Tempest. Part 30

Too late now.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE.

I shook out my arms and legs, feeling the relief of being free from Marshall's grip, before taking in my surroundings. My apartment. Home. I had magically appeared exactly where I'd left, but it looked different. The living room furniture had completely changed. Not only was this not a full jump, it wasn't 2009. The reality hit me hard. And at this very moment, 007 Holly was pa.s.sed out in a room full of people I didn't trust and I was standing there like a vegetable, probably about to get strangled or shot ... But time would move slower there and if I could just form a plan before I jumped back ... something better than another failed attempt to reach 2009.

I glanced at the time on the cable box: 7:05.

No light streamed in from the window behind the couch. Evening. But what day? What year? The sound of feet shuffling against the wood floor came from down the hall. I pressed my back against the wall and poked my head around the corner. It was me. A younger me, walking toward Courtney's room.

The second my eyes dropped to the younger me's hand, I knew exactly what day it was. My heart thudded and nausea swept over me. I had avoided this date in every time jump. And when I first arrived in 2007, and attempted the failed jumps to 2009, I always had this overwhelming sense of dread that I'd eventually end up here. Now.

The younger Jackson entered the bedroom and I crept closer to the door. This was me at fourteen.

On the day my sister died.

I could see halfway into the room, enough to watch the younger me take the card and set it upright on her dresser. I didn't really need to watch, the memory hadn't faded, even after all these years, and I knew exactly what he was going to do next.

Actually, I had forgotten some of it until I met 009 Holly. A conversation that I once had with her took over my thoughts.

"It's like you don't have normal family things to talk about, like the crazy drunk aunt you have to put up with or what salad to bring to the next family reunion," Holly had said, teasing me.

I laughed. "Just because I'm not middle-cla.s.s like you doesn't mean I don't have normal family issues money can't solve-"

Holly smirked at me. "Fine. Give me one Average Joe family secret that you couldn't buy your way out of and I promise I'll never bring it up again."

I dug for the perfect true story to prove her wrong. "Okay, I've got one ... Courtney was petrified of thunderstorms. The second she saw lightning, she'd race down the hall and drag me out of bed. She made me sleep on the floor in her room."

"And you went along with it?" Holly asked.

I shrugged. "It was the only way to get her to shut up."

"Such a typical brother thing to say. Sorry I doubted you."

The day that Courtney died, this day, I just had a feeling that it was happening. Like something inside me was fading. And without thinking about it, I had walked right into her room and lay down on the floor. I remember pressing my face into the carpet and breathing in the scent and realizing that she'd never ask me to stay with her again. Never wake me up at two in the morning, asking me to leave my comfortable bed and sleep on her hard, cold floor. And I think I may have decided, at fourteen, that I never wanted to end up alone, with my face in someone else's carpet, again.

I patted my left front pocket. My own copy of that card was folded into a small part of my wallet. Two copies and still neither reached the owner.

My heart nearly leaped out of my throat when the Beatles song came blaring out of the younger me's phone. He jumped, too, then sighed after looking at the number. He turned it off and tossed it into the hallway, and then kicked the door shut.

It was Dad calling, and Courtney's room was the very last place he would have looked for me. I had wanted to hide from him. Hide from everyone.

I leaned against the wall, squeezing my eyes shut and fighting the urge to jump back. It wasn't a coincidence that I'd ended up here, and this was my chance to do it right, even if it didn't matter. If it didn't change the future.

Luckily, the doormen ignored me as I wandered out and grabbed a cab to the hospital. On the ride there, I pulled out a tiny newspaper clipping, crumpled and yellow from five years of being stuffed away. There was one piece of information I couldn't remember.

IN MEMORY OF COURTNEY LYNN MEYER.

Courtney Meyer, 14, of Manhattan pa.s.sed away April 15, 2005, at 10:05 p.m., after a three-month battle with cancer.

10:05. Less than three hours away. I still remembered the floor and room number. I had come to visit her plenty of times, but it was mostly in the beginning. I didn't know how she'd react, seeing me four years older, or if she'd even be coherent.

I crept past the nurses' station when they weren't looking, but the sound of my dad's voice stopped me. I hid behind a large trash bin and watched his feet stomp toward me, his phone pressed to his ear.

"Jackson, where the h.e.l.l are you?" He stopped right in front of the trash bin and I held my breath. "I'm sorry ... I didn't mean to shout ... just please call me, so I know you're okay."

I watched him take off running out the doors and realized, for the first time, that he might not have been there at the end, either. She was alone. I stood up and slipped into Courtney's room, unnoticed by any hospital staff. It was the largest patient room in the hospital and the entire thing was covered with flowers, cards, and gifts. I closed the door behind me and already I felt the urge to run. Because I knew what was coming, the weight was so heavy, like a semi truck sitting on my chest.

Courtney was lying on her side, curled up and so pale. If it weren't for the red hair, she'd have just blended in with the sterile white sheets. The monitor above her head ticked like a clock, counting the minutes.

Somehow I managed to put one foot in front of the other and made it to the chair next to her bed. The one I'm certain my father had just abandoned to go find me. Her eyes peeled open and then squinted as if trying to focus on my face. "Jackson?"

All I could do was nod and force back the tears.

"You look so different ... must be the morphine," she said.

Just hearing her voice, seeing that little bit of life still clinging to her body, it was too much. I started to get up, but she slipped her cold fingers under mine. "Please don't go. I haven't seen you in forever."

I scooted my chair closer and squeezed her hand. "I won't."

She smiled and her eyes fluttered, but she forced them open. "I hate this place, too. No wonder you never want to come."

That's when I lost it. I leaned forward and pressed my forehead against the cold white sheet and watched the tears drop from the end of my nose onto the bed. "I'm sorry, Courtney. I'm so sorry."

Her cold fingers moved through my hair, rubbing my head.

"No, that's not what I meant." She patted the empty s.p.a.ce next to her. "Come up here with me, I'm freezing."

I wiped my eyes on the sleeve of my sweater and rested my head on her pillow. Courtney moved closer and my heart pounded. This was almost like seeing a ghost.

She lifted my hand and rested it against her cheek. "You're so warm ... and you're scared to be here, aren't you?"

I stared into her green eyes, which were still bright as ever. "Yes, but I won't leave. I promise."

"Close your eyes," she whispered. "It helps me when I want to be somewhere else. Now tell me something great, but no hospital or sick people or medicine stuff."

I closed my eyes and forced my voice to come out even and told her the same thing I'd told her in 2004. "I have a girlfriend now."

"No way," she said, only a faint whisper. "Who?"

"She's from a different school." I moved my hand to her back and rubbed it gently.

"How did you meet her?"

"It's a great story. Do you want to hear it?"

"Yes, please."

"You know the big doors in the front of the YMCA? With the steps leading up to it?" I asked.

She nodded.

"Well, I was walking up the steps almost to the big doors, when this girl comes barreling into me. Apparently she was reading a book while walking-"

"What book?"

I brushed the hair from her face and smiled. "I knew you'd ask that. It was some John Grisham book. Anyway, she knocks right into me and her giant pink smoothie falls on top of my shoes. So we're sliding around in frozen strawberries and the first thing I notice are her pale blue eyes."

Courtney laughed lightly. "So romantic ... but I don't believe you looked at her eyes first."

"No lie. I totally did. Then I reached for her book to save it from the smoothie flood and saw she had written her name on the inside cover, Holly Flynn, with a big curly loop in front of the H. Of course, I thought it was really cute, but I couldn't tell her that. I mean, who actually writes their name inside a book?"

"I do," Courtney whispered. "So then what happened?"

"Well ... I handed her the book and she smiled at me. And all I could think was how much I wanted to kiss her. Just to see what it felt like. Somehow, I knew it would be different with Holly. Everything would be different."

"My brother's in love ... never thought I'd hear that," she mumbled with a smile.

I touched my lips to her forehead. "You're so cold."

"Jackson, promise me something, okay?"

"Anything."

"Marry the girl with the smoothie and have lots of kids. At least six. And you can name one Courtney and another one Lily. I've always loved that name."

"I know. You named, like, five of your dolls Lily. But I'm only nineteen, a little too young to get married..."

Her eyes flew open and I could see her brain reeling with theories, and then panic flooding in. She gasped before saying, "You're not really Jackson, are you?"

I pulled her closer, wrapping both arms around her. "Shh, it's okay. It's really me, just older."

"But we never meet here. I usually go to see you."

"Yeah ... I know," I said, even though she wasn't making any sense. I hated that she was so calm after what I had just accidentally told her. No punching me or screaming in the middle of coffee shops. It meant they were giving her a lot of morphine and she was dangling by a thread.

She yawned and relaxed her muscles again. "I'm so ... tired."

I glanced up at the clock on the wall. It was only eight forty-five. Watching her eyes close again, knowing she would drift off soon, sent me into a panic. Even though I knew what was coming. I mean, I'd already seen my sister lying in a casket ... but still, I wanted to stop it. Or at least delay it. Give her a little more time.

"Courtney! Stay awake ... please. Please." I shook her shoulders lightly, then pressed my forehead against her hair. "Just a little longer."

She touched her hand to my face and wiped the tears off my cheeks. "You have hair on your face ... it's p.r.i.c.kly."

I laughed. "I love you. You know that, right?"

"I love you, too." Her hand slid to my neck, like she didn't have the strength to hold it up. "You still haven't promised me ... marry the smoothie girl, have six kids and maybe a dog."

"I promise," I whispered right in her ear, so I knew she'd hear. Her face broke into a huge grin. "What should our wedding song be?"

"Hmm..."

"I know what you'd pick," I teased before singing her favorite song, "I see the bad moon arising."

"Yep," she said. "Not really a wedding song, though..."

I could already feel the shallowness of her breath. I wanted to be brave. To keep talking and hold it together for Courtney, but I couldn't. She was headed somewhere far away from me and I felt more alone than ever.

I wiped my nose with my sleeve and lifted her chin to make sure her eyes were still open. "Courtney, does it hurt? Anywhere?"

"I'm okay."

She was lying. I could see it written all over her face. "Courtney, tell me the truth."

Her eyes filled with tears and she finally nodded. "Yes ... it hurts ... everywhere ... and trying to stay ... that hurts the most. Like holding on to the edge of a cliff and my fingers keep slipping."

That's why she'd hung on for two more hours the first time. She was waiting for us. For someone. I squeezed her tighter and felt the tears falling twice as fast. "I'm sorry. It should be me. It should be me."

"No, Jackson. Don't say that, ever." Her voice came out with more life than it had this whole time.

I drew in a deep shaky breath and forced myself to stop crying. "It's okay, Courtney. You can sleep now. It's okay. No more pain."

"Thank you," she whispered.

And I could almost see it, a clear picture in my mind: her knuckles white, fingers gripping around a rock, and then the instant relief of letting go. Free-falling, feeling nothing but air, no weight. No pain.

I combed my fingers through her hair and watched with silent tears until her breath came in short spurts and then it just ... stopped.

The beeps turned to one long beep. Several pairs of feet pounded against the tile floor of the hallway. I whispered one last good-bye and closed my eyes, thinking of nothing but Holly, lying on her dorm room floor, bleeding and alone. That's where I needed to be.

I heard Dr. Melvin's voice just before I jumped as he uttered a loud but confused, "Jackson?"

I didn't even open my eyes when I tagged up in 2007. I felt myself being pulled back together. Chief Marshall's hands had dropped from my throat. Nothing but air surrounded me, but I was sure they were all still close by, ready to make a move. I heard my dad's voice just before I attempted the full jump back to October 30, 2009. Again. Please let it work this time.

CHAPTER THIRTY.