Wicked Restless (Harper Boys #2)(55)

One question, really.

Don’t you know, Emma? Don’t you know where I went?





Chapter 11





Emma Burke, Age 16



“I’m scared,” I say under the comfort of my mom’s hand on my forehead. I won’t admit this in front of my dad. As strong as he is, I’m his weakness. My mom—she’s the one who can handle life’s imperfect parts, but my dad, he doesn’t like to know I have nightmares or misgivings or regrets.

“It’s okay to be scared,” she says, her smile soft. “But…” she scoots in closer to me on the bed, moving the long tubes and cords out of our way, “it’s also okay to be hopeful. And excited. And driven, or curious, or the millions of other things you get to feel now.”

Her eyes are teary, but I know it’s not because she’s scared. She’s happy. We’ve all waited for this day for so long. I’m getting a new heart. In an hour, I will be taken through those doors I’ve envisioned in my head, put to sleep, cut open—and a miracle will happen.

I will be a miracle.

A few nurses come in to take vitals and check on me. My mom steps out of the way, but she keeps her hand on mine as they work around us. I’m glad. The moment she lets go, I know the trembling will start.

I’m scared. But I’m hopeful too.

I’ll be able to do so many things—things I always dreamt of. I’ll be able to skate again. Maybe…maybe I’ll find Andrew?

“Hey, Mom?” I tug on her hand, and she leans down to give me attention while the nurses finish their prep work.

“Have you heard from Andrew’s mom yet? Dad said he found her number and left her a message. Have you…did he…or did they ever call back?”

It’s been six weeks since Andrew was taken away in the back of a squad car. The officers that drove me home after the accident told my parents very little. But they said enough. Andrew was taken in for possession and driving under the influence. None of what they said made sense with the Andrew I knew—or the Andrew I was with all night. He wasn’t acting weird, and I didn’t smell any alcohol or see any drugs or smell marijuana. But maybe you can’t see those things?

I guess he couldn’t see my problems either. My heart was broken, but in Andrew’s mind, it pumped blood and beat just as his own.

I waited to hear from him. I waited for nearly a week, figuring he was probably in trouble for the accident and for the possession charge. From what I could figure out online, he likely got some community service. And he probably lost his license until he’s eighteen. He’s a minor, so I can’t find his court-hearing record online. But he said he would be okay, and he knew what he was doing. He promised, and that’s the only reason I let him do what he did.

Every night, I expected to hear him below my window. I’d sit there and look out at the long roadway leading up to my house, waiting to see him. Maybe he’d walk, or maybe he’d drive even though he wasn’t supposed to.

He never came.

“Mom?” She’s paying attention to a conversation with a group of nurses, but shakes her head and looks back at me.

“Sorry, I was trying to see when they were taking you,” she smiles.

“Andrew?” I remind her.

Her smile stays in place, but even though her mouth doesn’t move, the meaning of her smile—it changes.

“Did Dad talk to him? Is he okay?” I try to sit up, but my mom holds my arm and shakes her head and chuckles at me.

“Honey, no, nothing like that,” she says. I liked it better when I was excited, when I thought my dad saw Andrew. “He heard from his mom. And he’s going to live somewhere else for a while. With a relative, I think. He has some things he needs to work through. Drugs…Em, whatever he has going on, it’s serious.”

I swallow and watch her face for a clue that she has more to say. She brushes a few pieces of my hair back and straightens my eyebrow by running her finger along it—a doting thing she’s done since I was a kid. And after a few seconds, I realize that’s all the information she has.

Andrew left. No goodbye or letter or stone at my window. Just some secondhand hint that he has a drug problem and “things to work through,” and I just can’t quite buy the full story. There’s something missing, something I’m not being told.

But if Andrew really wanted me to know, he’d tell me.

“Well hello, Emma,” Dr. Wheaton says, practically glowing like an angel as she passes through my room door. She’s in scrubs; I like this look even more than the white coat she wears normally or the business suits she has for our monthly meetings at her office in the city. Everything else goes silent the moment she arrives. The chaos stops—no more Andrew, or machines beeping, and the sound of privacy curtain rings dragging open and bed guardrails flipping up. It’s all gone. All I see is Dr. Miranda Wheaton’s smile, the same one that made me a promise six months ago that this day would come.

It’s here.

My heart—it’s here.





Chapter 12





Andrew



The potatoes are good. If nothing else, my mother’s garlic mashed potatoes are so goddamned good, I’ve been able to drown myself in helping after helping, which has somehow kept much of the conversation off me.