Page 7 of Losing Forever
For the first time in months, the tension eases in my shoulders. This is what I needed.
“I should have come here sooner.”
“You’re here now,” Noah says from the kitchen. The Keurig sounds as he makes his second cup of coffee. “Bray and I usually get to the office by nine, so we'll leave in about thirty minutes. If you plan to ride with us.”
“Bray?” I face him.
“Braylee. My cousin.” He takes his mug from the machine and adds creamer and sugar.
I nod. “She lives here, too. Right?”
“Yep.”
“Is she here now?” Other than Noah, I haven’t seen or heard anyone else in the house this morning—or last night, now that I think about it. I got in around nine, not too late.
“She’s upstairs in her room.” He nods at the ceiling.
My gaze swings toward the L-shaped staircase, the upper part hidden behind a wall. I listen for footsteps or any sound that would indicate another person is here. “Is she a ghost?”
“She’s quiet, I know.” He smiles into his coffee mug. “She keeps to herself a lot.”
“What’s the deal with her again?” I shuffle to the barstools tucked under the counter, where Noah stands on the opposite side.
The kitchen is farther from the stairs, in case her ears work better than mine. I’d hate for her to overhear us talking about her.
“She moved in with my mom and dad over a year ago.” He pauses to glance at the staircase. “She's the one who lost her family in a car accident.”
“Shit.” It's a whisper. “I remember you telling me that. Didn’t she have a little brother or sister who died, too?”
He lowers his head and sighs. “Brother. My cousin, Elijah. He was eight. I only met him once when he was a baby. One or two. They visited us in Winter Park before we came here for the summer. They lived in Seattle, so we didn't see them much. I couldn't believe it when it happened. My mom was a wreck. My Aunt Brandy was her sister. When she found out that Bray survived, she went into autopilot mode and flew to Canada.”
“Canada?” I don’t remember this part.
He sips his coffee, steam wafting from the top. “The accident happened in Canada. They were on vacation, driving in the mountains, and my uncle lost control of the car. Ice or maybe a deer. No one knows for sure. The car went over the edge and was too mangled for responders and the insurance company to determine if my uncle hit an animal, swerved, or just hit some black ice.”
“Fuck,” I murmur. And I thought my life sucked. This girl has been through much worse. “If the accident was that bad, how'd she survive?”
“Surgeons, specialists, and a damn miracle. After they fixed and sewed her back up, they had to put her into a coma so her brain and body could heal. They didn’t know the effect it would have on her after she woke up, the brain reacts in different ways, but they hoped for the best. My mom had her transferred to a hospital back in Seattle so she could be treated by a doctor her sister and brother-in-law had known well.”
I drop onto one of the barstools and take a long sip of coffee, needing the caffeine to counteract my shock. “I assume she woke up okay.”
Noah frowns and shakes his head. “She was still messed up when she came out of the coma. Blind, if you can believe that.”
“Your cousin is blind?” Well, shit. I'm glad I'm sitting. “That's…” I don't even have a word for it. Horrible? Unfair? Unbelievable?
I glance around the living area, adjoining kitchen, and foyer. You have to climb a massive set of stairs to get to the front door on this floor. If you enter through the garage and bonus rooms on the first floor, you still have to take stairs to get to the main level. To get to the guest rooms on the third floor, you have to climb another set of stairs. An additional staircase leads from the second-floor deck to the pool patio and backyard.
“How in the hell does she get around in this house? It must be a nightmare for her.”
“She's not blind anymore. She got her sight back after a while but couldn't see colors for another month.” He sips his coffee. “She's fine now, except for a few scars. I'm sure she has mental scars, but she's doing well, all things considered.”
“Damn. I can't even imagine going through anything like that.” I pull my gaze from the white stone counter and look Noah in the eyes. “It's dickish for me to say this, but I'm glad I'm not the only one here who's fucked up in the head. Not that she's anything like me. She sounds like a survivor.”
“She's a hell of a lot stronger than I would be in her situation. But I know what you mean about feeling dickish for having someone around who's worse off. Not that I wouldn’t fix it all for her and my mom if I could, but it helped when I hurt my back and was told I couldn't play. Here was this girl who lost everything, and she was holding it together. I thought if she could get through what she did, I sure as shit can get through this.” He glances down with a sheepish grin. “She practices this color therapy. It helped her heal. She even used it on me a few times. My dad thinks it's voodoo shit, though he'd never tell her that. But I don't know. There might be something to it.”
“Color therapy? Sounds whack.”
“Fuck you, man. I shouldn’t have said anything.” He shakes his head, then downs his coffee and rinses his mug in the sink. “Just wait. If you're lucky, maybe she'll help you work through some of your shit.”
