They head back down the trail in an uneasy rhythm as Jay passes on the details to Maggie, and Lucy works to match his frantic pace. The lawn rolls ahead, stark and so green it almost looks unreal. Will they walk to the infirmary together? Will she be required to explain how a seemingly sturdy porch simply caved in under the weight of a small man? For once, Lucy wishes the earth would open up and reclaim her, the girl with no answers.
She turns and looks over her shoulder to where Colin remains bent over Mr. Velasquez, speaking quietly.
“Why is he so worried?”
“Did you not see the man up to his chest in porch? The blood?” Jay asks, a hint of sharp amusement in his voice.
Lucy nods, tucking her chin and staring at the brilliant green grass bending only slightly beneath her feet. Her words echo back to her and sound ridiculous. “Of course. I didn’t mean he shouldn’t be worried.”
“No, I know what you mean. He’s more worried than most students would be, I guess.” Jay ducks to meet her eyes. “It’s just that Colin miraculously survived this horrible accident that killed his parents. So accidents kind of freak him out. Plus Joe’s his godfather and, like, his one remaining semi-family member left on the planet.”
Chapter 6 HIM
COLIN’S BEEN IN THE INFIRMARY MORE TIMES than he can count, but he’s rarely been the one sitting beside the bed while someone else babbles under the influence of painkillers.
“Like a demon. Or a ghoul. Or . . . something whose face melts,” Joe mumbles.
“Everything’s okay now,” Colin reassures his godfather.
Joe has been rambling about demons for almost an hour. “It’s the morphine.”
The door from the hallway opens and Maggie comes in, carrying fresh bandages and a glass of water. She’s barely in her thirties but carries the wisdom of a much older woman. It shows in the deep set of her frown and the persistent worry lines on her forehead.
“How’s he doing?” she asks Colin.
“Still going on about a face-melting demon, but he seems better.”
Maggie hums, lips tight, and pulls the sheet down to check Joe’s bandage. “We should take this one to the hospital, to be sure.”
“I’m fine,” Joe growls, suddenly coherent. “We’re not driving two hours for something you can do better here.” “I can stitch you up, but this is deep. You’ll have a nasty scar.”
“I’m staying put. Don’t have anyone to impress with my flawless skin.”
“Chicks dig scars,” Colin says, trying to distract him. Joe groans when Maggie peels away the blood-soaked bandage. Colin looks away, wincing. The cut is deep, but clean now, and Colin swears he saw a hint of bone. Maggie shoos him to the other side of the room while she stitches Joe up. His stomach turns at seeing Joe like this: obviously old, vulnerable.
“Get out of here, kid,” Maggie says, lifting her chin toward the door. “You’re green.”
“I’ve . . . never seen him like this.”
“Mm-hmm. And how do you think he felt seeing you worse off more times than any of us can count?”
Colin knows she’s right. He can remember being here or in the hospital after a nasty crash on his bike, with several broken ribs and a huge gash on his scalp. He’d wondered at the time if he were going to die. It seemed so matter of fact to him: Either he would, or he wouldn’t. It was simple. He never considered how they might feel to lose him. “Go on. Get some sleep. I got this,” Maggie says. Colin looks at the man on the bed. “You good, Joe?” Joe grunts as Maggie ties off a stitch. “I’ll be back to work tomorrow,” he says.
The nurse laughs. “The hell you will.”
Colin is startled awake when Jay returns to the dorm room. Dim light from the hall slips across the walls and is gone just as quickly.
“You’d better be alone,” Colin says into his pillow. It’s been a crazy day, and the last thing he wants to deal with tonight is one of Jay’s girlfriends sneaking into their room. If caught, all three of them would get demerits.
“I’m alone. Dude, I’m so tired.” Colin hears the rustle of fabric, Jay swearing as he trips, and the muffled clunk of keys and shoes hitting the rug. The mattress across the room creaks as he collapses on his bed. He moans something and rolls onto his stomach.
Jay’s breathing evens out, and Colin opens an eye, trying to see the clock next to the bed. It’s four in the morning, somehow both too early and too late to easily guess where Jay’s been.
“Where were you?” he asks. Jay doesn’t answer and he asks again, louder, reaching with his good arm and throwing an empty water bottle toward Jay’s side of the room.
Jay startles, lifting his head slightly before dropping it down again. “I’m sleeping, man.”
“Shelby?” Colin asks.
“Nah, she’s such a scene queen. Not to mention insane.”
Colin rolls his eyes and adds a snort so Jay hears his scorn even if he can’t see it. All the girls Jay dates are insane.
“How’s Joe?”
“His leg’s pretty cut up,” Colin says, scrubbing his face. “But otherwise he seemed okay when I left.”
“He’s, like, seven thousand years old,” Jay says. “And nothing keeps Joe down. Not even his whole f**king porch collapsing with him on it.”
“He’s seventy-two,” Colin grumbles. “And he’s lucky. Half an inch to the left and he could have bled to death.”
Jay answers this with the appropriate weight of silence. Sometimes, when the planets align, even he realizes when a smart-ass comment is unnecessary.
“Oh,” he says with more enthusiasm. “I saw your girl.”
“What?”
“Lucy. I saw her on my way here. She was sitting in front of Ethan Hall. I asked her if she needed help, but she said no.”
“First of all, she’s not my girl—”
Jay groans into his pillow.
“Trust me,” Colin counters, opening his eyes to stare at the ceiling, wide-awake now. Scattered above him are glowin-the-dark stars and a model of the solar system. His dad made it for him before he died, and it’s followed Colin to every bedroom he’s ever had. He sighs, rubbing his hands over his face again and wondering who this strange girl is and why in the hell she was sitting outside alone at four in the morning. “She told me to leave her alone.”
“Christ.” Jay groans. “It’s like you know nothing about women. They all say shit like that, Col. They have to. It’s, like, hardwired into their brains or something. They say that stuff to feel less guilty about wanting us to jump their bones. I thought everybody knew that.”
“That’s the kind of reasoning that will earn you a cell mate ironically named Tiny,” Colin says.
“If I’m wrong, then why did I get laid last night and you were here with a pile of laundry and your hand?”
“I think that has less to do with me and more to do with the poor choices being made by the female students at Saint O’s.”
“Ah, right,” Jay says thickly, already half asleep. He falls silent, and eventually his breaths even out. Inside, Colin is a tornado, unable to stop thinking about Lucy and why she might be sitting outside in the cold.
On that first day, she said she was here for him, and although he doesn’t understand what that means . . . maybe part of him does. Clearly she looks different to Colin than she does to Jay, and it’s hard to pretend that doesn’t mean something. In fact, he’s trying his best to ignore the caveman-asshole feeling he gets when he thinks that she’s somehow his, but she’s the one who put it out there, planting the idea like a tiny dark seed inside him.
And now he can’t sleep. Great. Careful not to wake Jay, he grabs two hoodies and slips out of the room.
Lucy is exactly where Jay said she was, sitting on a bench in front of Ethan Hall with her back to Colin, facing the pond. In the low light, the water looks strangely inviting, smooth and dark and calm enough to make the moon and thousands of stars come see their reflections. Mist curls along the edges, like fingers luring its victims into the frigid blackness.