Don't Fail Me Now(66)

“Oh.” He looks completely shocked. “That’s . . . not what I was expecting.”

“Yeah, well, welcome to the club.”

“Come here.” He pulls me in for a hug and holds me there until I can hear his heart beating through his T-shirt, a comforting bass line cutting through the stillness.

I press my forehead against his chest. “I just don’t know how to do this,” I say. “I’ve never—no one’s ever . . .”

“Kissed you?” He tilts my chin up and kisses the tip of my nose.

“Once, but it lasted, like, four seconds.”

“Well, believe me, that guy doesn’t know what he’s missing.” He holds my face in his hands as he presses his lips to mine, soft and slightly parted, like he’s drinking me in breath by breath, and a feverish buzz starts down in my toes, somersaulting up through my body so fast that I have to break away before I start laughing or weeping, I’m not sure which.

“I’m sorry.” I look up to see Tim grinning. This level of vulnerability is new for me. I don’t know how people do it; it feels like being bare-ass naked in the freezing snow. It’s definitely going to take some getting used to.

“No, I’m sorry,” he says. “I told you, I can’t help it.” I smile and rest my head on his shoulder, looking out at the Subway sandwich sign illuminating the parking lot of the shopping center across the street and wondering if it’s like this for everyone: miracle moments hiding in plain sight, like fireflies flashing in the dark.

“I’ve never flown before,” I say.

“Once you take off, it’s like nothing,” he says, squeezing my hand.

“Just hurtling through space.”

“But the faster you move, the less you feel it.”

“We’d have to leave Goldie.”

Tim pulls back slightly and gives me a small, pitying smile. “Do you think she’d even make it back?”

“Maybe. She’s gotten us this far. I can’t just leave her.”

“It’s up to you,” he says. “But I noticed this morning, she’s about to turn over.”

“Turn over?”

“Yeah, the odometer. It’s almost at a hundred thousand. Just a few dozen miles, and it’ll turn over to zeros.”

“Oh, right. It’s actually the second time that’s happened.”

“I figured, on a car that old. Do you remember it?”

I shake my head against his ribcage. “It was before I was born.” I try to picture Goldie’s odometer clicking over to one again. Starting from scratch doesn’t sound bad, but there’s something a little bit sad about it, too. All those miles, gone, like they never happened in the first place. All that distance traveled and then erased from memory.

“Let’s go in,” he says, rubbing my arms. “You feel like you’re made of ice.”

“I don’t know,” I say as we walk back to the front doors and step on the mat together, sending the automatic panels groaning open. “I think I’m starting to thaw.”





EIGHTEEN


Monday Morning to Tuesday Afternoon

Flagstaff, AZ Kingman, AZ




Cass comes to at seven fifteen the next morning. Thanks to a heads up from Munch, who has apparently forgiven me my trespasses, I’ve been sitting by her bed since 7:07, waiting. Bracing myself, really. I know I can’t predict how she’ll react, but I want mine to be the first face she sees. That much I can control, at least.

Her still-closed lids flutter for a while before they finally start to lift. I’m holding her hand again, and as those big, dark eyes come into view, I squeeze, just once. No code, no cop-out, just I’m here. She blinks a few times, and I realize I’m holding my breath, hoping she’ll say, “What happened?” or “Where am I?”—anything that would make it just an accident. But she doesn’t, because it wasn’t. She looks at me, and then beyond at Dr. Chowdhury and Munch, with a kind of grim acceptance. She glances down at my hand on hers but doesn’t move.

“Hey,” I say, struggling not to let my smile turn into the ugly-cry grimace it wants to become. “I missed you.” Dr. Chowdury has warned me not to bring up the suicide attempt because they’re transferring her to pediatric psych at eleven, and he doesn’t want Cass to feel ambushed. But now that she’s awake, it’s actually the last thing I want to talk about. “Are you hungry?” I ask. I’m glad the feeding tube is gone; I hope she never knows it was there.

Cass shakes her head and winces.

“You sustained a minor concussion, Cassidy, so you’re likely to have some pain for a few days,” Dr. Chowdhury says, crouching down on the opposite side of the bed. “I’ll have the nurse bring you some ibuprofen with your breakfast, how does that sound?”

“I’m not hungry,” Cass whispers. Her voice is soft, hoarse, and a little slurred.

“You still have to eat,” he says gently. “We’ve been keeping your blood sugar stable with a glucose, lipid, and amino acid solution, but now that you’re conscious I think it will be much more pleasant for you to take food orally.”

Cass looks at me, her eyebrows slanted down slightly, the way they’ve done her entire life every time she needs me to reassure her that something is okay.