18. cool waters

18

COOL WATERS

DAY 15

Two weeks after the accident, I woke up in the hospital. My multiple injuries on their own hadn't been life-threatening, but I'd been kept heavily sedated until then. Apparently whenever they'd roused me before, I'd been extremely confused, easily agitated—read: prone to violence—and in general a pain in the ass.

When I was lucid and mellow for a solid twenty-four hours, a kind-faced grief counselor told me the news of my miscarriage. Irreparable trauma. No heartbeat.

I told her I had no idea what she was talking about—I hadn't been pregnant.

Afterward, Jameson came in and tried again to tell me what happened. He was crying. Sobbing really. So sorry for me because he knew how much I wanted the baby, even if it was douchebag Kevin's. He wished he'd bought me extra gelato the night before the accident, when I'd made him run out to appease my craving. He felt responsible.

Which was silly—I'd never been pregnant .

There were times during my sojourn in the hospital that I doubted my sanity. The grief counsellor kept coming back. Every day, she'd sit quietly beside my bed. Every day, she'd tell me she was there to listen if I wanted to talk.

If it hadn't been such a deranged proposition, I might have decided I was the victim of an elaborate prank. Except broken bones aren't funny. Neither is being told you miscarried your baby at eleven weeks.

I really didn't remember.

When I was released, Jameson took me back to his condo. Now, I have a vague recollection of a bottle of pain pills. I took a lot of them. Too many. Mainly because I felt like I was dreaming and needed to wake up. Because everyone believed the same lie. I was sick of being treated like porcelain and I needed an out. Escape from this bad drama.

Oops.

"A suicide attempt isn't an oops, " says Leo softly.

Leo.

I can't think of him as Chastain anymore. Not since losing myself and finding myself and kissing him. He tasted like cool water on hot rocks. Burning stars in a freezing firmament. I can't get the taste of him out of my head. Know I won't—not for a long, long time.

Nor will I forget the experience in the labyrinth yesterday. The exchange of secrets, the long walk into them and into him. My tears on his shirt and the imprint of his hand in mine. The long walk out, the pure exhaustion of having purged poison from a deep wound.

I slept for fourteen hours straight .

There's no sign today of the uncertainty he revealed about my treatment. We're back to business. At least on his end.

When I don't answer his leading statement, he eventually asks, "What do you remember next?"

I sigh. "You."

He nods. "Do you remember where you were?"

"UCLA. Psychiatric Unit."

Leo waits for me to continue, but I don't. I know now why I felt an inexplicable bond between us. Not a magical connection or simply attraction, after all, but buried memory.

We have a history, Leo and I. He was the Psychiatric Fellow in charge of my case at UCLA. Diagnosed me within hours. Discharged me three days later. Met with Jameson and my father and explained what was happening. That they shouldn't push me to remember. That I needed support and normalcy. That the mind had a way of healing itself.

Or, in my case, breaking itself.

"Though it's not unheard of for a patient to have both retrograde and anterograde amnesia post-trauma, your situation was unique. In most cases, memory of events prior to the trauma come back, while those after the trauma rarely do."

I understand what he's getting at even though I don't want to. "So you think I had some crazy form of denial, not amnesia."

"Yes, in a sense. The phenomenon is called confabulation. The accident triggered an exaggerated stress response. Coupled with your head injury, it's likely your memory retrieval was blocked by an adaptive response to avoid stress."

"I love it when you talk smart to me."

His lips quirk. A tiny twitch. I hate that the sight of it warms the cold place inside me. Hate hate hate how his effect on me keeps growing day by day.

"You lied to me," I say mildly, staring out the window behind his desk.

"You weren't ready to hear the truth."

"Yeah, yeah." I pause, chewing my lip. "I still don't understand why I blacked you out, too."

He shrugs. "The mind is a mysterious domain. It could be because you associated me with the trauma of taking the pain pills."

I frown and shift in my chair.

"It makes you uncomfortable thinking about the attempt, doesn't it?"

"Well, yes," I snap. "I really didn't want to die. I didn't think of it like that. I just wanted to wake up. I really thought that was the solution. Shit… I sound crazy."

"You shouldn't have been discharged from the hospital," he says gravely. "I'm sorry you weren't properly diagnosed, Amelia."

I shake my head. "It's not their fault. I probably looked and sounded normal. I'm good at hiding the crazy."

"You're not crazy," he says, then pauses. "Well, maybe ten percent or so."

I glance sharply at him. His eyes twinkle at me. Fuck . A smile teases my lips, the first genuine one in days .

His eyebrows lift. "Now that that's out of the way, let's talk about why the accident wasn't your fault, shall we?"

I groan.

Then I laugh.

Smartass.

"Did you hear?" asks Kinsey.

"Hear what?"

She glances over her shoulder, footsteps never faltering on the path of the labyrinth. We've been at it for an hour. I'm counting the seconds until she has to leave for her three o'clock therapy session.

"We're getting new blood today. They're intaking him right now. Apparently he's a real mess."

"Great."

She stops and I almost careen into her back. "You could at least try to sound excited."

My eyebrows shoot up. "Why should I be excited? Whoever he is, he's probably in a world of pain. None of us want to be here—you do realize that, right?"

She glares. "If I didn't like you so much, I'd think you're a bitch."

"Ditto."

Kinsey laughs and gives me an impromptu hug. She's a lot stronger than she looks, and I wheeze for air until she releases me. It's almost painful to admit, but I actually do like her. She's unabashedly… Kinsey. I still don't know why exactly she's here; I'm the last person who would try to pry it out of her, which is probably why she won't leave me alone.

"Oh! Gotta go! I want to grab a coffee before my alone time with Dr. Hotness." With a giggle, she scurries past me in her espadrille wedges that likely cost more than I made in wages last year.

Relieved to have an excuse to get out of the sun, I head toward my cabin. I veer aside at the last second when I see Callum and Preston playing checkers on the small stoop next door.

Standing over them, I put my hands on my hips. "Seriously, you two? You're stalking the new guy, aren't you?"

Preston grins sheepishly. Callum frowns at the checkerboard. "You bastard, you're going to win again."

Preston laughs. "I write complex computer code for a living. Did you think I wouldn't kick your ass at checkers?"

Callum grunts. "I figured I'd at least have a chance."

I kick Callum's boot and he snorts, then swings an arm out, grabbing my legs. I topple, screeching, but moments later end up neatly deposited beside him.

"Shhh," he hisses. "Here he comes."

I turn and see Leo and Ruth, the other nurse, escorting a man out of the Fish Tank. Longish brown hair hangs around his downturned face, concealing his features. He's almost as tall as Leo and walks with the confident gait of a mature man. One who knows how to swagger without looking like he's trying.

"Not a model," whispers Callum.

Judging by the tattoos covering most of the skin of his arms, I have to agree .

"Why does it matter who he is?" I gripe, though I'll admit, I'm intrigued.

My gaze veers to Leo, his profile teasing me as he speaks softly to the man. The group passes the meditation garden, making their way around the labyrinth, and finally moves onto the path leading directly past us.

"Definitely a musician," murmurs Preston when they're about ten feet away.

Like he heard the words, the man looks up. Dark eyes land on Preston, snap to Callum, then zero in on me. They widen, then narrow.

My ribs squeeze my next breath.

"Uh-oh," I whisper.

"Mia?" he barks.

"What the fuck?" whispers Callum, his arm tightening around me. "You know this guy?"

I'm caught in the dark, angry stare, frozen with my eyes blown wide. Shame prickles down my spine.

"Um, yeah," I whisper. "His name is Declan Foster. We were… friends in college."

Leo saves the day, his hold on Declan's tattooed arm firming as he guides Oasis' newest addition past us and into the next cabin. Icy blue eyes spear mine, then disappear.

When the door closes with a thump, Callum sighs. "It's never dull with you around, Goldie."

"Har har." I turn my head to meet his stare; something in my expression kills his humor. "Did the universe put a target on the back of my head or something? Time's up, Mia, here comes Karma! "

Preston's soft, slightly awed voice interjects, "I remember who he is now. The guitarist of Amy Falls." His eyes find mine over Callum's shoulder. "Amy… Amelia…"

I wince. "It's a coincidence."

It has to be. Who names their band after someone they dated—in the loosest sense—for three weeks? Ridiculous.

"Ridiculous," I say aloud, just to confirm it.

The majority of those three weeks were spent in a drug-fueled sex fest. Ten years later, I remember only the haziest details. Sure, I've thought about him occasionally over the years. Mainly when I heard one of his songs on the radio.

"Whatever happened, he's got a grudge," Callum mutters.

"We were kids," I retort, but it only sounds like I'm trying to convince myself.

Callum gives me a squeeze. "At least you've only got two weeks left."

Two weeks is a long goddamn time.