Page 127 of Catch the Sun

Instinct has my fingertips lifting and coasting across my left cheekbone.

“Shut. Up!” he hisses.

My heart rate spikes as cold sweat forms on my brow. Memories flood me, but I push them down, trying to keep my face neutral. “I–I don’t know. I can’t remember. Maybe I bumped into someone at the party? Everything is a little hazy.”

The doctor raises an eyebrow, not entirely convinced but not pressing further. “All right. Well, it’s important for us to understand the events leading up to the fall, not just for medical reasons but for your safety as well. A detective will be stopping by with further questions as soon as you’re ready.”

“There’s nothing else,” I insist weakly. “I fell.”

His smile is tight. “Do you feel ready for visitors? Your mother and your boyfriend are in the waiting room. If you prefer to rest, I’ll let them know.”

I think about my mother trudging through the past four weeks, sitting in a waiting room chair, uncertain of my prognosis. Unsure if I would ever wake up. Not knowing whether or not she would be living the rest of her life alone, with both of her children cruelly taken from her.

I roll the stone between my thumb and fingers and nod. “Can you bring them in one at a time? I’d like to see my mother first,” I tell him.

“Of course. I’ll send her in.”

He walks out through the blue curtain and my mother rushes into the room two minutes later.

“Oh, Ella.” She stops in place, her hand shooting to her mouth to hold in the cry. “My God…”

“Mom,” I murmur.

For as distant as we’ve been over the past few years, somehow it feels likethere is no distance at all. Only the few feet between us that she quickly erases when she dashes to my bedside and falls to her knees, taking my stone-clasped hand in both of hers. She kisses my knuckles, her tears falling freely. “My baby girl,” she croaks out, forehead resting on our joined palms.

I haven’t heard her call me that since I was fourteen. The nickname has my own tears escaping in warm rivulets down my cheeks.

We spend the next few minutes crying quietly, taking in the moment. Taking in all the moments missed over the last month. When my mother finally stands and drags over a chair, she gazes upon me like I’ve been brought back from the dead. Almost like I’m lying in a gold-encrusted coffin, sprinkled with floral arrangements, and then my eyes snap open.

I’m still alive. Please don’t bury me.

Mom fills me in on the prior four weeks of lost time, informing me of my grandmother’s ailing health, her own leave of absence from work, and the investigation into my mysterious fall.

She asks me what I remember.

I lie to her.

I don’t know why I’m holding on to my memories. I’ve always prided myself on being honest and forthcoming. My rational voice says I should be shouting it from the rooftops.

It was McKay. McKay Manning attacked me in a drunken rage and let me fall to a presumed death. He could have caught me, grabbed me, pulled me back. But all he did was watch. He knew that a dead person was a silent person, and his secret would be safe.

His inaction was a silent assassination.

Just as my silence now betrays the truth.

But that truth catches in the back of my throat like an acidic knot. Pieces claw their way up, then die out on my tongue. I curse my own cowardice and squeeze the stone clutched in my hand, only half listening to my mother’s voice as she drones on.

As time ticks by, Mom leans back in the chair and sweeps trembling fingers through her hair. She fidgets, her eyes panning around the room before settling back on me. Her usual bouncy curls hang flat and listless as they tease her shoulders, while her gaze gleams with trapped words.

“Ella…sweetheart,” she says, her face a mess of tears and hesitation.

I blink at her, my chest tightening.

Squeezing my wrist, Mom presses her lips together and exhales through her nose. “There’s something else. There’s something you should know.”

“What?” I whisper, anxiety prickling the back of my neck.

“I…” Her lips part but no more words leak out. Seconds sweep by. Wobbly, unsettled heartbeats.

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