Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 89083 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89083 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
I wake up with aching lungs and the taste of ash in my mouth. My throat is raw, and my heart is racing. Across the room, my alarm clock screeches from beside my bed. I’m in the middle of my bedroom floor, and my blankets are scattered around the room, as if I tore apart the bed in my sleep. I’m guessing I did. This isn’t the first time.
I push myself off the floor and walk across the room to shut off the alarm. My vision’s still blurry from sleep, and my hands are shaking from the nightmare I can feel as vividly as if someone set fire to my room while I was out cold.
Sleeping through my alarm is new, but the dreams aren’t. I live a fucked-up variation of the night at the warehouse every time I close my eyes. This morning wasn’t the first time my subconscious mixed that night with the day of my father’s funeral.
“They were both traumatic for you,” my friend Bethany said when I told her about my recurring nightmare. “Your subconscious is trying to sort through the pain and guilt that come with trauma and loss.”
It made sense to me, so I haven’t talked about it since. Talking doesn’t change anything anyway.
I pad to the kitchen to turn on the coffee pot before heading to the shower. I was going to hit the gym first thing, but all I want now is to wash away the damn dream.
I stand under the spray with closed eyes, willing the water to work its magic—wake me up and wash the illusion of smoke from my nose. I lean my forehead against the wall and focus on my breath. It’s over. It’s done. I can’t go back.
Can’t go back. Can’t go back.
Maybe I should be glad Teagan didn’t come home with me last night. I wouldn’t want her to see me scrambling on my bedroom floor in the dark, crawling from a fire that burned the First Avenue warehouse to the ground months ago but has never fully left my mind.
But maybe that’s why I invited her. For six months, I’ve walked around broken but pretending to be okay. When she was in my arms, the taste of her skin on my tongue, I felt whole again. For those moments, I could forget my failings. I could . . . be.
I almost called Myla when I got home. She’s always happy to come by and distract me, and she never pushes to sleep over. But I couldn’t. Not when I wanted Teagan. Not when a few hours with her made my other relationships feel . . . cheap.
I turn off the shower and grab my towel, drying off quickly before throwing on a pair of jeans, a tank, and a long-sleeve University of Michigan T-shirt.
When I go to the kitchen, my phone blinks at me from its spot on the charger. I grab it while pouring my coffee, expecting a text from one of the girls or a message from Shay demanding to know what’s going on between Teagan and me.
Sure enough, there are three texts from Shay, and another from Levi. I scroll past those and spill my coffee when I see there was a text from Isaiah at three a.m. Just over two hours ago.
“Shit.” I shove the pot back onto the burner and grab a paper towel to clean up my mess.
Isaiah: Don’t freak out. I was in a car accident last night. I’m in the hospital but I’m okay. I might be in trouble though.
I tap the screen to call him but stop myself. One thing I’ve learned in the past few months is that Isaiah will spill his heart out over a text, but he freezes up about the same topic over the phone and in person.
Exhaling slowly, I reply to the text.
Me: What’s your room number? I’ll be there in twenty.
When I walk into Isaiah’s room and see him bandaged up and connected to all those tubes and wires, I’m thrown back in time. The same hospital, the same dark skin and broad shoulders, the same beeping machines.
No. Not the same. There’s no ventilator pumping up and down here, no machine forcing his lungs to do the work they won’t do on their own.
Tears sting the back of my eyes, and I tilt my face toward the ceiling to hold them back.
“Hold it together,” Marta says.
I was so distracted by the machines and my own memories that I didn’t even notice Isaiah’s grandmother sitting in the corner. I clear my throat. “Yes, ma’am.”
“He’s gonna be okay.” Marta’s voice is crackly on the best of days, but this morning she sounds even older than her seventy-five years. She might be hunched over her cane, and her ebony skin might be more wrinkled than smooth, but only an idiot would miss the shrewdness in those wise, dark eyes. “This might look like Max, but it’s not the same. Isaiah will be okay.”