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“You’re scaring me! What aren’t you saying, Kellan?”
“He called you Snowflake. He said, ‘that girl. The snowflake girl.’ I started to ask him what that meant and he said the one with red hair. I told him you were okay, and he tried to ask about the accident. We kept telling him you were okay, but he got upset. They weren’t going to give him anything but they ended up giving him a small amount of Xanax. When we asked if he wanted to see you, to see Gwen, he told us no. I’m so sorry, Gwen. It might be different tomorrow. But tonight, they want us all to go. He’s very tired. I’ve woken up after a long sleep before, and trust me, he’s not going to be looking for us. They just want us to leave him starting now until sometime in the morning. Let the nurses and the doctors check him over. See if he’ll wake up in another few hours and say more then.”
My throat is so tight, when I try to speak, nothing comes out. “You would leave him?” I manage.
Kellan’s face goes gentle. “He’s my brother, Gwen. I’m not saying we go far. We can stay at that hotel across the street. If he wakes up again and asks for us, we come right over.”
I open my mouth and try go get some air into my lungs. “Did he remember you?”
“He did.”
“Cleo?” I rasp.
“Yes. He remembered Cle.”
My voice wavers. “H
e didn’t ask for me?”
“That’s why I didn’t want you to go in just yet. He had the Xanax, now he’s trying to sleep. If you get upset Gwen, Barrett might, too.”
“No he won’t! Not if he doesn’t remember me. He called me Snowflake New Year’s Eve! In 2012.” I grab onto Barrett’s wrist. He wraps his arm behind my back. “If he didn’t call me Gwen or Pig, he doesn’t know me! Kell, I have to know! I have to know if he knows who I am…” Against my will, I start to cry.
He pulls me close. “You want some Xanax too?” He makes a sound like a chuckle, but it’s darker. His face, when I draw away and look into his eyes, is tight and pale.
“I don’t want Xanax. I don’t want your help!” I run blindly down the hall, and I don’t stop until I’m outside in the parking lot.
THIRTY-TWO
Gwenna
Kellan is crazy. You couldn’t pry me away from Bear right now to save the planet. Also, it’s not true what Kellan said. What he implied. That we can’t see Barrett right now.
We can if we want. Even I can. All the doctors are saying is they want him to have a solid night’s rest because sleep is important for healing of the brain, and if we want him to stay conscious, he needs to sleep.
Did Kellan think I would run into his room and make him more upset? The thought fills me with fury until sometime in the wee hours when I’m dozing in the waiting room—and I realize that if Kellan hadn’t kept me away, maybe I would have burst into Bear’s room and made a fuss.
So what?
I can still be mad at Kellan.
I can still be mad.
I look out the window in front of me, out at the Smoky Mountains, green hills wreathed with blue-gray fog, and I wonder what I’ll do if he doesn’t remember me. Doesn’t remember us. How will I cope with that?
How is this even happening right now? After everything…
I shut my eyes and think of myself up there on stage last night at the Bluebird. How good it felt. And how I thought of Barrett the whole time because I knew how proud he’d be of me.
Once his friends told me how he felt, and I saw that pig tattoo, everything shifted back to normal in my head. Even if it had been me he hit… It would have been weird, yeah. Of course. A sensitive subject. But I think we’d have learned to joke about it. I think we could have gotten through it.
What kind of universe—what kind of God—takes that kind of love and just…erases it?
Tears fill my eyes. I need to get up. Walk around a little. Breathe, before I go into hysterics and the woman at the waiting room security desk makes me leave.
She’s talking on her phone as I elbow through a one of the double-doors, bound for the cafeteria. I give her a tight smile.
“Ma’am?”
