Within These Walls (Within These Walls #1)(30)

How easily people took life for granted when it had so easily been given.

How I wished for such simplicity.

When the sun started to settle in the horizon and my dinner had gone cold, I reached into the drawer by my bed and pulled out the list I’d created so many years ago.

One night, while sitting at home in my room, I had curled up in my bed and watched some ridiculous high school drama flick. The plotline was the typical he-said, she-said with a bit of show tunes thrown in. It was horrible, and I would deny ever seeing it to anyone who might ask. But as I had sat there, watching these girls in cheerleading uniforms trying out for school plays, crying over boyfriends, and arguing over prom dresses, I’d realized my life would never be anything like that.

Except for the medical drama in my life, I’d never had any of the highs and lows that came with being human. As the teenyboppers had sung about broken hearts and stolen dreams, I’d pulled out a fresh notebook and started this list. It had become a way to almost purge my soul and let go of the life I’d never had. I’d known I would never do any of the things written on the pages of this journal, but seeing them would at least remind me that I could have, if things had been different.

I cracked the worn spine and ran the pads of my fingers over the pages of my Normal list, my Someday list. My eyes wandered down each item until I stopped on the last one listed on a page near the middle of the book.

Make a meal from start to finish.

A wisp of a smile tugged at my lips as I remembered standing in the industrial kitchen of the cafeteria, rolling out pizza dough with Jude. Reaching down to where I’d set my journal next to my legs, I grabbed the pen I’d used and uncapped it.

Feeling like something monumental was about to happen, I took a deep breath and slowly drew a dark black line through number sixty-two.

He’d done that for me. Jude had made one dent in my Someday list.

For one day, I’d felt real and whole, and finally, someone had looked at all of me instead of just the broken parts.

But like all the other times I’d spent with Jude, as soon as he’d begun to open up, he’d fled. Without warning, his mood had gone from light and teasing to edgy and quiet.

What makes a man act that way? Regret? Guilt? Did I do or say something?

I didn’t know much about life on the outside, but my instincts told me something much deeper was going on with Jude. He never shared anything personal, and from what I’d learned from the gossip Grace told me, he was about the most antisocial person in the hospital. He was known to take every shift he could. He apparently had no known friends, and he never attended any social functions.

What self-inflicted prison is he holding himself hostage in, and why?

Finally starting to give in to my heavy eyelids, I began to nod off when I was stirred back awake by a noise in my room. My eyes fluttered open, and through my blurry sight, I saw Jude standing by my bed.

“Shit, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you,” he apologized, pulling chocolate pudding out of his pocket. He placed it on the tray table next to my bed and set a spoon on top.

“Not planning on joining me anymore?” I asked, motioning in the direction of the single snack pack.

“You were asleep. I didn’t wanted to disturb you.”

“Well, I’m awake now. We can share.” I pushed myself up in the bed until I was in a sitting position.

I took the pudding from its perch on the tray and began pulling the foil wrapper from the top. I watched while Jude looked around the room as if he were deciding where to go. His eyes wandered to the chair where my mom always sat, before finally traveling back to me.

He took a step forward and sat on the edge of the bed facing me. His knee brushed mine under the blanket, and I became very aware of how close we suddenly were. Tucking one leg under the other, he crossed his arms across his chest and leaned forward.

Oh, okay, so even closer now.

Hello, heart rate.

“So, are you going to share? Or are you just going to hold it all night long?”

“What?” I said in confusion, waiting for my brain to kick back into gear.

I could smell the scent of his soap or aftershave or whatever the hell it was that made him smell so mouthwatering. It was like rainwater, pine, and something earthy all wrapped up in a Jude burrito.

“Our pudding. Hand it over,” he instructed, reaching over to snatch the dessert from my hands.

“Hey!”

“You snooze, you lose,” he mumbled, his mouth now full of the stolen pudding he’d just shoveled in it.

“That’s just mean—stealing food from a sick person,” I teased.

He visibly winced, and I instantly regretted my words.

“I was just kidding, Jude,” I said, placing my hand on his.

Touching him was becoming something I couldn’t stop myself from doing. My hands and fingers wanted to reach out to him whenever he was near. It was as if I didn’t have a choice in the matter.

He placed the pudding on the tray next to us and glanced down at our hands. My frail small fingers were lying gently over his callous large ones. Slowly, as if giving the gesture purpose, he turned his hand over so that our palms were touching. Stretching out his fingers, he caressed the pads of my fingers with his own until he intertwined our fingers and held my hand.

I didn’t think I’d taken a breath since his hand had started moving under mine. His eyes finally met mine, and I saw something I’d never expected to see in those faded green irises shining back at me.