Page 78 of Sacrifice
She shakes her head. “No. My belly will get sick.”
The light glances off her head, the absence of dark locks catching my breath in my throat. I think I’m more affected by the loss of her hair than she is.
She hasn’t said much about it. I’ve caught her running her hand over her head and picking up a brush and then setting it back down, but she doesn’t seem upset about it. I’ve tried to talk to her about it and she just changes the subject. Maybe she’s just had so much thrown her way that she hasn’t had time to really consider it. I just know that seeing her without her little ponytail kills me every time I see her.
“Knock, knock.” The door pushes open and Will pops his head around the corner. I haven’t seen him since he took my car for tires, and that seems like a year ago. He smiles broadly and enters the room, a bag in his right hand. “How are ya, ladies?”
Ever watches him carefully. She doesn’t really know Will that much, even though he was around when Gage was alive. I, on the other hand, had thepleasureof growing up with him and the Gentry boys. Will was always their sidekick, the gray to Gage’s white and Crew’s black.
Will Gentry is a goofball but a genuinely good guy. I don’t know much about him anymore. I know that’s partly because I’ve pushed everyone away since Gage died.
I’ve pushed everyone away.
It was a conscious decision yet, looking at things from this perspective, maybe I was wrong to do that. I recall Will bringing by a pizza one night shortly after Gage’s funeral. I thanked him and told him that I would be fine. To go on about his life and let us be. He came around a couple of times after that, but then stopped unless Crew sent him over to do something.
Crew was the only one that didn’t stop no matter how ugly I acted. The fog that has sat so heavy on a part of my life lifts. Shutting everyone out was wrong. Segregating as much as I could from those I loved before, being too afraid of being hurt again, was wrong. Letting them come around would’ve given them the opportunity to hurt me, to hurt Ever, but it also would’ve given them the opportunity to help us. Not in a selfish way, with money or things, but just as friends. We had known each other forever and I’d denied them the right to be my friend and to honor Gage. I feel embarrassed. After all the things I’ve said to them, done to them, the ways I’ve made Crew and Will feel over the past couple of years despite knowing them most of my life, here they are. Showing up at the hospital. Taking care of us.
I feel ridiculous.
I look up and see Will’s face blanche for a split second as he takes in Everleigh lying on the bed. “How are you, Ever?”
She shrugs. “Okay, I guess. I want to go home.”
“I bet you do,” he says. “But at least you don’t have to hear that grumpy uncle of yours.”
“I miss Uncle Crew,” she says sadly.
“Well,” Will says teasingly, “he sent you something today.”
“He did?” She tries to sit up but the wires restrict her movement.
“He did. He said to tell you he wants to be here with you, but he has to work today. But he will come as soon as he can.”
“Tell him I miss him. And tell him I love him.”
Will’s face softens and a small grin touches his lips. “I will.” He fishes through a bag and pulls out a box of Laffy Taffy. “He said you really like this.”
“She’s never had that,” I say.
Everleigh giggles and exchanges a look with Will. He hands her the box and she sets it by her side. “Uncle Crew always gives me these,” she tells me.
This is news to me.
Will rustles through the bag again and pulls out a pair of red glittery house slippers. “He said you should close your eyes and pretend you’re at the park. Click them four times and he said he’ll meet you there. He’ll be waiting by the swings.”
Four times . . .
Tears dot my eyes at the randomness, but maybe not quite randomness, of the number. I’m not a little girl needing rescued from my parents, but I do need a knight all the same.
Will’s smiling at me. He reaches across the end of the bed and hands me an envelope and a box of coconut macaroons. “These are for you.”
“He didn’t have to send me anything,” I say, my cheeks flushing. I’m slightly embarrassed, but so touched, by Crew’s gesture. It adds to the feeling of guilt I have over the way I’ve treated him. “How did he even remember I liked these cookies?”
“I don’t think he’s forgotten anything about you.” He grins. He puts both hands on the end of the bed and peers at Ever. “So, Miss Everleigh. How ya feeling?”
“Icky.”
“I bet. You’ll be home before you know it.”
