Page 73 of All the Promises We Break

“So not only do you work on the operation of the brain, but you also work with the mind stuff too?” I smile.

“Shh. Don’t tell anyone.” She winks. “Would you like to sit with your husband while he’s waiting for transport? I think it would be good for both of you.

“Yes. I would. Thank you… for everything.”

Elijah

My hand shields my eyes the minute the resident is done with the glue and bandage on my head. You’d think I nearly severed an artery the way a cut to the head bleeds. Now I’ve got the headache to end all headaches. The light is nearly blinding. It’s almost as illuminating as my memories.

That was something that plagued me after my accident. I had trouble remembering the simplest of things but could rattle off budget numbers if asked. Now time and space have given my fullmemory back to me, but I don’t want to remember today. I feel all new levels of sickness and it’s not for the reasons I expected.

My bay door slides slowly open. I don’t know who it is, but I need the lights turned way down. “Could you turn the lights down before you come in, please?”

The darkness of the room is a welcome feeling, as is the voice that follows it. “Is that better?” I lower my arm slowly to my side as Dylan becomes clearer at my bedside. “Are you okay?”

I stare at her in silence for a moment. I don’t have the energy I need for what’s next, but I have to find it somehow. “I’d be better if we could talk. I need you close though, because even my own normal voice hurts my head right now.”

Dylan reaches her hand out and the little light we do have catches the diamonds on her hand before she starts to stroke her fingers softly across my forehead. There were so many times when I was in pain, angry at my memory, or some shade of anxious that this simple gesture between us was the center we’d always come back to.

“Lie beside me?” I pull the blankets back in an open invitation. Her eyes fade from nervous to calm and full of love as she tosses her purse in the chair, slipping from her shoes. Her chilled feet slide down my leg as she curves her body next to mine.

As our bodies connect, my pain quiets down nearly instantly. My arms wrap tight around her frame and pull her even closer. I tune into my breathing with the silence between us. I know she’s waiting for me to start. I need a minute first. I know she’s angry. I know I said so many things I didn’t mean.

Dylan’s fingers rest between us against my chest. Her hands are like ice. I can feel a wave of shivers from her body. “Are you okay?” I ask her.

“I will be. I think.”

“You’re not sure?” I ask.

“I was going to talk to you about it when you were holding me like this in bed at home. Since that isn’t going to happen today, here is where it has to be. This day has been a mess. Part of what I didn’t get to tell you before everything went out of control is I was late, three days late.”

I start to process what she just said. Late should be the overarching word, but the wordwasis what I grab on to. “Was? Meaning no longer?”

“I’d been freaking out silently for half the day. Wes showed up right after my period did. He could tell I’d been crying. What you saw was part of that. I was happy, sad, and relieved all in one second. I was happy because it would be too much, relieved because we have a plan and I don’t want to share you yet, but sad because I knew how much it would have meant to you.”

“Oh God, Dylan. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“I don’t know which is worse, Eli. That you questioned whether I was faithful, or telling me I lied to you. Then the fight. You don’t fight. Ever. You don’t have that kind of aggression in you. I’m just as confused by that as I am by Wes not fighting you at all.”

The weight of the guilt I feel sends all the air from my lungs. My lips come to rest on the top of her head. I kiss her softly over and over until I find a few words. “I’m sorry, Dylan. You have no idea how sorry I am. I hear myself saying those words and every time I say them they even sound meaningless to me.

“I’d like to blame it on the accident, but even I know that’s bullshit. I got scared. I know comparing what I saw today to what I went through with Tori is not a good fucking idea, but it’s all I’ve got. I was never scared she’d leave because I didn’t think it could happen. Then when it did, I knew it was done. Does that make sense?”

“It might be past the point of anything making sense, Eli. I just need the truth. Plain and simple.”

The pain she’s trying to hide in her voice cuts deeper than any physical wound I have. “I need to make this right with you for so many reasons. I never truly believed that you and he would do that. The thought of it though was so vivid. In a moment of haste, I ran with it. Blend that with knowing that you knew about Hayley and Wes before I did, I hit the rage button.

“Dylan. There’s something I need to share with you. I should’ve done it a long time ago, but the opportunity never really presented itself.” My Viper has become very still except for the shallow breaths I can feel on my skin. I stroke my fingers over her hair, down the length of her spine. The same rhythm to the same counts over and over again.

“Tomorrow is a hard day for Wes, me, and our families. It’s the fifteenth birthday for Michael we’ve celebrated without him.”

I feel her cheek turn and her chin rest on my chest. Her eyes look up at me, I can’t look back. I know if I look at her, I won’t get through this. “Who’s Michael? I don’t remember hearing that name before.”

“You haven’t. We don’t talk about him often, which I never understood but came to accept over time. How can you not talk about someone that was larger than life? Michael was Wes’s older brother. He was seven years older than us. My mom would always wonder why I never wanted to hang at our house. It was because I got the bonus of Mikey when I went to Wes’s.

“The hard part was when he left for school. He was just at NYU but when we were in high school, that seemed so far away. Spring break his senior year. His buddies took a trip somewhere. I forget where but Mikey stayed back with us because for the first time our breaks coincided.”

With each word I speak, my heart becomes heavier yet lighter at the same time. “We ate everything in sight. We gamed until two or three in the morning. We played more basketball than Ithought possible. Then the second to last day, our bikes were all ready. Those second-rate shit rockets.

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