away from champagne. Give me Jake,” she scolded.
I handed the phone to Jake and excused myself to my room to cry it out. It was the first time I had let the tears flow since the accident, and now I wondered if I would ever get them to stop. I had buried so much of my anxiety and fear, and now it all came out with nothing to hold it back. I wanted someone to hold me and ironically, it wasn’t Jake. I missed Parker. Missed his strength and compassion. I wanted to call him, but felt wrong. How could I ever turn to him now after what had almost happened tonight? It was shameful.
I could hear Jake yelling at Issy from the other room. “Like hell she is!” he screamed into the phone. “He’s just the rebound guy!”
I didn’t want to hear anymore and went to the bathroom to pull myself together. I came out as Jake was getting off the phone.
“Wow, did I get an earful. I’d be totally annoyed if I wasn’t so thrilled she’s back,” he said laughing as he walked in the door. He took one look at my face and stopped smiling, walking over to pull me into a big hug. His arms felt good, but I felt empty.
After a few seconds he asked, “Are you ok?”
I simply nodded my head and continued to rest against his chest. He put his hands on my face and lifted it up to have me look at him.
“Now, where were we?” he asked softly, hunger more than apparent in his green eyes.
I stepped back and pulled his hands from my face, still holding them as I spoke. “I should probably call it a night. I have to be up early tomorrow.”
He seemed to understand, but his body was stiff as he ran his hands through his hair in frustration. He pulled me close and kissed me softly on my forehead, as he was accustomed to doing lately, and left the room.
My sleep was more than fitful that night, and I didn’t even notice I had turned my alarm off when it went off at 8:00 a.m. I finally woke when the light from outside my window was too much to ignore. My head was pounding with such force, I could barely open my eyes. I turned to my alarm, wondering how early it was and practically jumped out of bed when I saw it said 9:45. I ran around my room in a frenzy, throwing on jeans and a sweatshirt. I rushed to the bathroom to brush my teeth and recoiled when I saw my reflection in the mirror. I looked terrible and more than obviously hung over. I pulled my hair into a tight ponytail and tried to use makeup to hide the black circles under my eyes. After ten minutes, I at least looked presentable, but I knew without question I would be late to meet Dr. Davis’ grad student.
I ran to my phone and sent him a quick text that I was on my way, and grabbed my backpack, which I had thankfully prepared the day before. Jake was still asleep on the couch when I left. I checked his alarm to make sure he hadn’t missed it and when I saw that he had set it for ten, I left quietly before it went off. I didn’t want to talk to him this morning.
Russell was less than thrilled with me when I ran in the lab, ten minutes later than agreed upon.
“Avery, I need to know right now if you are going to flake out on me again this semester?” he asked exasperated. “Precision is an absolute must for this phase and even ten minutes late matters.”
I pushed down my frustration as I tried to see his point of view. “Russell, I promise, this is a one-time thing. I got some news yesterday about my friend who had been in a coma, and I stayed up a little too late celebrating. It won’t happen again.”
The sympathy card seemed to work as he simply huffed and then went on to explain the new phase of work. He was right, precision was essential, and it looked like I would be taking samples all five days during the week. The positive was that it meant only two hours at a time in the lab, but every day felt like a daunting task.
After an hour with him showing and reshowing me the steps, I started to feel