Eastern Lights Page 19

  “With each second that passes, you become much more terrifying.”

  She laughed. “Okay, chip snob, what are your favorites?”

  “That’s easy: Cheetos, Cheetos Puffs, and Cheetos Paws—though, I haven’t been able to find those gems in ages, unfortunately, and they were my favorite.”

  “You can’t just name Cheetos for your top three favorites! Those are all the same.”

  I cocked an eyebrow. “Clearly, you’ve never tried the variety of Cheetos. They are far from the same. One day, I’ll teach you the ways of the most perfect chip brand in the world. For now, let’s just get you home.”

  Just then, her cell phone dinged, and she pulled it out. The mirth in her stare slowly evaporated as her smile faded, too.

  “Everything okay?” I asked.

  “No…it’s Jason. He said he’s stopping by my place tonight.” She paused and shook her head. “His place, I mean.” Her eyes stayed glued to the cell phone, and I watched as her hand trembled with nerves. “That’s the first message he’s sent me since he left me. Do you know how many messages I’ve sent him since the wedding day?”

  She turned the phone screen toward me. She began scrolling up, through dozens and dozens of text messages she’d sent him, begging him to contact her, begging him to reach out.

  His responses were nonexistent up until that evening, and all he said was, “Hey. Back in town. Stopping by my place.”

  That was it.

  What a piece of shit.

  Her eyes glossed over when she looked up at me, and dammit, all I wanted to do was wrap my arms around her and tell her she was going to be okay.

  “I’m not ready to see him. I can’t go back there. Oh my goodness, I can’t face him, not after what happened. I wasn’t mentally prepared for this, and now I have to—”

  “You’ll stay with me tonight.” I placed my hands on her shoulders, stilling her movements.

  Her deep brown eyes looked at me with major concern. “What? No. I already took up enough of your day today, Connor. I cannot expect you to take me in as a stray for the night.”

  “I’m not taking you in as a stray. I’m taking you in as a friend who’s had a bad day. Besides, you shouldn’t be alone with your injury.”

  She laughed a little, though it wasn’t filled with amusement. More like disappointment. “Five stitches to the head.”

  “You need someone to be there for you tonight if the pain gets too bad.”

  “I don’t think that’s how it works. All I have to do is pop the prescription and call it a day.”

  “Listen, Doritos lady, you’re going to let me take care of you tonight.”

  “Is that an order?”

  I laughed as I finished off the Cheetos and tossed the bag into a nearby trash can. “It’s an official order. Now, come on.” I held my arms out toward her. “Hop in.”

  “Hop in?”

  “Hop into my arms. I can’t walk you out when you’re injured.”

  The spark in her eyes slowly came back. “Don’t be silly, Connor. I’m not getting into your arms for a head injury.”

  “You are. I’m going to carry you out of this emergency room come hell or high water.”

  “I promise you that you’re not.”

  She shouldn’t have made promises she couldn’t keep because within a second, I scooped Aaliyah up into my arms, and I carried her away with me as she laughed nonstop and begged me to put her down.

  The fact she was laughing made me feel like it was a job well done.

  Plus, I liked how she felt pressed against my body. Almost as if she was meant to be there.

  When we reached my apartment, I walked Aaliyah to the spare room. “You rest for a while, and I’ll go pick up your prescriptions.”

  “You don’t have to do that, Connor, really. I can handle it.”

  “I know you can, but you don’t have to. Don’t argue and let me do this.” She nodded in agreement and handed me the paperwork needed for the prescriptions.

  I headed off to the drugstore, and as I stood in line waiting to pick up Aaliyah’s pain meds, my mind began to swirl back to memories I wanted to keep buried…memories of standing in lines and waiting to pick up medicine for my mother. Each step I took toward the pharmacist, my chest grew tighter. My breaths were becoming labored as I tried to inhale and exhale in a normal pattern.

  When I reached the front of the line, the woman behind the counter smiled and said, “Hi, there. Picking up a prescription?”

  “Yes. For Aaliyah Winters.”

  She walked over to the bins of pills and began thumbing through them.

  My hands were sweaty, and I tried my best to ignore the thoughts that began flying through my mind. The recollections I’d worked to keep locked away within me were trying to resurface. I was fighting them. I was trying my best not to fall into the pain my mind was trying to unleash. Yet when she walked back and asked me if I had insurance, the wave of memories came rushing back to me.

  24

  Connor

  Sixteen years old

  “Here are the prescriptions. Make sure to take one of the nausea pills before you go to bed tonight. It will help,” the nurse instructed Mom as she walked through the hospital doors she’d entered over two hours earlier. I’d been sitting in the waiting room, waiting for her to come out. Waiting for answers. Waiting to know if she was okay.

  I rose to my feet the moment I saw her and rushed over.

  “Are you good?” I asked, my voice cracking. I’d eaten almost everything out of the vending machine and felt as if any bad news would send me into a vomiting rage.

  Mom gave me a small smile. She looked a bit pale in the face, and even her smile felt as if it were a bit of a struggle for her.

  “I’m okay.” She grinned.

  It felt like a lie.

  It had to be a lie.

  Mom always lied about feeling okay to make me feel okay.

  “What do you need?”

  “Just to go home and rest, sweetie. I’m tired.”

  I scratched at the back of my neck, my nerves not easing up any. “Do you need prescriptions filled? I can drive us to the drugstore.”

  “It’s fine. I can pick them up later and—”

  “Mom,” I cut in, scolding her for the ridiculous idea.

  She lightly chuckled. “When did you become the parent of the household?”

  “I’m not,” I said, shrugging and allowing her to loop her arm with mine. “I’m just your favorite sidekick.”

  She leaned against me and didn’t feel heavy at all. “My favorite sidekick,” she muttered as I walked her to our car. I helped her get into the passenger seat, and she sat back and allowed herself to melt into the cloth. Her eyes shut, and her arms rested in her lap as I buckled her in.

  “I’m sorry about this, Connor,” she whispered. “You’re too young to have to deal with any of this.”

  “I’m the man of the house—it’s what I’m supposed to do.”

  She tilted her head in my direction. Her eyes were filled with guilt and sadness. “It’s not what you’re supposed to do.”

  I ignored her because I knew the conversation wasn’t going to go how either of us wanted it to go. I was never going to let up about being the one to care for her, and she was never going to let up about me needing to act more my age.

  “Did they call in the prescriptions?” I asked, shifting the topic back to the things that mattered in that moment.

  “They did. They should be ready soon.”

  I nodded as I buckled my seat belt and put the key in the ignition. We drove to the pharmacy, and I tried to convince Mom to stay in the car, but she knew she’d have to deal with the insurance issues. Therefore, she came inside with me.

  I stood back a little as she spoke to the person checking her out. My stomach was in knots as I listened to their exchange.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am. Your insurance doesn’t cover the costs. It seems you’ve reached your maximum, so it will be
one hundred and fifty today,” the cashier said with a lowered voice. It wasn’t lowered enough for me to miss the words, though, maybe because I was listening a little too closely.

  Mom sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. “I can’t afford that until next week when I get paid, but I need them now.” She studied the prescriptions in front of her. “Which ones can I get by without having at this time?” she asked.

  Before they could reply to her, I stepped forward and pulled out the old tattered wallet I’d gotten at a thrift shop. I pulled out the money I’d made from my part-time job and laid it on the counter.

  Mom turned to me with widened eyes. “Connor, no.”

  “It’s fine, Mom. I got you.”

  “No, no. I can move things around in my account and—”

  “Mom.” I gave her a comforting smile, and the anxiety that sat on her shoulders deflated.

  “I’ll pay you back next week,” she promised, moving the money over to the cashier.

  She meant it, too.

  I’d take the money so she didn’t feel lesser than, but any money she gave me would somehow be routed back to her, even if it meant me picking up groceries or taking her on a movie date or whatever.

  The money she paid me back with always ended up back with her.

  We went home that night, and I stayed on the sofa with her, watching movies. My mind was running in circles the whole time, trying to figure out how I could fit another part-time job into my schedule to help some more.

  25

  Connor

  Present day

  After I returned home, I made sure Aaliyah was okay, then I buried myself in my work. Even as I worked on emailing people back and collecting more details from Damian on the property he’d found in Queens, I couldn’t stop replaying the situation that’d taken place with Aaliyah. Seeing the way she had panicked once she saw Jason’s text message, I knew it must’ve stirred up some intense emotions. She’d been pretty quiet since she arrived at my place, keeping to herself in the guest room.

  After a few hours of working, there was a knock on my office door, which was already wide open. I looked up to see Aaliyah with a glass of water in her hand. Her lips were smiling, but her eyes refused to do the same.

  “You’re still up,” she stated, leaning against the door, probably to keep from tumbling over from exhaustion.

  “You’re still up, too,” I said, turning away from my computer.

  She smiled, and I felt the broken cracks that were trying to break through that grin. “Are you a workaholic, Mr. Roe?”

  “It depends on how fast my mind is spinning each day.” That evening, after spending time in the hospital, my mind had been spinning extra fast.

  She walked into my space and sat down on the floor. She then patted the floor beside her.

  An invitation I didn’t think I could pass up.

  I lifted my glass of whiskey and walked over to her, taking a seat on the floor. She sipped at her water and gave me that smile that looked so good on her.

  “You really shouldn’t work past a certain hour,” she told me. “Your mind needs breaks.”

  “Sometimes, the only way my mind gets a break is if I’m working.”

  “Fair enough.” She glanced around my office with awe in her eyes. “I think my boss would fire me if she found out I was sleeping over at my client’s house again.”

  “To be fair, I wasn’t your client when you first stayed over. Plus, I’m really good with secrets.”

  “Is that so?”

  “The best, actually. I have a special location in my brain where I keep people’s deepest, darkest secrets caged away.”

  “Well, it’s very nice of you to be such a trustworthy source of secrecy.”

  “I take it to heart when someone tells me a secret. So, don’t you worry. Your boss will never know about your night spent with me.”

  “Thank you. So, why does your mind do that?”

  “What?”

  “You said your workload depends on how fast your mind is spinning. What makes your mind spin so fast?”

  I smirked. “Is this off the record?”

  “Scout’s honor.” She saluted.

  “Were you a scout as a kid?”

  She cocked an eyebrow. “What? No, I’m a journalist.”

  “Then you can’t say Scout’s honor. It doesn’t mean anything if you aren’t a scout.”

  “Potato, po-tah-to.” She waved me off in a dismissive fashion. “No matter what, I’m not going to tell anyone what we talk about tonight. Your secrets are safely locked in the secret chamber of my brain, too.”

  I thumbed the rim of my glass. “I overthink everything. I sometimes think I live in the future more than I live in the now. In order for me to slow the speed of my mind, I focus on what’s in front of me. That normally includes working.”

  “Why are you so afraid of the future?”

  I chuckled. “Who said I was afraid?”

  “Your eyes when you talk.”

  “I’m having some déjà vu of when we first met, and you read me,” I joked.

  “I thought about you a lot after that night together,” she confessed. “Even after we went our own ways, you stayed on my mind for weeks…months.”

  “That went both ways.”

  “Truth or truth?” she asked me.

  “Truth.”

  “Did you ever go back to any of the places we promised not to go?”

  I smirked. “Once or twice. I mean, you can only leave so much up to destiny. I just wanted to see you again. I apologize for breaking our agreement.”

  “It’s all right. I broke it, too—mainly because the comic bookstore was epic in insane proportions. The nerd in me was called back to that place.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “I did, however, glance around the corners a few times, hoping to find you.”

  “Seems destiny handled the whole bringing us back together angle all on its own.”

  “Why are you sad tonight?” she asked, throwing me for a complete loop.

  Her stare stayed intensely focused on me, as if she was trying to peel back more layers of my story. That was, after all, her job as a journalist, to get to the root of the story, not to only explore what was on the surface, but to truly dive deep into the meat of a person’s soul.

  She was the first person in my life who looked my way and saw past my smile.

  Most people looked at me and believed the smiles. Aaliyah was different. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that realization. The last thing I wanted was for her to see my scars from the past that still had enough power to haunt me.

  “You don’t have to answer that,” she offered. She must’ve witnessed my discomfort, too.

  I took her up on the offer because I wasn’t ready to open up about how the hospital trip had taken me back in time to a period I tried to forget.

  Luckily, she understood and smiled, breaking her stare away from me to go back to sipping at her water. “For a large chunk of my life, I lived in both the future and the past. Growing up without a family, you think about the past a lot. Like what made my parents give me up to foster care? Where did I come from? What are my roots? Then about the future—it’s a whole new set of fears. Will I ever get to create my own family?” She lowered her head, and a somber look found her. “I guess that answer is becoming clear now with Jason.”

  “He’s a dick and didn’t deserve you. That doesn’t cancel out your chance at a future.”

  “Sometimes, it just feels as if time is running out.”

  I nudged her in the leg. “You’re young. You have your whole life ahead of you.”

  She paused and locked those brown eyes with mine. For a split second, she parted her lips to speak, but she shut her mouth quickly. Then she smiled. “Needless to say, living in the moment is important. This is all we truly have.” She held her glass up and cheered. “To this moment.”

  “Cheers to this moment,” I said, clinking my glass with hers.

>   “Hear, hear!” She took a sip. “Although, honestly, I’m a bit worried about my soon-to-be future. I need to find a new place to live, and the search has been hard. I can’t keep living at his place. But, I also know my price point isn’t great to get a decent place, at least not until I get my raise at Passion.”

  “Move in with me.”

  The words left my mouth without any thought or hesitation. The funny thing was, after they came out, I didn’t have an ounce of regret. I meant it. She shouldn’t have to live in that place. Plus, I didn’t hate the idea of seeing her every single day. The more time I spent with Aaliyah, the more time I craved.

  She laughed. “Yeah, okay, Connor.”

  “No, I mean it. Move in with me. It’s a three-bedroom, three-bathroom pad. It’s huge! Almost four thousand square feet. There’s plenty of space, and you won’t even have to worry about finding a place until you save up for a while. Then you don’t have to move into a shithole.”

  Her laughter died down after she witnessed the look on my face. “You’re joking, right?”

  “You said it yourself, you love my place.”

  “This is ridiculous. There’s no way you can be serious about me living with you.”

  “Why wouldn’t I be serious? I think it actually works out great. My place is big enough that we have more than enough space for you and your things. I think it’s a brilliant idea. Plus, it gives you more time to find your forever pad. Then you’re not rushing into the market looking for a trash place to live. It could be an in between, a place you stay before getting to the next one, especially since you’re getting a raise when you become a senior editor soon—”

  “If I do a good job with your article.”

  “You’ll do a great job.”

  She released a low sigh. “That’s too much, Connor. Plus, I can’t invade your personal life like that. So thank you for the kind offer, but—”

  “I haven’t even shown you the best part yet,” I urged, cutting her off. I stood and held my hand out toward her to pull her to her feet. I led her to my bedroom. “I’m a bit of a nerd when it comes to hidden passageways, so when I saw this place, I knew I needed it.” I walked over to my walk-in closet, and she appeared confused when she followed. It was gigantic, and everything was organized to a T. Still, she wasn’t connecting the dots of what I was trying to show her.