Everything We Didn't Say(79)

“You need some rest,” she said, trying to bite back her disappointment. Her expectations had been unrealistic. There would be no heart-to-heart, no answers today. Jonathan was still hooked up to ECMO. He had a very long road ahead of him. Scariest of all, he was a shell of the man he had once been.

Juniper leaned over to say goodbye, to make eye contact one last time before she let him drift off and rest. “Get some sleep,” she said, touching Jonathan’s face with the very tips of her fingers. “We’ll talk later. We’ve got lots of time.”

He looked at her, and then his eyes widened in shock. Jonathan tried to lift his head from the pillow, but he couldn’t.

“What?” she whispered, keenly aware that Law was just behind her. Something was really upsetting Jonathan, and she desperately wanted to know what. “What’s wrong?”

Jonathan’s eyes cut hard to her chest and back again. When he did it once more, Juniper looked down. Her necklace had fallen loose from her shirt and was dangling in the air between them.

“This?” She touched it briefly, and when he tugged his chin down in affirmation, she slipped it back into the loose collar of her sweater. “Officer Stokes found it. It was—”

Jonathan silenced her with a look.

“What do you want?” Juniper whispered.

He pointed to the marker board and she went behind his bed to grab it. There was a blue dry-erase marker stuck with Velcro to the top, and Juniper pulled it off and uncapped it, then handed it to Jonathan. When she held up the board for him, he wrote a single word in a shaky hand.

Dad.

Juniper felt herself deflate. “He’s right here, Jonathan. He’s been here the whole time.” To Law she said, “He’s asking for you.”

Lawrence lifted himself with some difficulty. At seventy-five, he was aging quickly, rapidly pulling away from his much younger wife simply because his knees and shoulders, even his mind, were tired from wear and tear. Still, he pushed himself to his feet and shuffled over to stand on the opposite side of the bed from Juniper.

He hovered there awkwardly for a moment, but then Law reached out and rubbed Jonathan’s arm with his own gnarled hand. It was just a few seconds of contact, but it affected Juniper in a way she hadn’t thought possible. Those arthritic fingers touching Jonathan with such unexpected tenderness was almost her undoing. Juniper blinked back sudden tears. She didn’t know Law had it in him.

“I’m here,” Law said, his voice thick. “I’m right here.”

As Juniper watched, Jonathan studied his father’s hand on the blanket. But he didn’t look at Lawrence’s face. And instead of saying anything to him, instead of using the marker board to communicate what Juniper believed had to be an important message, Jonathan turned his face toward her, away from Lawrence, and very deliberately closed his eyes. Tears leaked from beneath his lashes and dampened the starched pillowcase.

After the ventilator had pushed a few breaths into Jonathan’s lungs and he didn’t stir, Juniper caught Law’s gaze. “What was that all about?” she asked quietly.

There was something fragile in Lawrence’s look, but she could tell he was hurt, too. He sniffed once, hard, and then walked away from the bed as quickly as he could manage and yanked open the door.

“I told you he wasn’t himself,” Law said over his shoulder. “That’s not my Jonathan.”





CHAPTER 20


THAT NIGHT

When we get home from the pancake breakfast, I head straight to my room and call Sullivan. He doesn’t answer, nor does he respond to the multiple texts that I send him over the course of the next hour. I have no idea where he is or I’d hop in my car to go find him, and then the level of my hopelessness hits me and I feel sick. It strikes me that I hardly know Sullivan. And, up until very recently, I deeply distrusted and even disliked him. He was insolent and arrogant and downright creepy at times. Sullivan never tried to disguise his attraction to me, and haven’t I given him exactly what he wanted?

I think of his fingers tracing the curve of my hip and feel cleaved down the middle by longing and fear. What if all of this has been a game to him? What if Sullivan has been playing me and I’ve pushed everyone away?

Jonathan and I are practically estranged, and by the look on Ashley’s face at the pancake breakfast, our friendship is over. I haven’t seen the Murphys in weeks, Mom’s keeping secrets from me, and all my other friends have already begun the slow drift into their own futures. Some to college, others into full-time jobs that have changed the landscape of their lives entirely. Me? I’m stuck in Jericho making terrible decisions that have the potential to unravel my world.

I’m frantic with regret and terrified that it’s too late to undo what has been done. I want to drive over to Ashley’s house and try to make her understand, but I know she needs some time to cool off. And I’d love nothing more than to talk to Jonathan—to really talk to him—but he’s been sidelining me all summer. I pace the floor of my bedroom, unsure of what to do next, when I realize that I’ve had enough. I’m done with being lied to.

Mom is downstairs making potato salad and Law’s drinking a pre-party beer on the porch, but I still tiptoe out of my room as if I’m in imminent danger of being caught. The second story of our farmhouse is small but efficient, with four doors opening onto a landing that boasts a single bookshelf with Jonathan’s and my childhood collection. The first room to the left of the stairs is mine, then there’s a tiny closet-sized room that houses Mom’s sewing machine. The bathroom is kitty-corner from where I’m standing, and across the hall is Jonathan’s bedroom.