“Uh-huh.” Blind with tears, I backed toward the door.
Cal stood as if to help me, but I held up my hand. If anyone touched me right now, I’d scream. The urge to bolt fizzled down my legs, but a single question drilled into my head. Loud enough to stop my tears and freeze my heart.
I halted.
I locked Jess in a stare. “Can I ask you something?”
She shivered but nodded. “Of course.”
“When you were sleeping…what was it like?”
Cal turned to face me, his features stern and tight.
Jess took her time answering, knowing why I asked and deliberating on any help she could give me. “It was like…a long dream. I wasn’t aware of the outside world, but I knew I was dreaming. For a while I was on the beach, just standing there. The sun rose and the sun set, but I couldn’t move. My skin burned from exposure, and a magnifying glass concentrated the rays onto my belly where it burned a hole right through me. I remember looking down and seeing the ocean turning red with my blood.” Her face clouded over. “Dark things happened after that. Things I don’t really want to discuss and will work on forgetting, but it wasn’t a nice place. I was back with my parents and the uncle who…anyway.” She shook herself and clutched the sheet. “I’m sure each person is different. Some might be in a dream. Some might be in heaven for a time. Some might be in limbo and not remember a thing. Don’t take my experience as something Sullivan might be enduring.”
I shivered, saving what she said to comb over and dissect later. For now, I needed to know another important thing. More important than all the rest. “And how did you wake up? Was it a choice? What sent you back?”
She waited for a moment, her thoughts flittering over her pretty face before she said softly, “The dream ended, and whiteness wrapped around me. And I just knew. Go left and I’d travel to whatever came next. Go right and…I’d be given a second chance.”
“So, you made the choice to wake up?”
She nodded but then backpedalled when she saw my face crumple. “But, Jinx…it might not be that way for everybody. He might not have a choice. He might not be aware he’s even alive—”
I bolted.
I ran all the way back to Nirvana and bowled through Sully’s villa not caring that I woke Louise on her cot by the deck.
I didn’t stop until I slammed my hands on either side of Sully’s head and pressed my fists into his pillow. Rage poured through me. Injustice and fatigue and thwarted tangled love.
With my lips hovering over his, I growled, “Make the choice, Sully. Make the damn choice and return to me.”
His eyes didn’t open.
My anger boomeranged into me, making me bleed. “Please, Sully. Come back to me. I’m begging you.”
My plea fell into a void.
Tumbling like a copper penny to plink into an empty well.
A spent wish that would never come true.
I fell to my knees and cried.
* * * * *
Sully didn’t wake.
Not that night or the next night or the week after.
By week four of his excruciating silence, I couldn’t take it anymore.
I needed off the island. I needed some space to scream or sob. I needed to be free from the twitchy hope that he might wake up followed by the dismal darkness when he didn’t.
As the sun broke through the rainclouds that’d drenched the island in a thunderstorm last night, I summoned Pika to stop harassing the sparrows on the bird table outside Sully’s bedroom and plucked Skittles from her place on my pillow.
Today, two things were going to happen.
One, my special friend would fly again, and two, I was leaving this mausoleum and embracing life.
Carrying Skittles into the bathroom, I glanced at Nirvana as it spilled its crystal droplets into the clear pool. My skin often craved the coolness of its waters, but I hadn’t had a swim. Yet another thing I couldn’t do because I’d done it with Sully, and I didn’t want to colour over our memories together with ones only of me.
“Sit still,” I commanded as I turned on the vanity lights and cast Skittles in illumination. Her green feathers fluffed, and her apricot and black head cocked. But she didn’t move as I carefully grabbed a pair of sharp scissors for personal grooming and concentrated on snipping away her splint.
Dr Campbell told me her wing should be healed two days ago when I visited Jess on my daily rounds. I’d been afraid to remove the brace in case he was wrong, but I couldn’t deny her flight anymore.
The second the splint fell away, she chirped and hopped to the sink. Pika shot into the bathroom, landing beside her and skidding from his speed. He nipped at her, his eyes cheeky and goading her to chase. He took off again, doing his best to instigate a game of cat and mouse.