chest.
Looking up, my heart froze.
It was the other face that haunted my dreams. It was Caiden.
I guessed all the monsters that hid under my bed were coming out to play today. I wasn’t sure why I hadn’t connected it in my head that if Jackson was back in class…then Caiden would be as well. Maybe in an effort to protect myself, my psyche had imagined that even awake, he would be in that hospital room, prevented from ever getting to me.
But here he stood.
If you hadn’t known him before, you would never have been able to tell that Caiden had been in a coma. He’d only been awake for around three months, but his physical therapists had done well.
Although slimmer than he had been at the height of his football playing days in high school, he was still a specimen to behold.
A lovely demon I hated with all my being.
Standing here, I thought I would have more guilt.
But honestly, all I could feel was terror.
His hair was longer, shaggier than he’d worn it in high school as well. But it looked intentional, since I could tell that he’d had it freshly cut. He had a ball cap in his hand that he placed carefully on his head, not taking his eyes away from me as he did so. He pulled the cap low over his eyes, shadowing his chiseled face. He looked…older. And bleaker. And just as devastating to my soul.
But not in the way that he used to.
I backed away as he walked towards me tentatively. “LyLy?” he asked, his voice gruffer than I’d remembered it being. Maybe from disuse?
“Get away from me.” The words crawled out of my mouth, limping as memories from that night crashed into my skull.
How could he stand there, looking at me somehow like I was everything, after that night?
I’d ruined his life, and he’d ruined mine right back.
“LyLy, what’s wrong?” he asked, his voice heavy with confusion. “Why are you acting like this? And why didn’t you come visit me in the hospital? I tried to call you a thousand times since I woke up.”
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” I hissed, the nonsense coming out of his mouth stopping my retreat as indignation took the place of my fear. “In what world would I ever come see you after what you did to me?”
Of course, I didn’t mention all the times I did go see him while he was sleeping.
“What night? The accident? I don’t remember any of it.” His words came out pleading as he got close to me. I’d forgotten just how much he could express with those dark eyes of his. I’d forgotten the regal slope of his nose, the fullness of his lips. Caiden was beautiful, but it was the kind of beautiful of a poisonous flower you knew would kill you if you touched it.
And I wasn’t about to forget that the beauty I was seeing in front of me was in fact poisonous. Poisonous in a way that I’d never encountered before.
“You don’t remember it?” I repeated numbly as the words seeped into my skin.
How convenient. I stared at his eyes, looking for a trace of deception, anything to tell me this was an act.
“I’ve been told you were in the car with me, that I was going too fast. I know you were injured really bad.” Tears filled his gaze as he reached out towards me, and I quickly took a few steps back, convinced that I would burst into ash and desolate ruin if his skin touched mine.
His face filled with hurt at my actions. “I’m so sorry, so fucking sorry. But I feel like me being in a fucking coma for two years should be some kind of penance.” The words came out bitter and tired.
And maybe with a rational person that wasn’t able to relive every moment of that night…it would have been some kind of penance. But between my memories and my guilt of the damage I’d done to the two people I’d loved most in the world…there wasn’t a chance that I could ever let him in again.
“It doesn’t matter what you remember or don’t remember,” I told him somberly. My anger was fading, replaced by sadness at how much had changed that night, how much would always be changed by that night. I’d been alone for the past two years, devoid of anyone that I’d loved.
But I guess, so had he.
“I want you to stay away from me.