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A flinch, the tiniest of unplanned movement at the fierce sound of the door slamming shut and my legs gave way altogether. I fall face first into the carpet as Ryder bellows my name.
“What the hell? I’m ringing Soraya.”
“No!” I cry out and inwardly groan. Isn’t it bad enough I’m eating the cream carpet as punishment for ignoring the signs? Soraya will only rush me off to the nearest hospital.
I’m fed up with staring at walls and being a one-woman blood drive. Bloody leeches! They’re more like vampires than doctors. I’m surprised I have any blood left!
Besides, this weekend isn’t about me. It’s about Julia. I’m Julia’s bridesmaid and I need to be around when she arrives.
“I’m fine, see.” I make a big show of rolling on to my back and lying in a long straight line, smiling up at my brother. The feeling is returning to my legs in a rush of fizzing. “I think I overdid it yesterday.” I know I did. “I’ll be careful from now on, I promise.”
“You think I’m stupid?” Ryder looks huge from this angle and towering over me. He’s also glaring like the doctor in Switzerland had when he’d rattle off the list of dos and the ten times longer list of don’ts. “You’re not going to be careful. You don’t think Sean knows about the accident.”
“Of course he knows.” I manage to gently maneuver into a sitting position and hold my hand out. I’m not getting up off the floor on my own. My legs aren’t up to it, and Ryder knows it. “Mimi said she told him.”
“You mull that one over for a bit, Ash. The sister that hates you, miraculously comes to your rescue? It doesn’t take a genius to figure out she’s up to something.” Ryder sneers at the mention of my twin, sinking to the bed and folding his arms across his chest.
“She wouldn’t lie to me, Ryder. Now help me up.”
“Well, I think she did. She’s hated you for years. All that hurt and hatred doesn’t disappear just because you almost died. Not even if you technically did die on the operating table. But let’s move on from that because you think she’s the best sister in the world and can do no wrong right now.”
I’m not sure about that. Forty-eight hours ago, I would have agreed. But too many things don’t add up anymore.
“I’m in charge.” Ryder goes on. “You’re supposed to be listening to me. You’re supposed to be doing what I say. But you’re not and look at the consequences.”
“Please, will you help me?” But I know the answer is a big fat resounding no so I let my hand drop to my side. Might as well face it, I’m in this for the duration, for however long Ryder decides he’s going to lecture me. “Well gee, thanks for reminding me that I’m only half of what I used to be.”
“You might relax, take it easy, and think about how stupid you’re being down there. Instead of telling Sean the truth and making everything all right again, you’re going to make him suffer for hurting you. That means pretending you’re fine when you’re not.”
“Right!” I reach for the dresser to hurl myself up. “I’ll do it myself.”
“No wonder you wanted to be a lawyer. Christ! You’re stubborn.” Ryder slides off the edge of the bed and onto the floor with a silent thump as he reaches for my hands. “Just quit your whining and listen to me for once, will you?” His charcoal gray eyes meet mine as he sighs. “Look Ash, you both obviously still love each other, or you wouldn’t have woken up together. And you have the magic cure that will fix what went wrong.”
“Why should I let him off the hook?” More importantly, why would I want to?
“Sixteen fucking years Ash, you’ve been in love with him for sixteen years. Just fix it!”
I shake my head. “No.”
“For God’s sake, you threw yourself off a cliff, fractured a vertebra, had a subarachnoid hemorrhage, complicated malignant hypothermia, spent three months in a coma and your mom and dad were preparing to switch off your life support. Haven’t you figured out that life’s too short for this shit?”
“It was just a broken nose!” I shout back at him.
I was the luckiest person in the world. I fell over a hundred-foot drop without a harness. Landed in fresh snow and rolled down a slope. I hit a tree. Whacked my face. I escaped with a few scrapes and bruises and a broken nose. That was all!
I begged my sister to go to an awards ceremony in my place because the doctors wanted to do head scans just to be sure. No one knew I fought with Justin and stormed off on my skis in a rage without clipping my boots and had no grip when I tried to avoid the cliff edge. I went over.
One minute I was outside the hospital drinking coffee, and the next I was waking up from a coma.
I collapsed, fell down some concrete steps and had a seizure. That was how I fractured my spine and they learned about the brain hemorrhage. As if being turned into a human avalanche hadn’t been bad enough. Fate had to go and put me in a coma as well.
“You don’t need to remind me how lucky I am to be alive, Ryder.” I drop my attention to the thick cream carpet. “But I don’t want to fix it. Why should I fix it? Where was Sean when I was in a coma? Where was he when I was in a rehabilitation center learning to walk again? He was chasing Mimi around LA, that’s where! He was being too stubborn to talk about me. Is that the kind of man you want me to spend the rest of my life with? Someone who left me alone when I needed him the most? So, I don’t care how much he suffers because… I…”
Tears flood my vision.
“Oh Ash, please don’t cry.” Two big fat tears run down my cheeks as his arm wraps around my shoulders. “You don’t cry. You never cry. Shit, you are crying. Ash. Stop. Please. I’ve never seen you cry.”
“I’m in hell, Ryder.” I sob into his shoulder. “The only part of my life that made it worth living, is a bastard.”
