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“I’m a little stunned. That’s all. Let’s get you upstairs.”
“I’m not sure I can stand. I feel pretty woozy,” he admitted. “I was out in the sun all morning. I think that’s making matters worse.”
“I’ll help you.” She draped his arm around her shoulders so she could support him, but he was too big and heavy. Fortunately, he was able to grab hold of the railing and use it to pull himself to his feet.
They made slow progress, but with her support, he managed to climb the stairs. She would’ve put him on the couch in the living room, but her aunt’s Victorian settee was way too small for him and would’ve been almost as uncomfortable as the dirt floor in the basement. “Can you make it up one more flight?” she asked.
“What?” he said as if he didn’t comprehend the question, but he allowed her to guide him up to her aunt’s room, where she eased him onto the bed and removed his boots.
“I’m going to call a doctor,” she said.
“Don’t.” He waved her off. “I’ll be fine—” he winced as he touched the cut on his head “—in a minute.”
Was that true? She’d heard that head wounds typically bled a lot, but the sight of so much blood dripping onto the pillow scared her.
She went into the bathroom, ran some cool water onto a washcloth and returned to clean him up.
“Where am I?” he asked, looking around the unfamiliar room, with its collection of hatpins and hatboxes, as though he’d fallen down the rabbit hole inAlice in Wonderland.
“You’re in Aunt Phoebe’s bed. I bet you never thought you’d find yourself here.”
He looked confused. “I have an aunt Phoebe?”
“No. She’smyaunt. Do you know whoIam?”
“Of course.”
“What’s my name?”
He held her gaze. “Talulah.”
“Good answer.”
“I’ve always liked that name,” he volunteered and repeated it a few more times, as though he enjoyed the way it rolled off his tongue: “Talulah... Talulah... Talulah...”
That he remembered her was reassuring; she tried to ignore the rest because it was odd. Obviously, he didn’t know what he was saying. But when she heard her name with a question mark at the end, she pulled the washcloth away. “What?”
“You are sobeautiful.”
She had a feeling he wasn’t talking exclusively about her face—could tell it was a reaction to what he’d seen right before he hit his head—and felt her cheeks start to burn. But it was so hot in the room she doubted he’d realize he’d embarrassed her. “When you come back to yourself, you’re going to be mortified you said that to me,” she told him.
He blinked at her, obviously perplexed. “Why? I’m just being honest.”
“Because you don’t like me, remember?”
“I never said that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
“You’re wrong. I like you a lot.”
She found this earnest, boyish version of Brant rather endearing, despite everything that’d happened, and tried to galvanize herself against the effect he was having on her as she worked to wash him up. Then she wrapped his head in a bath towel along with the ice.
When she was finished and had changed the pillowcase, too, he looked up at her and said, “Wheream I again?”
He couldn’t remember from five minutes ago. “That’s it,” she said. “I’m calling for help.”
“No, I’m okay,” he argued, but she went to find her phone anyway and used it to ask Google what to do in the case of a head injury.
