No One Knows Part 16

I will admit it, I broke down. I don't do that much anymore. But as I watched them playing in the yard, I lost it. Simply, cleanly, completely. Cried, and hid my tears behind my sunglasses. Parker came up with a beetle to show me and said, "Auntie, your nose is all red," and I blamed it on sunburn.

It's just not fair. Where are you? Why won't you come home to me? Was it something I did? Did I make you unhappy? Was there anything that I could have done differently? I can't help but feel that you ran away from me, that I drove you away. And for what?

I don't know how much longer I can do this, Josh. You were everything to me, and I feel so incomplete. Like I am half a woman.

Come home, darling. I don't want to live without you anymore. I can't.

Always, Aubrey

CHAPTER 27.

Daisy Today Daisy heard snippets of language but couldn't decipher them. She felt like she was asleep, underwater, locked inside a room that didn't allow for air. She couldn't breathe. Every part of her body hurt, and though she was afraid to move, afraid it would hurt more, the idea of lying still any longer made her claustrophobic. Eyes. Eyes had to open. Her eyes wouldn't open.

She thrashed. Oh, dear God, she couldn't breathe. She began to choke, to gag.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, she's waking up."

This she heard clearly, in her right ear. Waking up from what? What was happening?

The warm cotton of heavy sleep began to flow through her. She recognized the feeling, a brief moment of clarity. She'd had anesthesia once before. And as she began to be cognizant of that thought, the darkness overwhelmed her.

Later.

Long, low beeps. Daisy could hear them clearly, getting louder and louder. The hiss of air. Her chest-oh, the pain was unbearable.

She opened her eyes. She couldn't move her head. The feelings of claustrophobia returned; she saw Tom leaning over her.

"Oh, Daisy. Honey. Thank God. Nurse!"

Thank God for what? Tom's face disappeared, replaced by whiteness, intense and harsh, so bright it made her reflexively shut her eyes. She tried to sit up and saw red. The pain was immediate, flaring into her brain. She stopped moving, just clenched her teeth together, prayed for it all to end.

"Daisy?"

She opened her eyes. Tom's face was back, wavering above her.

"Baby, you were in an accident. Do you remember?"

An accident? She didn't remember anything. She tried to shake her head, to say no, but nothing worked.

A brown-skinned sloe-eyed woman appeared. A genie. She looked like a genie. Where was her bottle?

"Daisy, I'm Rasha. I'm your nurse. You have a tube down your throat to help you breathe. You have sustained several injuries, including a broken sternum and some cracked vertebrae in your neck. You're in a halo, to keep your head still. You're going to be very sore, so I want you to tell me, on a scale of one to ten, how badly you hurt. So blink for me, sweetie. Blink for how badly you hurt on a scale of one to ten."

Daisy fluttered her eyes as quickly as she could.

"Wow, okay. Let me get you some relief here."

She couldn't see what was happening, but within moments her body was flooded with liquid gold, warm and soft as cashmere in her bones. She tried to take a deep breath, a reflex reaction to the soothing relief she felt, but couldn't.

It didn't matter anymore. A gentle darkness surrounded her, carried her away.

The sun was coming through the blinds. Daisy could feel the shift, that instant when she knew she was awake. There was a brief, intoxicating moment while she forgot what was happening. Reality crept back in, and the pain began.

It burned and ached and simmered in her chest. Each breath was agony.

But pain was her companion. It told her she was alive.

Tom stood nearby; she could smell his fear and sweat over the antiseptic coldness of the room. The nurse, Rasha, offered more meds, but Daisy blinked once for no. She wanted to know what was going on. Where she was. What had happened.

Using only her eyes, she looked left and right and left and right, trying to communicate something, anything, so they'd know she wanted to hear about why she was here and what the hell was going on.

Tom asked her a few inane questions: "Do you have to pee? Go ahead, you have a catheter. Do you want a drink? You can't have one, I know your mouth must be dry, but they're giving you fluids. Do you hurt? Of course you hurt, that was stupid of me. What do you want, sweetheart?"

She shut her eyes and kept them closed. Amazing, even drugged and broken, she could still get annoyed with the man. He never had understood her.

She opened her eyes again and frowned at him.

"I don't know what she wants," he said, voice needy with helplessness.

A voice that made Daisy's blood pressure tick up several notches answered. "Let me try."

Tom's face was replaced by the curly-haired bitch who'd gotten Josh killed.

Aubrey.

If Daisy could only raise her arms, she'd scratch her eyes out.

"Daisy," Aubrey started in a soothing discoursing-with-the-inmates tone, "you've been in an accident. You drove your car into my house. You're hurt badly, you're in intensive care. They've done surgery to put you back together. Your neck was broken, they fused the vertebrae together, so you have to stay in the halo for a while. It's screwed in, so you won't be able to turn your head. And your sternum had a crack in it. They need to keep you as immobile as possible for the time being while things start to knit back together. Blink twice if you understand."

As much as she didn't want to obey the little wretch, she was more starved for information, so she blinked slowly, once, twice.

"Good. They're going to keep you sedated until things are calmed down. You've given everyone quite the scare, Daisy. It's going to be a rough few days, but they think they'll be able to take you off the ventilator soon. And then you'll be able to talk."

Something in Aubrey's eyes actually telegraphed concern. Daisy blinked twice.

"We'll stay with you, Daisy, as much as they'll let us. You're in intensive care, so the visiting hours are limited. No matter what, you won't be alone. One of us will be nearby twenty-four/seven."

Tom's worried face hovered into Daisy's field of vision. He was nodding at each of Aubrey's well-enunciated statements.

Daisy shut her eyes. Looking at them upside down and sideways above her was making her nauseous. She didn't remember the accident. She'd hit Aubrey's house with her car? She thought back, searching her bruised mind for something, anything to hang onto.

Images floated through her mind-tennis, her house, vodka, Tom.

Nothing. She was blank.

She opened her eyes and another face appeared in her field of vision. A young man, thirty or so, with dark eyes. He looked so familiar. So very familiar. She had no idea who he was, and yet she knew him intimately. Every ache, every pain. Every whisper in the night, the smooth skin on the underside of his arm. She loved him. Even in high school, when he hated her, she loved him.

Her brain worked to make the connections, tried to process and spit out the answer, but it just wouldn't come.

And then he sprang into her consciousness, and she realized it had all been a terrible, awful dream. She'd been dreaming.

Josh. Her Josh. He was right here, standing with her. She didn't even care that the wretch was with him. She was flooded with happiness.

It was so good to have the family back together.

Exhausted, she let her eyes close, and slid into darkness again.

CHAPTER 28.

Josh Seventeen Years Ago The beginning of Josh's first day in high school was shaping up to be incredibly painful. The Montessori school he'd attended since kindergarten only went up to eighth grade, and then the students moved on to regular, mainstream public schools or pricey private schools. Private school wasn't in Tom's budget, so instead of walking down the street to school, Josh had to get on a bus, with strangers, to go to Hillsboro High School. Josh hated strangers. He liked things safe and sane and comfortable.

At fourteen he wasn't big for his age either, which worried him. He knew he was going to get picked on. New kid, new school, new class-yeah, things were going to be different, that was for sure.

The bus smelled like vomit. Someone more scared than he was, then. He ignored the curious looks, took the first empty seat, and attempted to become invisible, shrinking into the green pleather, face attached to the window. The glass was cool and felt good against his cheek.

He didn't know how he was going to stand being away from Aubrey.

She was so small, so wounded. Who was going to take care of her? Who was going to defend her? Without him there to give her that invisible layer of armor, she would be vulnerable to attack.

Last night, when they'd talked on the phone, she told him that she missed him. It made his heart swell up, and he'd snuck off to the bathroom for another shower and spent his time under the water's spray imagining all sorts of naughty things that he'd like to try with Aubrey. Things his mother would probably shoot him for.

But Aubrey was only twelve. A mature twelve-she'd seen too much at the foster home where she lived-but twelve nonetheless, and the way Josh looked at it, it wouldn't be right to have the real thing between them for a while. He knew of a girl in his neighborhood who'd gotten pregnant, and the idea of that happening to Aubrey was frightening to him. He'd gone to the library and looked up several books on childbirth, and learned exactly what happened when a man and woman had unprotected sex. No, that wouldn't do.

So he had to be content with pleasuring himself in the shower, which really wasn't all bad, though he would have liked to at least have Aubrey's hand in place of his own. That would be safe. They wouldn't get into trouble that way. She'd do it, too, without complaining. She would do anything for him.

His fantasy about the shower lasted him until the bus pulled up in front of the school, and he realized he had a painful erection. God, how was he going to get off the bus?

He fiddled with his backpack, praying things would calm down. Dead puppies. No, that didn't work. Daisy. Yes, that did the trick. Just one mental glance at his mother's disapproving glare sent things shrinking back down to normal.

He swallowed and got off the bus, knowing he must be beet red. He looked down at the ground and hurried up the stairs, being jostled by boys and girls much bigger than he.

"Josh?"

He heard his name and looked up. Aubrey was over by the doors. He couldn't help himself; his face broke into a huge grin and he loped toward her, oblivious to the people pushing and shoving around him. God, she was beautiful, that curly hair sticking out at angles from her face, her lips redder and fuller than any girl's he'd ever seen. She was starting to fill out, too, her body on its continental drift toward womanhood, a swell of hips and small breasts. She had long legs though she was only five feet tall, legs tight with muscles from all the walking and running and biking she did. Anything to stay moving. Aubrey was perpetually in motion.

"What are you doing here?" he asked.

"Don't be mad. I wanted to see you off."

"But you're late for school."

"I'll blame it on Sandy. Mrs. Pierce won't know any different. I borrowed a bike and rode over here."

Borrowed. Josh cringed at the word. Borrowed was her slang for stole, and it was something she did more than Josh liked. Aubrey's versions of right and wrong were colored in shades of gray Josh didn't completely understand.

"Be sure you take it back, Aubrey."

"Yes, Mom," she said, and flashed him a grin. He couldn't stay mad at that face for long. She really had no idea what effect she had on him, on everyone around her.

The bell rang, and Josh jumped. "I better go. I'm glad you came by."

"Me, too." Aubrey looked like she wanted to do something, or say something. He waited, bouncing on the balls of his feet for a moment, then said, "Well, bye."

"Bye," she replied, then bit her lip and, faster than a cobra, leaned into his space and touched her lips briefly to his. Without a word, she turned and jogged back to the bike, hopped on and rode away. Josh stood there, staring after her.

She'd kissed him. She kissed him. After all the horrible imaginings, and the pleasurable ones, of trying to figure out how to get her to let him kiss her, she'd gone and reversed things on him.

He smiled. Oh, God. She really liked him.

"Yo, kid. Was that your girlfriend?"

Josh was pulled back to reality by the voice. He cringed inside, not knowing what to expect, turned with his fists clenched. The boy was taller than him, with dark hair and dark eyes, a beak of a nose. He looked strong, and Josh immediately put his weight on his toes, ready to punch and run.

"Yeah, that's my girlfriend," he said. Casually. Cool. Just the hint of a challenge in his tone.

The older boy's face broke into a knowing smile. "Nice." The boy bumped Josh's shoulder with his knuckles. "I'm Arlo."

"Josh Hamilton."

"You ever been laid?"

Should he push his luck? Maybe not. This guy looked like he could see through most things.

"No."

"Yeah, me neither. But you're certainly on the way. She's a little hottie. We should go in. Are you going to try out for football? I'm varsity this year. You're awful quick-I saw you take off from the bus. You might make a good running back."

Arlo chatted nonstop as they walked into the school. Josh followed him, dumbstruck when Arlo introduced Josh around to his friends, all obviously not ninth graders. They were practically men.

Josh thought back five minutes, to Aubrey's darting eyes just before she leaned in and kissed him. She'd known people were watching. In one fell swoop, Aubrey had given him credibility in his strange new life.

And then he realized she'd done it on purpose, a gift for him. She'd anticipated his fears, his concerns, known that he would have a hard time, so had shown up-on a stolen bike, no less-to help him transition into this more grown-up world.