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I am smarter than Simon. I suspect I’m smarter than Chelsea. I am definitely, at this moment in time, more awake, prepared, and motivated than either of them. I walk down a hall I’ve lived on for a thousand days yet walked down less than fifty times. Pass my door and eye the new lock. Go down two more doors and stop before Simon’s. The last time I knocked on his door, I had almost killed someone. I had been a barely contained mess of emotions. Fu
When I open my eyes, I am the girl I never wanted to be but have been for a long time. I am the madness, the demon, the insanity. I step forward with purpose and pound my fist on the door.
CHAPTER 83
Present
ALL IS NOT lost; it will be fine. There was a rebleed, but he’ll come out again. Lily knows it. She stands in the doorway and watches the nurses work. Everyone quiet, the monitor behaving. The doctor left a few minutes ago but said he’d be back. This is a good sign, he’d said. His brain is tired, he said. We’ll give him some time to recoup, then pull back the drugs in a few days. See what happens. See what happens. Like it was Olivia’s softball practice and they weren’t sure if it would be rained out. She doesn’t like the doctor. He fidgets and doesn’t ask her name and doesn’t look her in the eye. Like he doesn’t want to co
It’s not fair, that he came to life for a few minutes and uttered only five words. Even more unfair that every single one of them were about her. The girl that, just hours earlier, Lily had been cursing to an early grave. She had literally spent all of last night pla
Granted, she hadn’t always thought that. She had actually believed in her i
I love you, she had sobbed to Jeremy.
Dea
She’s in jail, she had said.
Simon. It was Simon.
Who the F is Simon? Not one of his friends, no one he worked with… She digs deep and comes up blank. She turns away, toward the hall, and takes a few steps, then stops, leaning her back against the wall. She cups her hands around the cell phone and unlocks the screen. Stares for a long moment at the home display, the time changing as she watches it, one more minute lost forever, one more minute she will never get back.
Simon. It was Simon.
Slowly, she scrolls down the call log, her finger hovering over the number of the detective, their last chat a couple of days ago, when Dea
Simon. It was Simon.
Who was to say that Jeremy was coherent? That he even knew what was going on? That he even remembered what had happened? Who knew if Simon was a real person or just a figment created by a morphine-high brain? Why should she listen to him?
Simon. It was Simon.
He’d only managed five words during his journey to the surface. It only makes sense that she should listen to what he said, damn the validity. She presses on the number and lifts the phone to her ear. Hears the ring and worries, for a moment, about waking the woman.
When Brenda answers, there is the rush of road noise in the background, and Lily breaths a sigh of relief.
“Detective Boles? This is Lily Ortiz, Jeremy Pacer’s sister.”
“Lily, we’re headed to you now, we’re about twenty minutes away.” She says something to someone else, a muffled conversation occurring out of Lily’s earshot.
“There’s no point in coming.” Her voice cracks and she swallows hard, forcing her vocal cords into submission. “I mean… he’s back asleep. He probably won’t talk again for another twelve hours or so.”
“Oh.” The disappointment in that one word is clear and pronounced.
“But he did say something. Right before he fell back asleep.” Asleep, that’s all it was. The heavy medication, his injuries… he was asleep. Asleep with his eyes open, that’s the part she can’t erase from her mind. That’s the scene that, if this doesn’t end well, she will never ever forget.
“Yes?”
She squeezes a chunk of hair in her fist, her nails biting into the pad of her palm. “He said it wasn’t Dea
There is a long pause, the hum of background noise the only thing verifying their co
A stupid question but she’d asked the nurses a hundred of them that day alone. Will he be okay? Is he thirsty? Will he wake up? Is that medicine helping? “Yes.” She says shortly. “I am a hundred percent sure. He said the name twice.”