Rewrite Redemption (44 page)

I readily complied, pulling trembling A.J. over to sob into my filthy shirt. I was pretty shaken up too. I just wanted to touch base with normal for a moment. I wasn’t quite sure what normal was anymore. I didn’t think A.J. did either. I brushed the tangled hair out of her eyes, and after about a minute, her crying slowed to a few ragged breaths.

“Sorry,” she said, wiping her eyes off on her sleeve. “I think I’m just really tired.”

“No doubt,” Lex said, reaching behind the sofa and pulling out two TV trays. She shoved the coffee table out of the way and flipped out the trays. She walked to the sink and returned with a hot wet dishtowel. “Hands,” she ordered, staring down at our filthy ones.

We held out our hands like two-year-olds. She wiped them off gently, one by one, keeping a corner of the towel to swipe our faces. It had been a long time since anyone had washed my face, but it felt right somehow. Then she brought us two large, steaming mugs of soup and a box of crackers.

“Chicken tortilla—your favorite,” she said to A.J.

A.J. gave her a weak smile.

Lex picked up the remote and turned on the TV. “You need normal stuff,” she said. “Eat. Watch TV. Shower. Then we’ll talk.”

Lex was right. At least
she
knew something about normal. We attacked our soup—which was kick-ass—and watched TV.

“How’s Sam?” A.J. asked, abruptly, as though the thought had just occurred to her. “Did he know I was gone?”

“He thinks we were at my house some of the time,” Lex said hesitantly. “Then I made excuses. You’re in the shower. You’re doing a paper and wanted me to make him a sandwich—that kind of stuff. He’s been at the piano non-stop for days. You know how he gets when you’re gone. He doesn’t notice much when he’s Piano Man. I made sure he ate at least once a day.”

“Oh,” A.J. said quietly. “Thanks.”

“I got your back,” Lex said. “You done?”

When A.J. nodded, Lex took the mug and set it on the coffee table. She folded A.J.’s tray and pulled her off the sofa. “Now, you need a shower. You’re drenched in blood. How can you stand it? It’s starting to creep me out. Go. I’ll bring clothes.”

A.J. nodded and headed out the door.

Lex turned to me. “You done?” She took the soup mugs, set them in the sink, and put the trays away. Then she came back and sat beside me on the sofa. “Here’s how this is going to work,” she said. “When A.J.’s done, I’ll run you a bath. Think you can handle that?”

“No problem.” I felt a little stupid, getting bossed around by a girl who was almost a foot shorter than me. Still, somehow it was comforting, and my usual opposition to authority had gone to sleep.

“I’ll help you get there and stand guard for Sam. Once you’re clean, and she’s had a chance to take a breath, she can give you a little more help. I don’t mean to be harsh, but she needs sleep. She’s a mess and now she’s got Ipod to worry about.” She gave me a long, heavy look. “We
need
to pull this off, you know, New Guy. We have to get him back.”

“I know,” I said, returning her look. I knew we did. We would.

“Okay, then. Just so that’s clear.” She let out a big breath and looked down at her bloodstained shirt. “So much for this shirt—oh well, no biggie.”

She went into the other room and returned in a clean tee shirt. “You’re staying here tonight in case your lung cracks open or something,” she said. “We have no logical explanation for your condition so we need to keep it on the down low—damage control.”

I nodded. She was right. The last thing we needed were questions as to why I was healing from a gunshot wound.

“If you need to make a call and leave some excuse for not going home, do it. If she sleeps near you, her body will finish the job…slowly…without draining her too much. She can regenerate and fix you at the same time now that she’s here in her tree.”

“Okay,” I agreed, probably a little too eagerly. My mood instantly brightened.

“I’ll sleep on the sofa,” she said, looking at me pointedly.

“Right,” I said, “of course.”

“When Ipod’s hurt bad, it works well for him to sleep next to her. That steady flow of energy really does the job.” 

An image of that took my mood down a notch. I tried to ignore the thought. I wished I could ignore it into oblivion.

She pulled the coffee table into the kitchen and dragged a narrow mattress out from the bunkroom, blankets, and all. She dragged another one beside it and stripped off the sheets. “Ipod’s,” she said. She opened a tall cupboard, took out a clean set of sheets, and made the bed. She went into the house and came back out with a stack of clothes.

“Sam’s stuff,” she said. “Ipod’s would be too small.” Then she left me sitting on the sofa, watching TV, and thinking about spending the night lying beside A.J. Each time an image of Ipod popped up, I just deleted it.

“New Guy, you need to make a call?” She looked at me with intent.

I jerked my thoughts back to reality.
Devon!
I grabbed my phone from my pocket—one message, forty-five minutes ago. It seemed like days, but it had only been a couple hours in Boulder time. It wasn’t even nine yet. I dropped the phone in my lap.

“Well?” she asked.

“One message from my dad,” I said. “I know it will be bleak and—”

“Give it to me,” she ordered, holding out her hand.

I handed her the phone.

“Code?”

I gave her that too.

She listened and then gave me the details in a steady voice. Devon had taken a turn for the worse. I felt a knife in my gut. My parents were staying there in intensive care. Only two people were allowed in the room. There was nothing I could do and no need to come to the hospital.

“You okay?” she asked.

“Sure.” That was a lie.

“We’ll fix it, New Guy. It’s only temporary.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“You’ll get your redemption,” she called over her shoulder as she walked out the door.

I leaned back on the sofa and closed my eyes. Redemption? I didn’t know if
anything
could make up for the mess I’d caused, not even a rewrite. I figured I’d carry the guilt with me for the rest of my life. But at that point, the last thing I wanted to do was talk to my parents.

There was no cell use allowed in the ICU. That meant I could call and just get voice mail. I left a message that I didn’t want to stay at the house alone, and I’d be at a friend’s place. In their frenzied state they wouldn’t bother wondering which friend I was with in this new town.

Twenty minutes later, the girls returned and sat down beside me. A.J.’s freshly scrubbed face had regained a little color, and her long, wet hair dripped on the towel she had around her shoulders. She wore a white tee shirt that came halfway down to her knees. It must have been her dad’s. Below it her legs were bare and really fine.

I tried hard not to stare at them. It took a lot of trying. In that situation, I needed to forget about her body all together—I knew that. I would soon be sleeping next to it. I didn’t know how I was going to pull that off…the forgetting, I mean. The sleeping-next-to-it part? I was pretty confident I could handle that. The not-
thinking
-about-it part? Not so much.

Luckily, I was exhausted and barely able to string two thoughts together about anything. I focused on her face. She looked lovely and she smelled amazing—jasmine and the air just after a heavy rain. I reached out my hand—

“Ehhh, no touching!” Lex commanded. “You’re filthy. Your turn for a bath.” 

“Wait,” A.J. said. “Let me give him a little pain relief. I’m doing better, really I am.”

Lex started to say something, but then she took a look at me and didn’t. I appreciated that. I was hurting pretty bad. I think she could tell. She was concerned about A.J., but at that point, I think she was a little concerned about me too.

A.J. put her hand against my chest, closed her eyes, and hummed softly. Warmth flowed into my chest and waved out all the way to my fingertips and toes. The pain faded and I took a deep breath.

“Thanks,” I said, gratefully, giving her a smile.

“New Guy,” Lex said, “let’s go. Water’s running.”

She helped me up and we walked across the bridge. As she pulled open the slider, I heard the piano…a haunting, classical piece.

“Sam,” she said in explanation. “For some reason, he always gets like this when A.J.’s away.”

Lex flipped the light switch. Harsh light flooded the room…a child’s room…a sad, lonely, child’s room. A large dollhouse stood in the middle of the floor. Tiny furniture and figures were scattered around it as though someone had been interrupted in the middle of rearranging and never returned to finish the job. The walls were bare, but there were picture hooks and faded spaces underneath them as though someone had taken down all the photographs in one fell swoop. A rocking chair sat beside the bed, a book turned upside down on the seat…interestingly enough,
A Wrinkle in Time
.

The bed was covered in a
SpongeBob
comforter. But the covers were pulled back and there was an indention from a head in the feather pillow. You’d think that some kid had just gotten out of bed a few hours ago and thrown off the covers without making the bed. That is, until you noticed that—like everything else in the room—it was covered with a heavy layer of dust.

“We don’t use this room,” Lex said quietly, watching me look around. “Not since…”

“
SpongeBob
,” I pointed, changing the subject.

“Yeah, we loved him because he was so happy. He made us laugh, when we didn’t have much to laugh about.”

“Understandable.”

The only sign of life in the room was the trail of footprints across the dusty floor, leading to the bathroom. I added mine to the mix, as I followed Lex. The tub was full, and she turned off the water. She handed me a fluffy towel and washcloth. “I was afraid you might collapse in the shower,” she explained. “I thought it was safer if you were sitting down.”

“I appreciate that.”

“You all right by yourself?”

“No problem.”

“There’s shampoo on the shower shelf. Toss your clothes out the door. I’ll throw them in the wash while you’re in the tub. I doubt you want to go home in Sam’s sweat pants.”

“Not so much.”

I gave her thumbs up and she left the room. I stripped, emptied my pockets, and tossed my filthy clothing out the door. I heard her gather it up and I was alone.

I eased into the tub. It was hot but soothing. Lex had added some kind of bath salts that smelled like eucalyptus and felt great in my lungs. I flipped the switch for the jets and the water whirled around me. For the first time in a while, I relaxed completely. A.J. was safe. I was alive. I had a plan to fix my family. What more could I want?

A.J.

Well, except for that. I allowed myself a few illicit thoughts about her while I was alone, hoping to get some of it out of my system. Then, relaxed by the warmth of the water, I fell asleep in the tub.

“New Guy!” Lex hissed through the door. “Tick tock…tick tock!”

I woke abruptly, sloshing water everywhere. “Be right there,” I called softly, “sorry, fell asleep.”

I shut off the jets, grabbed the shampoo, and doused my hair. I ducked under the water which had cooled considerably. I got out, wiped up the spilled water with my towel, and tossed it in the hamper. Then, cringing, I dressed in clothes that belonged to the father of the girl I had a thing for. How whack was that?

I headed for the tree house. On my way, I noted that the house was now silent.

No more crying piano.

A.J., looking really fine, was bundled in a comforter on the sofa. Her hair was almost dry and it billowed out around her like silk. She was watching TV with Lex who was snuggled up against her. They both looked up when I came in the room. It was a pretty sight, the two of the sitting there together, even though A.J. looked half-asleep. I grabbed my phone, and snapped a quick shot of the two of them. We’d had an adventure. It deserved documentation.

“Room for me?” I asked.

 A.J. patted the empty space next to her on the sofa.

I sat down and put my arm around her. “We have to commemorate this with a photo,” I said, as an excuse. I held my phone up. “Lean in, Lex. Say cheese.” I snapped a few more shots and then put the phone away. I took my arm off A.J., but I stayed there, sitting close.

“We’re debriefing tomorrow,” A.J. said, yawning. “I gave Lex the Cliff Notes, but I’m just too trashed to think straight. She’s convinced me that Ipod will be okay, and I’m just going to trust her on that. We’ve been waiting for you so we could crash. But first, I want to add a little juice to your repair system to get things moving faster.”

“Sorry I held you up,” I apologized. “I nodded off. It was a long night.”

“Yeah, right?” she said, sighing. “It was a long couple of days for me.”

Lex threw me a pillow and took charge. “You…there,” she said, pointing to the far mattress.

I crawled between the soft, white sheets. I lay down on my back with my good arm folded back behind my head. I watched the girls moving around, and I wondered what Devon would think—the old Devon—about me spending the night like that. I knew what Daniel would think. He’d make me write a song about it. God, I hoped I didn’t snore.