Monitored (The White Coat Series Book 3) (14 page)

“How are you feeling?” He put a hand on my shaking shoulder.

I took a deep breath and brushed a tear-soaked strand of hair out of my face. “Better. I’m sleeping less lately so that’s good.”

“Good. That is good.” He managed a quirky smile. “Are you eating?”

“Yes.” I arched an eyebrow, showing some hint of my old sass. “You’re sounding like mom.”

He chuckled, kicking off his Nikes. “Just checking, you’re too skinny.”

“If it were up to you, I would be a balloon.”

“I did always try to overfeed you, didn’t I?”

“Remember that one story dad always says every time we have one of those random family reunions?”

Connor laughed, his memory undoubtedly traveling back to the last few reunions that our family hears about through postcards. They always denote whatever destination the reunion would be held at.

Last year it was Portland.

“Yes! The one about me sneaking oatmeal into our room every night and leaving it by your bed. It was like younger me thought you would get fat through diffusion or something.” He laughed, his head falling back onto the couch.

“Why did you want me so fat anyway?”

“I think I just thought it would be fun.” I couldn’t help but laugh, imagining a younger Connor wanting a “funner” sister by feeding her more.
 

“God, those times were easy.”

“Didn’t have a thing to worry about.” He closed his eyes, his head still resting on the back of the couch. “Well, except how much oatmeal I had to be making.”

“Can’t there just be a button? Press it and go back to sleeping next to breakfast food and watching Power Rangers. Not having to worry about,” my throat choked up, “about things like consequences and drama.” My fingers picked at each others’ nails, a nervous habit of mine that I couldn’t shake.
 

“Listen, Sky. There’s no button, but that doesn’t mean we can’t be happy where we are now.” Connor’s voice shifted. He was talking to me from the heart now, I could always tell when he sincerely meant every word he was saying. “The key is: don’t let go of some of that special stuff we had as kids. The sense of wonder, the excitement about turning a corner and not knowing what’s there. The only difference is that there are probably bills and credit card debt around the corner now, but, there can also be true, intense love. There could be a winning lottery ticket, or an incredible movie that you’ll remember for the rest of your life. There’s always going to be something in life that scares us and it’s going to make us want to run back under our covers and get fat through diffusion. But, we can’t.” His hand squeezed my shoulder. “Life threw some major curveballs at you, but you handled them like a fucking champ. I couldn’t have asked for a better twin.”

“You better not,” I said, smiling through the tears that were making their way down my cheek. These weren’t the same tears from before though, no, these were more happy than sad. Like Connor was putting all the shards of my life back together, and I was gluing them shabbily back into something that resembled what I had before.

“You did try to return me once, too.”

“Oh, yep. I remember that one.” He smiled that boyish grin of his. “Guess you weren’t big enough.”

“Do I meet your standards now?”

“Yeah, thankfully. Would have sucked if you didn’t,” he said, getting up from the couch and grabbing himself a bright green apple off of my kitchen counter. He took one juicy bite and threw himself back onto the couch next to me.

“Have you talked to Blake?” Con asked, his question, as innocent as it was, still sending a dagger twisting through me. I didn’t know what to do, and Blake did nothing to assure me that he was even a human being underneath that seemingly perfect persona, so I still didn’t know how or what to tell him.

“I almost don’t want to tell him, Con,” I said, guilt coloring my voice. My brother just looked at me. I could tell he didn’t even have an answer for this one.

“It’s not like he cared.” The words sounded selfish to me. Something I never liked to describe myself as. “I’m not myself, Con.” The weight of it all struck me across the face once again. In little less than a month, I’ve dealt with more than I ever have in my whole life.
 

“Yes you are. If anything, you’ve grown from this experience, and that can only be a good thing. I’m here for you, we all are, and I know for sure that you’re still the same.” He smiled again. “Twinstinct.”

“Did you just make that up?” I asked, impressed.

“Yeah, I actually just did.” He puffed his chest out a little bit. I couldn’t help but laugh at my brother, his personality always one to lighten up the room.
 

He would take so much pride in coming up with a hybrid word.

To his credit, it was a pretty cool word, although I wasn’t one-hundred percent sure on his claim of being the first to use it.

“Well, my twinstinct isn’t really helping right now. I feel like I should probably tell him?”

Con’s cellphone vibrated through his gym shorts, buzzing almost out of his pocket. I nudged my head forward, “go ahead, take it.” He pulled out his phone, noted the caller and slid his phone back into his pocket.
 

“Is that your new love interest?” I asked.

“No.” He said it swift and curt, like he was slamming a book shut and sticking it back into a dark corner, an old porn magazine tucked away in the center pages. It was such an odd reaction from Connor that I physically reeled back a bit, as if I had almost gotten slapped. He must have noticed, his face seeming to form the apology that was coming.

“I’m sorry.” There it was. “Just someone who keeps prank calling me. Nothing big.” The way he was talking made me think it was something big and that maybe there was something else to the call that Connor wasn’t telling me. I instinctively arched an eyebrow and then remembered something that had been bugging me since the incident.

“Forget about it.”

“Wait, Con. Tell me the truth, it’s important.” He sat up a little straighter. “Did you ding-dong-ditch me a few weeks back? I won’t get mad if it was you.” I added the last part just as insurance. I needed him to be honest with me, because if it was him then I wouldn’t need to stress out about it any further.
 

“No, sis. I’m not fifteen years old.”

I searched his expression for any sign of a break. A small hint of a smile. The mischievous glint he always got in his eyes. A twitch of his left thumb that usually meant he was anxious.

Nothing. He was telling the truth.

I let out a breath I was unconsciously holding. “Shit. I was hoping it was you.”

“Why? What’s wrong?”
 

“I’ve just been thinking ever since the whole thing happened. She said that she never knocked on my door, but someone did, and they were spooked away when they heard someone else in the apartment. It’s not like there are always in my area and the only other person who would want to prank me is, well, you.” I pursed my lips, biting the bottom one with nerves. “Who would want to come over uninvited and only if I was alone?”

Saying it out loud made the room noticeably colder. At least for me, all the warmth drained from my body.

“Maybe they just knocked on the wrong house.” He tried bringing his optimism, but I just couldn’t shake it. Maybe it was just residual paranoia left over from my attack, but I couldn’t stop feeling like something was wrong. This wasn’t a knock and run type deal.
 

At least, it wasn’t meant to be.

“Just happen, right?”

“Yeah.” He looked away from me, out towards the window.
 

“Has anything else happened since you’ve been back home?” His leg bounced on the floor, shaking the couch a little.

“No, not really.” I bit my lip and tried to remember if there was anything out of the ordinary. The days were just so blurred that I didn’t have a grasp of what was entirely real and what was me trying to escape.

“How about that guy?”

My heart jumped. “Alexander?”

“Yeah, the one you were fawning over.”

“I was not fawning.” I slapped his knee, causing him to stop the shaking.

“I’m meeting up with him tonight. I honestly haven’t been talking to anyone lately. Rachel’s been trying to knock down my door most nights, I let her in but only because I could smell the Chinese food from under the door.”

He nodded over to the trash, white styrofoam containers overflowing like they were debris in a small pond during a heavy downpour. “Today’s the day I’m cleaning up everything. So, congrats on picking today to come visit.” I smiled at him, a genuine smile. He begrudgingly smiled back, acting as if helping me clean was the biggest inconvenience in the world.

“I’m sorry, did you have plans today?”

He cracked his knuckles, each one popping like a cheap birthday prop, the ones that spew out all those colored pieces of paper.

“You know I usually need to pencil you in at least two weeks in advance right?”

“I’m sure you can make an exception for today.” I got up and walked over to the kitchen sink, collecting empty cups on my way. “Right?”

“I guess.” He pushed down on his thighs and practically propelled himself off the couch.
 

“I thought you weren’t excited?” I asked, surprised at the sudden burst of movement.

“I figure the faster I move, the more exciting it would be.”

I could only shake my head and smile, squeezing a frazzled sponge under a stream warm water.

“You would, Con. You would.”

He actually committed to it too, practically jogging from dirty destination to dirty destination. He had cleaned up my kitchen in the amount of time it would have taken me to clean the refrigeration. By the time he was finished throwing things away and reorganizing everything, I was already done with the dishes, drying my hands with a near-by crumpled paper towel.

It was under that paper towel that Connor had put his phone. He was playing music from it so he had decided to cover it just in case water splashed around. Just as the paper came up, the screen lit on and the whole thing vibrated, sending a loud shake through the counter.

Connor didn’t swoop it up fast enough for me to not notice what the message had been. It was long and from a number he didn’t have in his address book, so I didn’t get to read the whole thing nor did I know who had sent it. But the first few words made me sick to my stomach.

“Con, why is someone texting you to go ‘fuck off and go die in a pit. I swear,’” I said, repeating only what I was able to read. Connor’s skin went pale as he stumbled over his words. I didn’t realize that he would get so flustered by it, all I wanted to do was know who I needed to fight.
 

But Connor just shook his head and mumbled some more, making his answer unintelligible. I didn’t want to make him feel any worse.

“I’m sorry, Con.” I put an arm out and took him in for a side hug. “I didn’t mean to pry. I just want to make sure you're safe. The last thing I need is for you to go and get hurt or something. Just promise me things are ok and if they weren’t that you would tell me.” I broke the hug and looked at him, my brother looking bothered for the first time in a long time.

“It’ll be fine. Yeah, I promise.” He tried to reassure me with a nod and a smile. He put music back on and focused his attention on cleaning off the oven top.
 

I tried to remember that Connor was just as capable of handling his own stuff as I was, but it still worried me. I needed to keep a close eye on him, even if he didn’t like it.

But could I realistically keep him safe?

CONNOR STAYED FOR A BIT longer after he had wrapped up cleaning my kitchen. He stayed over as I sorted out my laundry and listened to me as I started to find myself talking more and more about Alexander. As the day went on, my mind continually found itself back on him.
 

I wasn’t sure if it was just because I was going to see him soon, but part of me was so incredibly relieved I was starting to feel again. Feel those good feelings, the fluttery ones that sometimes created middle-school style giggles. I wasn’t fully there yet, but just the hint of me feeling that way reassured me that I wasn’t as destroyed as I had previously thought. The part of me capable of falling for someone wasn’t, in fact, dead.
 

It’s what I had previously thought.

I didn’t think I would ever be able to open up to anyone again, even though I still could acknowledge the intense connection Alexander and I had already shared. But, as time passed and sunrises didn’t blur into sunsets anymore, I could see that I was still capable of those feelings. I was just scared they wouldn’t come back anytime soon.

But flashes of our passionate encounter, our incredible conversations, his intoxicating scent, it all mixed together to create someone that sent me for a loop and twirled me back into place. It was like riding a kiddie roller coaster at the fair, only to have it transform into a full-speed, heart-stopping roller coaster that dove through a raging waterfall.
 

At first we started off so benign, but the bond between us had exploded. So what if I was recluse during the past few weeks.

“I think you should be honest with him,” Connor had said.
 

“I think so too.”
 

“You want to know something?”

“What is it?” I had asked.

“You haven’t really smiled, like a real smile, until you started talking about Alexander.”

Connor saying that out loud had really solidified things for me. Alexander was someone I didn’t want to lose and could very well help me through this time. I wanted to know if he would stand by my side.

Getting ready to meet him was a bit of a mission. I had a limited amount of clothes to choose from due to my lack of motivation to even step near a laundry basket lately. Thankfully I was able to pull together a presentable look, my hair falling down onto an old black club t-shirt I got for volunteering and my jean shorts that
 

I looked presentable, but I didn’t look like a model.