I’m in danger. Logan’s in danger over me. I can’t sleep, but even if I’m awake, if someone walked in here now, there’s nothing I could do. I have no weapon, I’m weak, I’m a sitting duck and now Logan is too...over me.
Another slam of my fist against the bed and I cover my eyes with my hand in case the wetness should try to spill over my cheeks.
Fingers over my hand fisted on the bed and I shake my head. I don’t deserve this contact. “Go away.”
“I can’t,” he says almost in apology.
“You can, but you’re too stupid to do it.”
“Crazy,” he corrects. “My IQ scores invalidate your claim for stupidity.”
I snort and want to kick myself that I permitted his humor to break through my anger. What’s worse, he’s not kidding. The boy is brilliant and totally crazy.
Logan keeps his fingers over mine and somehow, without realizing it, I have threaded mine with his. His hand is warm, the skin slightly rough in places, and I immediately think of Logan working on cars with Isaiah, him crouched over home plate daring the runner to take him out as he tries to score, and the one time Logan brought all of us to Bullitt County because Chris needed help baling hay.
I didn’t do anything more than sit on the bales and order everyone else around, but I remember watching Logan. His shirt off, his back glistening in the summer heat, the way his muscles moved in this fluid way and how my stomach flipped whenever he’d glance in my direction.
These hands belong to someone who’s strong, who’s physical, who’s loyal and protective and I hate that I permitted myself the luxury of becoming his friend. Stupid. I was stupid. “I didn’t mean to jack up your life.”
“You didn’t.”
“I did.”
“My life was jacked up before we met.”
Silence. More silence. So silent that even my own thoughts no longer disturb me. So silent that I hadn’t even realized my eyes had closed.
“Do you want this life, Abby?” he whispers. “If you had the choice would you walk away?”
I turn my cheek into the cool pillow, toward the lovely deep sound of his voice, and don’t bother trying to open my eyes. There’s no hospital room, we’re back on Chris’s farm. The sun was shining then and it was a warm blanket over my body. “If I could, I’d run.”
“But you need the money for her, don’t you?”
I nod and my voice sounds far away. “She was in a nursing home and they hurt her, stole from her...” I swallow then lick my dry lips. “I love her so I brought her home.”
“We’ll figure it out,” he says, but before I can argue a crackle of a bag and something soft is tucked into the crook of my elbow. “I bought you a bunny.”
My lips lift and I can almost feel its little nose sniffing my skin. “A real bunny?”
“Yeah.” But his tone is so light that I can’t tell if he’s kidding. “It’s real.”
A real bunny. I curl into it and toward Logan and let myself drift as Logan swipes his thumb over my hand in a slow rhythm. In the same rhythm as my breaths out and then my breaths in. In and then out. Over and over again until my thoughts fade and then there’s just sun, my bunny, and Logan.
Logan
Rachel: How is Abby?
Abby slept the entire time I sat with her at the hospital. She stirred, readjusted, but her hand never left mine. At times, her grip tightened. Other times, I was the one holding on. I’m grateful to be too exhausted to analyze it.
Me: Tired.
Rachel: How are you?
The same as Abby. Good.
Rachel: Are Isaiah and West overreacting?
Isaiah and West forbade Rachel to come anywhere near the hospital. Don’t blame them. Considering Abby was shot and I could have been hit in the cross fire... No. Don’t get ideas of riding solo. We’ve got enough on our hands without additional problems.
Rachel: You sound too much like them.
I’ll take that as a compliment.
The elevator doors open and I step out onto the main floor of the hospital. It’s one in the morning and West is on duty again. My head pounds. Could be a combination of my sugar level, exhaustion, and my messed-up eating and sleeping patterns. I’ve got to rein this in soon or I’ll end up in bed next to Abby.
“Logan,” calls a guy to my right and I glance over, but keep walking. I’ve already talked to the police—twice. Once at the scene then last night as I was leaving. This is starting to become a bad habit.
He catches up with me before I reach the double glass sliding doors. “I’m Officer Monroe. We met last night.”
We did. He’s late twenties, not dressed in uniform, and looks like the clean-cut younger brother of that crazy guy from Pirates of the Caribbean. I shove my hands in my pockets and wait. This guy was good enough to give me a lift to my truck and has kept his mouth shut on the diabetes since we talked. I can give him a few more minutes.
“I take it back,” he says. “I’m a detective now.”
“Congrats.”
“How’s your friend?”
“She was shot. How do you think?”
He studies me in this pensive way and then scans the room. “I know we’ve talked to you already, but I’d like to show you some pictures. See if you recognize anyone.”
The muscles in my neck tighten. Damn. Walking this tightrope is getting tougher and tougher. Isaiah talked about understanding where I stood on things. On Abby. On the drugs. Messed-up part, I’m more confused now than I was before and these police conversations aren’t helping.
We walk off to a vacant area of waiting-area chairs and he pulls out his phone. “Past twenty-four hours have been tough. Been trying to figure out who was the target and who was caught in the cross fire. Have you seen any of these people before?”
I think of Abby lying in that bed, cradling that stuffed bunny, and the elderly woman waiting for her granddaughter to return home. He shows photo after photo and I do nothing more than shake my head no. Not once do I have to lie and I’m not sure if I would if I did notice someone. Abby needs to see there are legit options.
He keeps swiping through photos. Some mug shots. Some not. “Searched you on Google. Congratulations on winning the baseball state championship this year. I played some ball back in high school, but I could never stomach catcher. Too many bats being swung near my head for my taste. Do you know this guy?”
“No.”
“You’re a good kid, Logan. The type I want my son to grow up to be. The last two guys, you sure you don’t know them?”
I shake my head again. I’ve never seen any of these people before in my life.
“See this guy?” Detective Monroe flips back to a picture of a guy about my age. He has blond hair, a big grin, too baby-faced for people to take seriously. “He died of a heroin overdose last week.”
My eyes snap to his and without changing his expression he flips to the last photo. “And this guy was shot in the head last night, execution style. I had to tell his mom and his brother. Hardest thing to do is tell someone that the person they love isn’t coming home.”
I take a step back and swallow the nausea crawling up my stomach. The girl who busted out of the alley, the one covered in blood, screaming...was that her boyfriend?
