The Seduction of Alex Parker(15)

“I’m on my way.”

I got into my car and gripped the steering wheel until my knuckles turned white as I stared at the hospital building. The last place I wanted to go was back to Alex’s house, so I drove to the one place that held many special memories for me.

****

Sitting in the sand on Venice Beach, I watched as the surfers surfed, the kids played in the water, and the teenagers who skipped school hung out and had some fun.

“Can you believe I’m back here, Emily? It’s been so long. The nightmares are back and I had my first panic attack today in eight years. It’s this place and the trauma of what happened here.”

I looked over at two little girls who were building a sand castle and smiled as tears sprang to my eyes. Pain filled my heart as I thought of my sister. I was living my life for her. Doing all the things we talked about since we were kids. I took my phone from my purse. It was already five o’clock. Feelings of guilt crept over me for leaving Alex the way I did. Getting up from the sand, I dusted myself off and drove back to his house.

When I walked through the door, Jenna was just getting ready to leave for the day.

“Where have you been?” she asked in a whisper.

“Is he home?”

“Yes. He’s upstairs resting. I wouldn’t go up there if I were you. He’s in a foul mood.”

“What else is new? I’ll just wait until he comes down.”

I made myself a sandwich and took it outside on the patio with a bottle of wine. Finishing up my sandwich, I took my glass and the bottle down to the beach. As I was sipping on my wine, I heard Alex’s voice behind me.

“It’s about time you came home. Where have you been all day?”

“How are you feeling?” I asked as I turned around and looked at him. He was shirtless and wearing the pair of sweatpants I had helped him into earlier.

“Answer my question,” he commanded as he sat down next to me.

“Answer my question.”

“I asked you first,” he spoke as he took the glass from my hand and took a drink.

“Where I was doesn’t matter. What matters right now is how you’re feeling. Should you even be out of bed?”

He sighed as he handed me back my glass.

“It’s okay. You keep it. I have the whole bottle.” I smiled as I held it up.

“I have high blood pressure and, right now, I’m feeling a lot better.”

“I’m not surprised.”

“You’re not?” He arched his brow.

“No. You keep long hours, you yell a lot, and you get upset when you feel like you’re losing control. To be honest, you’re a heart attack waiting to happen.”

He laughed. “Thanks. So are you going to tell me about that panic attack you had at the hospital?”





Chapter 12


Emerson

Now he wanted to talk to me? After all the days that went by and he couldn’t be bothered?

“It’s being back here. I never should have let Adam talk me into coming back.”

He looked at me in confusion. “I don’t understand.”

“You know, with the accident and stuff.”

“What accident?”

“Didn’t Adam tell you?” I frowned.

“Tell me what? I didn’t even know he had a sister until he asked if you could stay with me.”

I rolled my eyes. “Of course he didn’t tell you.”

“I’ll be honest with you. I don’t know anything about Adam’s personal life. He has never talked about his family or anything. The only thing I knew was about a girl he had dated for a while.”

“Really? I always thought he was gay.” I smirked.

Alex chuckled. It was good to see him laugh. I took in a deep breath and took a sip of wine from the bottle.

“When I was sixteen years old, I was in a bad car accident with my parents and my identical twin sister, Emily. They were killed and I spent three months in that hospital in a coma. I actually had died for a couple of minutes, but the doctors were able to bring me back. There were times that I wished they hadn’t.” I lowered my head and looked down at the sand.

“Emerson, don’t say that,” Alex whispered as he reached over and placed his hand on mine.

I pulled away because I didn’t want or need his pity. He was lucky I was even telling him everything. Bringing the bottle of wine up to my lips, I took another sip.

“When I woke up from the coma, Adam told me everyone was dead. I felt like my soul was gone and I wanted to die. I couldn’t believe they were gone. Emily was my best friend in the whole world and we did everything together. When she died, a huge piece of me died with her.”

I got up from the sand and walked towards the water, Alex following behind.

“Besides the coma, a couple of bruises, and a fractured knee, I lost complete control in my right arm due to severe nerve damage. After surgery, I spent a year in rehab, trying to regain use of it again. The doctors said I only had a twenty percent chance of it ever fully recovering and that I needed to get used to doing things with one arm.”

“But you did recover,” Alex softly spoke as we walked along the water.

“I did because of Emily. Swimming was our life and we trained in the pool every day since we were seven years old. Our parents didn’t know we were training; they only knew how much we loved the water. Emily had her heart set on becoming an Olympic swimmer. She wanted nothing more than to make the USA Olympic team. My goal wasn’t that big. But I trained with her anyway because it meant so much to her. Before the accident happened, she was training for the national swim meet for our high school. She was on her way to the top and everyone had their eye on her.”