I had woken in an alternate reality. Or I hadn't woken at all.
That was it. I was dreaming right now. Having a nightmare.
A very detailed, realistic, nightmare.
It was the only explanation.
And it was that weird dream logic where impossible things make perfect sense that was causing my friends to demand to see a nonexistent ring and cheer for me and Cooper getting engaged. Everyone I'd encountered since "waking up" seemed to accept this engagement as a fact, and an inevitable one too.
The very thought seemed to shut me down. Doors slammed shut all through my brain as my body went into lockdown. Ever since I was a kid, I'd had a gift for shutting down. For seeking numbness, instead of letting my feelings get too overwhelming. I'd learned to put all my emotions on to other people, to let their worries become mine, to make their problems supersede my own.
Being engaged? To Cooper?
That was a big problem. And the waves of confusion, betrayal, and righteous, indignant fury that got worse the longer he went without telling me what the fuck was going on were far too overwhelming. So I pushed them down inside and let the doors slam shut inside of me. I needed someone else to focus on.
"What are you doing?" My mother wanted to know as she watched me move my hand.
That was another weird little twist to this dream. My mom had suddenly shown up in it wearing her Royal Diner waitress uniform. It was a nice, surreal touch to add to a plotline that was already surreal enough on its own.
But then I felt the sting. "Why are you pinching yourself?" Mom demanded. "Stop that."
I blinked, but everything stayed the same. So I was awake. "Shit."
"Language."
"She was hit by some asshole who left her for dead," Claire brazenly pointed out. "I'd probably be cussing too, Mrs. Harlow." She smiled in that winning way Claire had that allowed her to get away with almost everything and my mom actually smiled in return.
But hearing her say the words. Again. How I'd been left on the side of the road... how if Cooper hadn't come along when he did... I closed my eyes as I felt them start to fill. I'd slammed the doors on my feelings about the engagement, which mean the feelings about the accident were right there waiting. The suffocating cloak of helpless confusion was suddenly too much to take. I felt very small and very scared and.... "Guys?" I croaked.
Every head in the room swiveled to me and I blinked, wavering in my conviction for a second. They'd all come to check on me, after all. I wasn't being nice by asking this. But I couldn't... I couldn't.... "Thanks for coming and all but can I..." My voice caught in my throat. "Can I just be with my mom right now?"
Claire snapped upright. "You heard the woman!" She actually clapped her hands, which made Ruby laugh and make a comment about how she'd missed her calling as a kindergarten teacher. With a chorus of goodbyes, get wells, and shouted congratulations, the same friends I'd had since we all banded together in kindergarten filed back out of my room. They left a ringing silence in their wake.
I let out a long breath. And then winced. My mom saw immediately and pressed her hand to my cheek. "Hey there. How's my little co-captain doing?"
I swallowed back a lump. "I'm not... I'm alive, right?" She cast her eyes down and back up again, her lip wobbling dangerously. "Please don't cry," I begged. "You know I can't handle it."
She nodded quickly and pressed the heel of her hand to her eyes. "I'm okay. I'm okay," she chanted.
But her voice still wavered, and that meant the tears started sliding down my cheeks before I could catch myself. "I'm so sorry, Mom."
"For what?" she asked.
Where the hell did I even start? “Cooper and I...”
“It’s not my business, baby. You have your reasons for keeping that mum.” She nodded stiffly. “The two of them are pretty close, right? Him and Liam?” She shook her head. “Oh, I don’t envy you being in the middle of that. It’s a credit to your friendships that you all are still speaking to each other.”
My jaw fell open hearing just how wrong she had it, which made her laugh. “Oh don’t act so shocked your mother figured it all out. I just have one request.” Her eyes glittered. “Make him do it again? I don’t even mind it’s not the real thing, just let me pretend I got to be there to see your face when he got down on one knee.”
“Mom-”
“And make sure Jake gets to spend time with him too. It’d be good for him to have another man in his life.”
I felt like I was in a car that had just hit black ice. Everything was spinning out of control and I was too rattled, too doped up with pain and painkillers to know how I could stop it.
"How's Jakey doing?” I squeaked.
"For heaven's sake, Willa! Will you stop worrying about how you getting hit by a car is affecting everyone else?" She brushed my hair back and then yanked one of my curls. "Boing," she breathed softly, and I felt myself relax. However wrong she was - about everything - my mother didn’t hate me for keeping something as momentous as my engagement a secret from her. Her unwavering support, even for something completely fabricated, was something I could always count on.
“Boing,” she whispered again, tugging gently, and this time I smiled. A silly old joke. One that had made me cackle with laughter as a toddler. Back when it was the two of us against the world.
My mother was young when she had me, barely eighteen. "I've got no good words for the man," she'd always said of the mysterious stranger who fathered me. "Other than he gave me the best gift I could ever ask for." Then she'd squeeze me tight.
My whole childhood was spent secure in the fact that I was her whole world. And at age fourteen when she'd come to me to let me know she was pregnant again - that she was sorry, that even though she had me she still got lonely for a man's touch sometimes - it was to ask for my input, "as co-captain of our little family ship." She knew that there was a strong chance that I'd react badly to the idea of introducing the disruptive force of an infant into our little unit. But it was her respect for me, and her faith in me, that made me promise, at the rebellious age of fourteen, to be her co-parent when that baby was born.
"But how is Jake?" I asked her again as she tugged my curls over and over again. It was comforting for her, I knew, and it was making me profoundly sleepy. I fought to keep my eyes from closing. "Don't let him see me in here, okay? I don't want him to get freaked out."
My mother sighed. It sounded like she wanted to say something, but held back. My eyes drifted closed.
She'd named the baby Jacob at my Twilight-obsessed insistence (Team Jacob forever). But I called him my little Jakey-poo and poured every ounce of my devotion into caring for him.
I popped my eyes back open again. "Who's watching him after school? How are you going to -"
"Relax. I don't want you worrying about that kind of stuff." She stroked my hair back. "Stop worrying and go to sleep."
I dutifully closed my eyes, but all I could picture was my brother. What time was it? Was he going to have to get off the bus all by himself? Who was going to watch out for him if I was stuck in here? While other girls were pasting posters of the King Brothers on their walls, I was diapering his little butt and pacing the floor in the middle of the night while he wailed. I cared for him with all the fervor of a brand new mother, even going so far as to beg a ride from Claire's mom to Reckless Falls to take a baby first aid course at this very hospital. I made it my mission to learn everything I needed to know in order to make sure little Jakey Harlow thrived.
So it wasn't ignorance that led to what happened that night. No matter how many times my mother tried to excuse me - saying I didn't know better, saying it wasn't my fault - I knew that I was to blame. And it weighed on my soul every time I saw the scars on his hand. Every time I watched my little brother struggle with his grip, every time I saw him drop something because the skin grafts on his fingers were too tight for him to close his fist all the way, I felt it. How I'd failed. I knew I couldn't protect him from what happened that day. But forever after I would make sure that he... and everyone I loved, was safe from harm.
I breathed easier as the confusion eased. Thinking about Jakey - worrying about Jakey - that was my normal. With all the weirdness - engaged? What the fuck? - swirling around me like a whirlpool, it was a life preserver I could cling to. I pushed all thoughts of Cooper out of my head and let myself fret about the birthday party Jakey had been begging to attend. The one where they were supposed to see a movie. What movie? I needed to know that he wasn’t going to be seeing something inappropriate. Jake was a sensitive kid. He had nightmares. Last time I allowed him to stay up late to watch a superhero movie, he’d been up all night. I wasn’t going to let that happen again.
The whirlpool eased, and I felt like I was on solid ground again. I made a note to call his friend’s mother once I was out of here.
Then I drifted off to sleep.
Chapter