Chapter Twenty-Five

I saw myself in the hospital. My body connected to tubes and machines. The constant stream of nurses and doctors kept jarring me conscious. I hated it. I craved the solitude of darkness.

Sometimes the pain sharpened, but whenever I moved, they came and gave me a shot. I welcomed the numbness. It protected me.

Then my family came. Aunt Rose spoke in hushed tones to the doctors. Anna squeezed my hand, crying. Keith said something comforting to her about how I was a fighter. I would make it.

Keith, you have no idea.

I heard other voices, too, although I was too tired to see their faces.

When I opened my eyes again, I was a little stronger. I still floated, suspended above the room, but the scene unfolded in reverse, the edges of my vision blurred. Everything was the same, except I wasn’t the one laying down. I sat in a chair, staring at the girl in the bed. “Scarlett?” I asked with hope. But as it came into focus, I saw Scarlett, alive and well, next to me, her hands kneading my shoulders.

“I’m going to start the arrangements,” my father said, his voice thick and gruff. I’d never heard my father cry. He helped Aunt Rose up. Her sobs could probably wake the dead.

“Ready, Flynn?” Dad asked. “They…they need to prepare her.” He covered his mouth like that might keep his grief locked in as he said it.

“I’m staying with her.”

“We should go,” Dad said.

“It’s okay,” Scarlett said. “I’ll stay with him. He needs to say good-bye.”

She always had a way of translating my emotions into words. The door clicked behind them.

I couldn’t say good-bye to her. She’d been my protector, my friend, and another parent to me.

God, Anna…no…please no.

I buried my face in my hands. “I’m so sorry, Anna Banana. Please forgive me.”

She squeezed my hand. “This isn’t your fault, Flynn. You can’t blame yourself.”

Even floating over the scene, I could see my green eyes were bloodshot from lack of sleep. She and I were a matching set; her baby blues were puffy with dark circles beneath them. Her hair swayed in a messy ponytail.

In the corner of the room stood a chair, not like the stationary ones we sat in. Anna’s chair. A wheelchair.

“Her accident was my fault. She wouldn’t be dead if it wasn’t for me,” I said.

“No,” she said, crawling into my lap. Her arms swung over my shoulders. “No one could have predicted the blood clot.”

“Cause and effect, Scarlett. The blood clot happened because she was a paraplegic stuck in a wheelchair. I put her there.”

That was why Anna was sitting in every dream. Why she needed me as much as she did.

“It was an accident. You were a five-year-old child who wanted to see Santa.”

“If she hadn’t pushed me out of the way, the car wouldn’t have hit her. She would never have been in that fucking wheelchair.”

“And you would have died.” She took my face in her hands. “Look at me. No brother in the history of the world has loved his sister as much as you did. She knew that, too. Wherever she is now, I bet she’s happy and she’s dancing like the ballerina in her favorite snow globe. Don’t ask the what ifs. No one ever gets an answer to a what if. Just set her free, Flynn.”

I closed my eyes, wanting to drown out the painful memory. I took a deep breath, the panic of losing my sister seizing me. I rationalized that it didn’t happen this time. Anna was safe.

Why was she safe, though? And why wasn’t Scarlett?

The darkness settled over me, a dark cloud in a storm. I fought, fought, fought against it like a wave about to drag me down. I refused to let it…not until I found the answer.

It came to me.

The ghost. The one who left behind the lingering scent of cinnamon and citrus. It had kicked me in the gut when I started to dart across the street. The ghost wasn’t trying to hurt me.

It saved me. It saved Anna, too.

In undoing that moment, the ghost changed future events. One girl safe but another lost like some sick tradeoff.

I gave in to the darkness, my heart broken with grief for both of them—for what could have been and what never was.

I blinked open my eyes. Anna sat beside me in a chair. A regular chair—not a wheelchair. Although her bent posture was odd fit since she always sat straight and rigid. She looked as relieved as I felt to see her alive. The dread captured me a few seconds later with the certainty that Scarlett was dead.

Anna’s sagging shoulders stood straighter, the weight lifting off them, as she peered at me. She opened and closed her mouth, but it took a few tries before her voice reached my ears. “Can you hear me, Jason?” I nodded. “You almost drowned. Some fishermen were in the area and were able to save you. Thank God. But you were without oxygen for a while and need to recover. You’re in the hospital.”

“I know.” I sounded rough, like a three-pack-a-day chain smoker. Anna winced, but her smile didn’t waver. I tried to lift my arm, but it was dead weight, as if a two-ton anvil pinned it down.

I didn’t get out of the way this time, Texas!

Anna tucked the blanket around me. “You’re still coming off the meds. Don’t move too much.”

“Okay, Anna Banana.”

She smiled, tousling my hair. “Dad’s here, too.”

“Really?”

“Of course, he’s worried sick. We flew down as soon as Rose called us.”

“How long have I been out?”

“Only two days.”

I lifted my shoulders, working through the pain. “Did I miss her funeral?”

“Lay back.”

“Answer my question.”

“It’s tomorrow.” She leaned in close to me. “What happened? You’ve been gone for less than a week. From what I can work out, you fell in love, fought a man with a gun, and stopped drinking.”

“It’s a long story. One that would take two lifetimes to tell.”

“Just tell me this.” Her lower lip trembled. “Did you try to kill yourself?”

“No,” I said to reassure her.

She took a deep breath. “I saw her photo. She was beautiful.”

My heart ached at the tense Anna used. “I loved her. Do you believe me?”

“Was she the one in your dreams?”

“Yes.”

“Then I believe you.”