The Anatomical Shape of a Heart(50)

“Maybe. But if my dad runs another campaign, my parents will be out of the picture. Campaigning is nonstop stress for both of them. Long hours. Trips. And if he wins? Governor of California? We’d have to move, and I can’t even fathom the drama.”

“I don’t think it’s your job to worry about that.”

“Kind of hard not to when it’s my life. Now do you see what you’ve gotten yourself into? Do you understand why I didn’t call you after her seizure?”

“I understand,” I said, tapping my knee against his leg. “But don’t ever do that again. If anything happens, no matter what, you call me. Okay?”

He tilted his head to look at me and nodded. “Okay.”

“Promise me, Jack.”

“I promise.”

A friendly voice called out from the parking garage entrance. I spotted Panhandler Will walking toward us. “Sad Girl and Monk,” he said cheerily. “You found each other.”

“We did,” I confirmed. “Thanks for your help.”

“Anytime, anytime. No man, I’m good,” he said, waving away the money Jack had dug from his pocket. “I just wanted to say hi. I wasn’t asking.”

“Take it anyway,” Jack said. “You should open a dating service for the hospital. Play matchmaker and get people together.”

“You’re teasing me,” Will said, taking the offered bill.

“Yeah, I am,” Jack said with a smile.

Will smiled back, almost shyly, before swiveling around to peer farther down the sidewalk. “Dammit. Rent-a-cops. Gotta go. Thanks, Monk. See you, Sad Girl.”

After Will disappeared into the garage, Jack said, “You know he used to be a patient in Jillian’s ward, right?”

“Seriously? I mean, I knew he wasn’t … jeez. How long ago?”

“Like, seven years ago. One of the orderlies remembers him. He says they never diagnosed exactly what was wrong, but he’s on a low-dose antipsychotic. They sneak him free medicine and try to check up on him. I guess he has no relatives and no place to crash.”

“That sucks.”

“Many things in life do, Bex.”

I slid my hand into his. For several beats, his grip was almost tight enough to hurt, but I didn’t let go. Not then, and not when he told me he had to get home because his parents were expecting him. Or when he insisted on riding the N-Judah back with me because it was “dangerous to ride public transportation at night.” (Oh, the irony.) And not when he walked me down the block-long hill to my house.

“What are you going to do about ‘rise?’” I asked after we turned the corner and the pale yellow siding on my house came into view.

“Ah, yes. ‘Rise.’” He cleared his throat. “I’ve been trying to match up the words to places Jillian likes. But it’s a hard balance, finding a spot that’s both significant and hidden enough that I can work. And security cameras are a problem. So it’s like solving a secondary puzzle to figure out the perfect spot.”

I stopped across the street from my house. “Could you use a getaway girl?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Why?”

“First, you don’t drive, so you’d make a terrible getaway girl. And second, you told me yourself—felony charges. I won’t put you in a situation where you might get dragged down with me. Nurse Katherine the Great would never let me see you again.”

“This is true. But I thought feeling alive is always worth the risk. At least, that’s what someone once told me.”

He smiled for the first time since we’d left the psych ward. “That person was an idiot.”

“I don’t know about that. Personally, I think he’s pretty amazing.”

“Amazing, huh? Tell me more about how great I am.”

“Were we talking about you?” I asked, squinting up at him quizzically.

Smiling, he finally let go of my hand. “You really are a lake,” he murmured. Then he slipped his arms around my back, and I curled my arms around him, boldly taking the liberty of going right under his scuffed leather jacket, like I’d been doing it for years. He smelled good. He felt good. And when he bent his head and kissed me—slowly, deeply … doing this lazy, rolling thing with his tongue that drove me wild—I forgot that we were standing in the middle of a city sidewalk. I forgot everything but the two of us. And nothing else mattered.

When he finally left, my kiss-weakened legs were barely able to climb our front steps. Two hours later, I got a text from him: Good night, Bex.

And the next morning, I got another: If you really want to be my getaway girl, be ready tomorrow at midnight. Dress in black.

21

Just before our meeting time, I did Jack’s controlled breathing trick to relax and padded down the hallway to my mom’s room. Dressed in loungewear, she was stretched out beneath her bedcovers, a glass of wine on her bedside table.

“Hey,” I said. “My shift kinda sucked and I’m supertired, so I’m just going to crash for the night.”

Mom looked up from her e-reader. “You’re working too much at Alto.”

“But I’m putting a ton of money away in savings.”

She gave me a sleepy smile. “Which is why you won’t be living here when you’re twenty, like your brother. Keep it up.”