Courtney Cole: Until We Fly

I stare out the window at the lake, watching the water roll gently into the beach. At night, the sand looks silver. The gulls are asleep, so everything is silent but for the rippling water.

A white ball appears, floating to and fro in the tide, and I watch it for a while, watching as it floats, then disappears.

I wish I could be that ball and float far from here.

With a start, I open my eyes and the light is blinding. I squint my eyes toward it, trying to process where I am. Medicinal smells, sterile walls.

The hospital.

I groan, and my throat is raspy. I recognize that feeling. I must’ve had a breathing tube. Surgery. I also recognize the foggy aftereffects of anesthesia.

What the hell?

A nurse bustles through the door, her eyes widening when she sees me awake. Her cool fingers find my pulse, counting the beats.

“Mr. Killien,” she smiles. “I’m so glad you’re awake. How are you feeling?”

I swallow again, trying to swallow past the raw throat.

“I don’t know,” I tell her honestly. “What happened?”

Her eyes are full of sympathy.

“You saved a bus full of kids,” she tells me. “There was an accident, a truck ran a stop-sign and slammed into an ammonia tank. There was an explosion. Do you remember?”

I think on that, and I do remember. I remember the smoke and the blood and the kids.

And then I remember the red-haired girl.

“There was a girl,” I tell the nurse. “A woman, I mean. Red hair. I was carrying her when the building collapsed on us. Is she okay? Did she live?”

God, she had to live. She trusted me. Her eyes, so big and blue, told me that. She counted on me to carry her out and I didn’t.

My gut squeezes and I wince in pain.

But the nurse is already nodding. “Everyone lived, Mr. Killien. And I think you mean Ms. Greene. She’s here and she’s been asking about you, too. Can I tell her that you’re awake? She’s been very worried about you.”

Ms. Greene?

I nod and the nurse smiles.

“I’ll tell her. She’s been waiting here for the last several hours. She was lucky- She and her parents only sustained minor injuries. She didn’t want to leave until you woke up.”

I sigh with relief. Even though I couldn’t carry her out, she’s okay.

Thank God.

I close my eyes, my mind fuzzy from anesthesia. The room spins outside of my eyelids, but inside of them, it’s black and still.

And then someone clears her voice softly.

I open my eyes.

They instantly meet the blue-eyed gaze of the girl.

Ms. Greene.

For a second, there’s something familiar there, something that niggles at me. Do I know her?

But I scan the rest of her… the long dark red hair that flows halfway down her back, her slender body, her lush chest and hips. Even through the fog of medicine, my groin registers her obvious beauty.

I’d remember if I knew her.

She smiles, a brilliant white smile. I notice she has dirt on her cheeks and forehead.

“Are you okay?” she asks, her voice as soft as silk.

I nod. “Yeah. I will be, I guess.”

She looks at my leg sympathetically, her eyes clouded. “I’m so sorry. You wouldn’t even have been in the café if it weren’t for me. It’s my fault you’re here in this bed.”

I’m already shaking my head. No way. I know what it’s like to take responsibility for something that wasn’t my fault. I won’t let this girl do it.

“No,” I tell her firmly. “I wanted to help. If I hadn’t seen you, I’d have seen someone else, so I would’ve been in there anyway.”

Probably.

She shakes her head slightly, the edges of her mouth tilted up.

“Such a gentleman,” she murmurs. She slides into the chair by my bed, graceful and elegant.

“You don’t recognize me, do you, Brand?”

My head snaps up when she uses my name.

She does know me.

I examine her again. Her face. Her nose. Her hair. Her eyes.

Ms. Greene.

The Greenes.

Good lord.

I fight a groan. I’ve been gone from here too long. I’ve forgotten too many things. In this case, the Greenes are an Angel Bay staple. They own a huge lakeside estate that they only reside at in the summers, and they’re members at the country club where I used to work.

I do know her. Or, I remember the girl she used to be. She’s certainly grown up now.

“I used to park your father’s car at the club,” I say slowly.

Nora smiles. “And you picked me up out of the dirt once. Do you remember that?”

I do.

Nora was younger, a teenager then, and her horse had thrown her off. I’d been walking to the clubhouse to get a soda for my break and I’d seen the whole thing. She’d gone sprawling into the dirt, and the first thing she’d done was stare furtively around, to make sure no one had seen.

It was a nasty spill though, so I had gone to check on her. Her hands were shaky and I didn’t want to leave her alone, even though it was strictly against the rules for valet staff to mingle with club members.

“Did my father see?” she’d asked me quickly, her lip caught in her teeth. There was a spot of blood from her braces, and I’d reached out and wiped it off for her. She wasn’t concerned about her cut lip, though. She was terrified that her father had seen her mistake.

“No,” I assured her. “I’m the only one around.”

“Thank God,” she’d breathed.

“Do you want me to go get him?” I asked her quickly, thinking that he might help her calm down.

She’d grabbed my arm, hard, her fingernails sinking in. “Please don’t,” she’d begged, her eyes suddenly full of tears. “Please.”

It had shocked me, her immediate and adamant refusal. It was like she was scared of him. I’d assured her that I wouldn’t get him, and I’d taken her inside to calm her down myself. I stayed with her for half an hour.

“I got written up for that,” I remember slowly. Nora’s face clouds over.

“You did?” she asks in confusion. “Why in the world?”

From the astonished expression on her face, I almost believe that she doesn’t know.

“Your dad complained,” I tell her simply. “Someone mentioned it to him, and he reported me. Valets weren’t supposed to socialize with members, you know.”

“You weren’t socializing,” she points out. “You were helping me.”

I shrug. “It was a long time ago.”

But her eyes are still dismayed. A part of me finds satisfaction in that. Maybe she’s not the ice bitch I expected her to be. With a father like hers, though, I don’t know how that’s possible.

“I just wanted to check on you,” Nora tells me now hesitantly. “I feel responsible and I wanted to help. So I told them they might want to call your mother. You didn’t have any contacts listed in your wallet, and your phone was password protected.”

My mother? I stopped listening to her words as soon as she mentioned my mother.

“Why would they call my mother?” I ask stupidly. Nora shakes her head in confusion.

“Because you were here alone. I didn’t know who else to call. I thought you might want a family member…” her voice trails off as she stares at my face. “I see now that I was wrong. I’m so sorry. I was just trying to help.”

She was. I’m sure of that.

But calling my mother was the furthest possible thing from helping.

“Did she even bother to come?” I ask tiredly. I’d driven twelve hours to get here because she summoned me, and I doubt my mother even bothered to come to the hospital.

Nora shakes her head hesitantly. “She told the nurse that she’d come pick you up when you were released.”

Yet I’d gone into surgery with a nicked artery. For all she knew, I could’ve died on the table and she still didn’t come.