Pushing The Limits: Take Me On Part 19

"Yes. No. I don't know." He shakes his head and the shadow of pain darkening his face physically hurts me. "She's out of the ICU and in a normal room, but she looks like h.e.l.l and her legs..."

Because both of his hands are untangling his wraps with the fury of a sailor untying knots on lines during a storm, I place my hand on his thigh, on the spot above his knee. "I'm sorry."

West drops his wraps and places his hand over mine. He doesn't respond. He doesn't squeeze my hand. He just holds on.

The wall-length mirror reflects us-me and West. My mother read a story to me once where a girl walked through a looking gla.s.s and discovered that the world on the other side was the opposite of our reality. I can't help but wonder if the opposite Haley and West are happy or if they're drowning in worse circ.u.mstances.

With a sigh, West pats my hand and stands, taking his wraps with him. He leans his back against the mirror and weaves the fabric over his wrists and knuckles. Following his lead, I do the same, but because I've been doing this years longer than West, I finish before him.

I stand and try to ask as casually as I can, "What happened with your parents?"

West pulls hard on the material over his knuckles, then wraps the leftover material around and around the length of his wrist. "They told me to come home."

Home. The word ricochets within me like a bullet. "That's...that's...great."

But it doesn't feel great and it feels worse knowing I should be happy for him. West won't have to sleep in his car anymore, he won't have to face the shelter and he'll be fed. More than fed. For a guy who drives an Escalade and wears brand-name clothes on his body, I'm sure he'll be full of all sorts of fancy food. He'll have a warm bed with high-thread-count sheets and he'll probably have every creature comfort that I could only dream about.

Somehow, this loss of a home was the bond between us and it made me feel less alone. Now, with him returning, I feel more isolated than I did to begin with.

I pull on my ponytail. Brat. He's going home and I'm throwing a pity party. What's important is that West will be safe. Even though I don't understand what's going on between us, I want West to be safe.

"That's a good thing," I repeat.

"Yeah," he says and the heaviness in his tone indicates that returning home isn't his dream come true.

I replay the conversation. West only said that they asked him to go home; he never said he agreed. "Are you going home?"

West slams the Velcro into place and rests his hands on his hips. "Yeah."

"Is there a problem? I mean, is there something else going on there? Is it not safe?"

"No, it's safe." His face contorts. "But the problems... They're still there."

He's going home and I'm not. He'll be safe and I'll still live in the presence of evil.

I think about my home. The place that Maggie drew with the stick figures. Nothing was perfect there. My mom and dad would have the occasional fight. Kaden and I would get on each other's nerves. The hot water heater suffered from manic depression and would either be really hot or really cold. But for all the problems that surrounded me at that brick-and-mortar address, they were nothing like what I face now.

"I'd give anything to go home," I whisper.

West's head jerks up and the apology on his face is apparent, but I wave him away as I grab two jump ropes off the hook. "Three minutes jumping rope. Twenty-five push-ups. Then twenty-five squats. We'll repeat the cycle five times."

"Haley," he says and I only offer him the rope.

He reaches over, but instead of taking the rope from me, he glides his fingers onto my wrist and swipes his thumb over my pulse point. His caress sends fire straight to my toes, but there's a part of me, no matter how pathetic, that resents him. I yank my hand away. He's going home and I'm not.

"As I said this morning." I shove the rope into his hands. "We need to keep this simple. No complications. Now let's get moving. You've got a fight in less than two months."

Without allowing a response from him, I turn up the volume on the stereo and let Eminem drown out West's voice and my emotions.

West I've never slapped a woman, but the pain that slashed across Haley's face earlier this evening when I told her I was going home... I felt like I had. My entire body flinches. I hurt Haley tonight. Like I always do, I acted and didn't think.

I'm on autopilot as I race down the rolling hills of our sprawling gated community. Mansions dot the land every quarter to half mile. Some properties, like my parents', are practically their own zip code.

Turning, I spot our house and my foot falls off the gas. The house is larger. Somehow even bigger than I remember and I remembered it huge. The towering white columns and white marble stairs are illuminated against the night sky.

It's ma.s.sive and for the first time in my life a pit forms in my stomach as I ease into the driveway. It's not just ma.s.sive. It's excessive.

I bypa.s.s the attached garage used only by my parents and whip around the back to the structure built for me and my siblings to park our cars. On instinct, I reach for the garage opener attached to my sun visor and a sickening nausea spreads through me as the door opens. Where three cars should be sitting, there's only one. Ethan's car looks lonely in the spot to the left. I park the Escalade near the right wall and close my eyes, unable to glance at the empty middle.

That's where Rachel's Mustang should be. In fact, that's where she would be if she'd never been in that accident. The entire garage rings loudly with memories.

At midnight on a Sat.u.r.day, Mom would be asleep and Rachel would have escaped out the kitchen door to slip in here to work on the cars. She'd be knee-deep in grease and would have sent me a smile the moment I rolled in next to her.

Rougher than I mean to, I push the door open and slam it behind me, doing my best to ignore what's not there...what I want to be there.

The house is quiet. Dark. With the flick of a switch the lights of the kitchen spring to life. The air from the heater rolls out of the overhead vent and the sound only presses against the silence.

A loaf of bread sits on the counter. A bowlful of apples on the island. The pantry door's cracked open and a dozen or more boxes of a.s.sorted foods pack the shelves. My stomach growls and my hand lowers to stop it. I've eaten two meals a day for two weeks. Sometimes one. The meal always small. And here...we throw food out.

"Welcome home." Ethan leans against the doorframe leading to the foyer.

"Miss me?" I ask casually. I didn't hear s.h.i.+t from him or any of my brothers.

"I texted and called," he says. Sometimes it's hard to look Ethan in the eye. He's too much the spitting image of Dad. "You didn't answer."

It's a convenient excuse that's probably true. "My phone died."

Ethan nods like that explains everything away. "I was worried about you."

I pause, knowing that means I left Ethan here alone...by himself...worrying not only over our sister, over our mother's sanity, but also over me. "I'm sorry."

"You're a G.o.dd.a.m.ned a.s.shole for leaving. You know that, right?"

"Just an a.s.shole." I drop my bag, readjust the hat turned backward on my head and open the fridge. "Let's leave G.o.d out of this one."

Ethan chuckles and the thick tension between us eases.

Ham. Cheese. Milk. Eggs. Leftover spaghetti. My stomach cramps at the thought of eating it all. I grab a chicken leg out of a bowl and start devouring it while swiping a Tupperware container of potato salad. With the chicken in my mouth, I flip off the top of the potato salad, fish a fork out of the drawer, then spike it into the container.

"Hungry?" Ethan asks.

Famished, and my response is scooping a forkful of the salad into my mouth. I sit at the island and Ethan joins me. "Where the h.e.l.l have you been?"

I shrug and mumble between bites, "Living in my car."

"Sounds cozy."

"f.u.c.king Four Seasons."

I continue to eat and Ethan fills me in on the status of our household, which is the equivalent of saying nothing changed while I was away. Rachel's still in the hospital. Mom's still a basket case. Dad's back at work.

Speaking of work. "Can I ask you something?"

"Shoot," says Ethan.

"Did Dad's company buy Sillgo?"

"Sleep in your car for two weeks and now you're coming home a corporate tyc.o.o.n?"

"Not even close. I remember the paperwork around but don't remember if the sale went through. Was it Dad's company that bought it?"

Ethan shrugs. "Dad mentioned something over dinner last year that there were problems with the deal and that someone else might buy it, but I never cared enough to ask what happened. Why?"

"Curious." Maybe I don't have anything to be worried about. Maybe Dad isn't responsible for the destruction of Haley's family. Even though it's a shred of hope, it falls short within me.

"Why?" asks Ethan.

"I told you, curious."

"No, why did you decide to live in your car?"

My gut tightens-too much food too fast. I slow up. "Dad threw me out."

"Not that why," he says. "Why didn't you crash with Jack? h.e.l.l, Gavin's already living there. One more of us there wasn't going to hurt."

I move a potato chunk in the container, searching for an answer. Why the f.u.c.k didn't I go to Jack's with my tail between my legs, begging for a place to stay? I slam the top back on the container, toss it in the fridge and throw the chicken bone into the garbage. "I didn't need someone else in my face reminding me how I failed."

"You didn't fail," says Ethan.

"If that's true, then tell me why I'm here and Rachel's not."

"Because this is your home!"

Home. According to Haley, home meant a safe, warm place to fall. I scan the room as if I've never been here before. It's cold. It's unwelcoming. Dad was right the night he threw me out. I've never felt like I belonged. "It doesn't seem right. I shouldn't be here without Rachel."

I never should have come home. All this luxury, all the excess- I don't deserve it, especially since Rachel isn't enjoying a d.a.m.n thing lying in that hospital.

Ethan lowers his head, and, when he doesn't say anything, I head into the foyer, then up the winding staircase. My footsteps echo as I climb the steps two at a time.

Rachel's in the hospital with no comfort on the horizon. Haley offered her soul to me when she thought I had nothing and I hurt her by callously dropping that I get to go home when Haley has no escape from her nightmare. I've hurt the two most important girls in my life.

At the top of the stairs, my foot angles to the right, toward my bedroom, but my head turns in the direction of the gravitational pull of Rachel's room. How many nights have I ended up in there?

All the nights that I felt the guilt creeping up for the sins I had committed. All the nights of being in the middle of a crowded party and suddenly struck by the sensation that I was out of place. All those nights I knocked on Rachel's door, walked in and found relief in my sister's easy acceptance.

And there's the punch in the throat...Rachel always accepted me for who I was...the bad and the downright ugly...and, in my mind, I repaid the debt by protecting her. I stood up for her. I took on fights for her. I made sure she knew she was never alone.

Standing in her doorway, I can't find the courage to turn on her light. I strain to listen...to hear her soft voice tell me to come in...to tell me that she loves me...to tell me that it's all going to be okay.

I hear a voice...a whisper in my mind. The voice doesn't belong to Rachel, but to Haley, and it only reflects the loneliness inside me: "I'd give anything to go home."

My fingers grip the edges of the doorframe. "Me, too, Haley. Me, too."

Haley Talk about a nightmare come true. I fidget in the seat of our school's social worker's office, feeling a little like I've been chained to the stake. Government officials give me the creeps. They have the power to destroy the pathetic remnants of my family by forcing separation.

With her blond hair slicked back into a bun, Mrs. Collins sweeps in and closes the door behind her. "Sorry for the delay. I had...well...a thing." She smiles widely on the word thing. Do they get excited when they ruin families? Is it their occupational benefit?

"That's okay." I nibble on a fingernail as my mind searches for the reason for this meeting. It can't be illegal for us to reside with my uncle, or is there a limit to the number of people that can live under one roof?

Her cluttered office reminds me of my grandfather's except hers has a woman's touch with pink polka-dotted curtains and cutesy frames with cutesy sayings on the wall. No wonder the two of them got along.

"Did your grandfather find a volunteer for the gym?" she asks.

"Sort of." John was searching for a volunteer so he didn't have to pay anyone to wash the mats and bags, but because West can't pay gym fees, the two of us have been cleaning after we train on Friday and Sat.u.r.day nights.

West and I have been training together for three weeks and I've been impressed. He does possess raw talent and he's a quick study, but when I start to contemplate how much he needs to learn to go against Conner, I grow nauseous. There's no way it can be done.

As if I'm a prisoner searching for an escape, I survey the room again. West, West, West, West. I can't stop thinking about him. His family asked him to return home and he did, but I can tell by the hurt in his eyes that things aren't fixed.

Thinking of West causes me to sigh and Mrs. Collins squishes her mouth to the side. She lets it slide as she clicks her mouse and her computer springs to life. "If you don't mind, I need to send a quick email."

"Okay." West and I have never discussed the night he stayed with me. It's like it never happened and sometimes I wonder if I dreamed it. But the memory of his lips hot against my skin, of his hand on my stomach- My breathing hitches. It definitely happened.

Actually, West did mention that night the first day we trained together after he moved home. He only said, "It'll be simple. For now. Until I know you're ready for more."

For now... Ready for more. My heart flutters. No. No fluttering is allowed. West and I work better together as simple. Not complicated, but the thought of his mouth near mine....

Stop it! Focus on something. Anything.

With her fingers still moving, Mrs. Collins glances at me from the corner of her eye. "Is there something you'd like to talk about?"

"No." Not at all.

She finishes. "You seem a bit nervous. I promise-I'm completely harmless. Though I have one ex-student who claims I can't drive, but no need to worry. We won't be leaving the office." She winks and grins like we're friends.

Guess I've been as twitchy as a rat in a meth lab.

"I pulled you out of cla.s.s because one of your teachers told me you're trying to apply for the Longworth scholars.h.i.+p?"

I nod. Is it a crime to ask for teacher recommendations?

"It only pays for books," she says.

"I know."

Mrs. Collins opens a file, slips out a piece of paper and hands it to me. "This is the Evans scholars.h.i.+p. It'll pay for four years of tuition for a person majoring in kinesiology."

I sit straighter and handle the paper as if it's gold. "A full ride?"