"What do you mean, she went home?" I was shouting so loudly that Chrissi reared back from me, but I didn't care. I didn't care how I looked. I cared about only one thing. "She wasn't well enough to go home yet!"
"It was her request." For all her swishy-girliness, Chrissi was solid steel. Her initial shock wore off pretty fast, and she was right back up in my face, on the defensive. "The doctors were hesitant, but she insisted she was well enough."
"Of course she did, that's what she does!" I threw up my hands, letting them come to rest on the back of my neck, which I rubbed in furious circles. "Oh my God, I can't believe... shit, no, I totally can. Of course she did wanted to go home, but you shouldn't have let her!”
Chrissi didn't roll her eyes, but her voice sure did. "We're not going to keep her here against her will, Cooper. And it's not like we just sent her home to rot, either. "She lowered her voice to a hiss. "You think I'd do that? Me? Of course not. She's got all her prescriptions. She's going to have her PT of course. And a home nurse will check up on her twice..." She trailed off and cocked her head to the side suspiciously. "Wait, why am I telling you this? Why aren't you with her?"
"I don't know!" I turned and ran down the hall in a blind rage. Without thinking, I burst back out of the elevators and up to my truck and was on the road before I even realized where I was headed.
Her house.
How could she do this? She's been hit by a fucking car. I found her on the side of the road, almost dead. I knew she was a stubborn martyr, but this was ridiculous. It was dangerous. It was a fucking slap in my face after everything I'd done for her. She had some fucking nerve, doing this to me....
My conscience pricked at me. You've been hiding from her for days.
I didn't want to think about that. I wanted to shout at her until my throat was hoarse.
But I only drove faster.
It wasn't until I was bumping along the long, dusty and deep-rutted drive that wound through thick woods that it occurred to me that even though I had never been to Willa's house, I still knew exactly where it was. I'd made the turn like I'd been making it my whole life. And I knew exactly the place I was looking for once the trees thinned and I saw Willa's house.
No one had ever used the phrase "trailer trash" to her face in high school, because they knew that Liam would have their ass if they did. And that his best friend the quarterback would back him up. But the undercurrent was still there, as were the whispered speculations as to why the mayor's son would ever want to "date down" like he was. There was also even nastier speculation that Willa Harlow was nothing better than a gold-digger who was using him for his family's wealth. Of course, out of loyalty to Liam, I'd tried to keep from asking the same questions, but once he dumped her for cheating on him, I felt free to wonder as well, assuming I had her all figured out.
As I barreled down her rutted drive with my heart in my throat and my fingers on the steering wheel in a white-knuckle grip of worry for her, I realized, once again, that I really didn't know anything about her at all.
Her trailer was perched at the edge of a stand of trees that shaded a rutted lawn already browning in the summer's heat. Wood siding on the trailer looked like it had been installed by someone carefully, but still a complete amateur, and the way the pieces fit together made it clear they used every last scrap left rather than let it go to waste. A faded yellow and green striped awning stretched out over a sunken wood porch that housed a jumbled mess of chairs and tables. It looked like her family used it as an extra living room in the summer time. The scalloped edges of the awning flapped lazily in the hot breeze, sending their shadows out over the tangle of bikes and wagons that leaned up against the side of the porch. Jake's presence was definitely felt here. But where was Willa's stuff? Maybe she wasn't here after all?
That brief, relieved thought flitted through my brain and was gone just as quickly as it came. Because just as I was putting my truck in park, I spotted her through the narrow window by the front door.
I sat up, stiffening with recognition when I saw her familiar shape. I stared a beat too long at the way she was framed by the window and the way that even her cast couldn't hide how her shirt clung in all the right places. I stared, and out of nowhere, a smile tugged at the side of my mouth, just to see her again, up and around like this.
And then I remembered.
I was pissed.
I vaulted from my truck and bounded up onto the porch, ready to burst through the door and give her a piece of my mind. "What the hell do you think you're doing, are you fucking high?" was perched fully-formed at the tip of my tongue. But my foul-mouthed tirade was cut off at the knees when I heard a childish voice on the other side of the door.
"...And all my friends are going to be going! Why can't I?" Her brother had worked himself up into a full-bore, piercing whine that made me want to punt him, but Willa's voice was pure patient love. "Jake, I don't know his mom, I'm sorry. If you can get me her number, and let me talk to her first, I promise I'll make every effort. Maybe she'll even consider picking a different movie?"
"That's so embarrassing! My friends are going to call me a baby!"
"You are my baby, though."
He yelled something unintelligible and I shook my head, stunned. She was literally just out of the hospital and already having to deal with a bratty kid? Where was her mother to deal with this shit so that she could rest?
There was a thump and then the front door slammed open. "Hate you!" Jake screamed over his shoulder. And then stopped short when he saw me standing there. "Willa! There's a man on the porch!"
Willa was there in a second, puffed up with mama bear rage, and we both stared at each other, open-mouthed. She was the first to recover. "Cooper, what the heck?"
The bandage on her head had come loose, flapping up at one end so that the bright leering glare of the still bloody gash was visible. She was holding a sponge. With her left hand. The one that had born the full brunt of her weight when she'd been flung to the ground by a speeding driver.
I stared at her, tried to stammer a greeting or an explanation.
And then I fucking lost it. "What the hell are you doing?"
She stepped back, shaking her head in exaggerated confusion. "I'm sorry. What the hell did you just say to me?"
"Here." I yanked the screen door back so hard it squeaked on the rebound, then stabbed my finger across the lawn. "You get your ass in my truck right now. You're going back to the hospital."
"What?" She laughed, but I was done laughing about this.
"You aren't better yet, what the hell are you doing?"
She glanced at Jakey, who was listening with keen ears for all the swearing I was about to do. And I was about to do a lot. "You're crazy, you know that? You have a fucking head wound. It's still bleeding!”
"It is not."
"It is!" I reached out for her, intending to swipe the blood over her eye to show her. To open her damn eyes so she could see that she still needed my fucking help.
But my fingers didn't stop at her eye. They brushed past, twining into her hair, and then cupped behind her neck, bringing her close just as my mouth sought hers.
She made a noise deep in her throat as I kissed her. Or was that noise coming from me? It made sense that I had no clue either way because absolutely nothing was making sense. Not how angry I was, not how good this felt. Not how soft her lips were, or how silky and alive her curls felt as they slipped through my fingers. Nothing made sense except the bright flare of heat in my gut, the one that felt just like I'd lit a match and held it to something that was more than ready to burst into flame.
"Cooper!"
I was so lost that it took a moment for the outrage in her voice to register. I pulled back just as her hands - which had been resting on my chest, right over the beat of my heart - pushed me, harder than I was expecting, and I took an involuntary step back.
"Cooper?" Her voice was strained and measured, but I was more focused on the pink in her cheeks and the way her chest rose and fell in gasping breaths. "What the hell, Cooper?"
And then I blinked and came back to myself. What the hell, indeed? I had... fuck, I had no excuses. "I'm sorry," was all I could think to say. I felt like I'd been hollowed out.
"Holy fuck," added Jake.
"Jake!" The color drained right back out of Willa's cheeks and she shot me one withering glare before she snapped back into scolding big sister mode. "You don't say those words. I don't care what the people around you" —another look that should have reduced me to ashes— "are saying. You don't use language like that."
"Cooper said it." The kid didn't miss a thing, my name included.
"Cooper was just leaving." Willa's fingers curled against the door frame and she started slowly shutting it in my face.
When I caught sight of that winking gleam on her ring finger, righteous anger flooded back into the space that kiss had opened up inside of me. "We're not done here."
The door thudded against my foot and she looked down like it was something separate from me. "We definitely are."
"I'm not leaving until you tell me you're going back to the hospital."
"Well, I'm not, so..."
"You need to be."
"Who says? You?"
"Yeah. Your fiancé says so."
She rolled her eyes. "It's over now. I kept your secret like I said I would, but I'm done." She glanced at the ring that was still on her right hand. Then winced as she tried to use her shattered left one to yank it off.
"Stop it." I reached out, then caught myself, then said fuck it and touched her good arm. "Don't try to take it off." I don't know why, but I like it there. "You're gonna hurt yourself."
Tears were gathering in her eyes. "Leave me alone, Cooper." With a frustrated yelp, she gave up trying to pull the ring off. I reached out, meaning to help her.
She shut the door instead.
Right in my face.
I stood there on the porch, too stunned to even move. Slow anger simmered along my bloodstream. My heart thudded loudly in my ears, but not so loudly that I didn't hear her calling to her brother inside. She crossed in front of the window, silhouetted against the drawn curtains. Her right arm moved in wide, animated circles as she gestured to her brother. I stepped back, down one step, then another, still staring at her shape as she stood there. She gestured again, and the curtains swayed.
Wait, was it the curtains that were swaying or...
I leaped forward just as she went down. In two steps I was through the front door and down on the floor next to her.
"Willa!" her little brother was screaming, and for a moment it was a terrible echo of the night I'd found her on the side of the road. "Willa? Willa come on, wake up."
But this time her eyes opened. "Wha - ?" She sat back up again. "What am I doing on the floor?"
I wanted to throttle her. I wanted to burst out laughing in relief. I wanted to kiss her again.
But more than anything, I wanted to grab her and sling her over my shoulder and carry her out of here like a caveman so I could keep her safe from herself.
But she had a broken arm and had just fainted, so I settled for shouting at her instead. "You can't do this. You can't act like nothing has changed, because it has. You need to take care of yourself for once, Willa." My voice broke on her name and I coughed and looked away.
"Cooper."
I turned back when she said my name. So soft and gentle. I have no idea what it was that I thought I'd see in her face when I met her eyes - what I wanted to see in her eyes when she said my name - but it wasn't the bored, patronizing smile she was now wearing.
"I'm fine. I appreciate you worrying about me and I really do appreciate," she paused, swallowed, "everything else you've done for me too, but I'm really okay now, so... please... just..." She trailed off and looked at her brother. "Hey bud?" she called, suddenly bright and cheerful again. "Go grab your backpack, okay? We have to get your math homework done."
I stood up. Stepped back. It was such a clear rejection that I didn't need her to say it in words.
"So can I go to Brycen's party?" her brother badgered her, not even waiting until she'd gotten all the way to her feet.
"To a PG-13 movie, bud? I don't know if that's such a good idea. You know how you get nightmares."
"You are so mean!" he shouted and stomped away down the tiny hall.
Willa glanced back in my direction one more time. Opened her mouth. Then closed it.
Then followed her brother.
She had to know I was watching her, which was why she was walking so carefully. Holding her head so high. She was mistaken in thinking I didn't see how carefully she was moving. How much pain she was in.
And she also had to know that I'd noticed she was still wearing the ring.
Chapter