Wake for Me (Life or Death Series) Read online

  WAKE FOR ME

  Isobel Irons

  http://isobelirons.com

  Copyright Isobel Irons 2013

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  APPENDIX

  For Eli

  My all-time favorite noun

  CHAPTER ONE

  “The great question that has never been answered and which I have not yet been able to answer, despite my thirty years of research into the feminine soul, is: What does a woman want?” –Sigmund Freud

  I’m drowning again.

  The cold, grey water is rushing in all around me, from places I can’t see. It’s ridiculous, but I reach out and try to stop it with my hands. When that fails, as it should, I try to get out. But I never get out.

  Naturally, I panic at first, but then I give up and let myself drown. Thoughts go through my head, not of panic, but of anger. You’re so stupid. How could you let this happen? This is your fault.

  You deserve to die.

  But I can’t die. I close my eyes and open my mouth, welcoming the water in. It fills my lungs until everything around me goes dark.

  I gasp and sit up. This time I’m lying in the meadow, the one with the purple flowers. It’s sunny and warm, and I know that I’ve only got a few more seconds before the clouds roll in. This one is always the same.

  I hate what’s coming next.

  For now, I take advantage of the moment. Who knows how long it will be before I see flowers again? I reach out and pick one. Violets, I think. I almost could’ve been named for these flowers. Maybe that’s why they’re here.

  For some reason, this silly little thought seems so important.

  The sky shifts, and I pull myself to my feet as fat raindrops fall all around me, bursting loudly against my head and face. I look for the trees, and find them at the other end of the meadow. There are three this time, but there will be more soon. They’re far away, so I start to run. My eyes want to flick upward, to search the sky. I don’t let them. The first one drops, just to my right. The earth shakes, and I fall to my knees, getting up, just in time to jump away as a second one strikes the ground to my left.

  Birds. Giant, dead bluebirds—falling from the sky. I try not to look directly at them, because I did that once, and it was bad. Instead, I weave through them like a macabre obstacle course, keeping my eyes leveled on the small copse of willow trees just ahead.

  Weeping willows, with dark yellow leaves. Leaves the color of my mother’s hair.

  I’m close enough now for the trees to reach out and embrace me, the way they always do. When I’m in the woods, everything is silent again. There are trees on all sides of me now, but they’re different. Dark. The sad, blonde willows are gone.

  I know these woods, and I know the little stone cottage that rests in the middle. The moment I think about it, there it is. Right in front of me. I don’t go toward it, but it doesn’t matter. I’m inside, standing on the threshold, before I can blink.

  “Hai aspettato troppo a lungo, Viola,” the old woman tells me. “La zuppa è fredda.

  You’ve dawdled, Viola. The soup is cold.

  “I know.”

  She only speaks Italian, but I answer her in English, because I know it doesn’t really matter what I say. She’s going to try and eat me, regardless. That’s what witches do.

  I stand very still, watching as she cracks her knobby knuckles over the fireplace, trying to get warm. The last time I met her, I struck up a conversation about loneliness. Wasn’t she lonely, I’d asked her, and wouldn’t she rather have a friend than a meal?

  Her answer was no. I’d barely escaped.

  This time, I don’t even bother to try.

  “Just get on with it,” I tell her. “Finirlo. I’ve got somewhere to be.”

  I close my eyes and the sound of cracking gets louder, closer. When I was a little girl, I’d wake from this dream, screaming. Now, all I can do is wait it out.

  There is no waking, and there is no escape.

  I can’t control what happens in my dreams. I never could. The only thing I can do is choose how I react—but sometimes that’s not as easy as it should be. Even if I put on a brave face, I can’t control the way I feel. Pretending is exhausting, especially when the show is only for my benefit. Sometimes it’s just easier to be helpless.

  I’m so tired. So frustrated. I just want it to be over.

  “How’s my favorite patient today?”

  Suddenly, the cottage is gone, replaced by darkness. But it’s a warm, safe sort of dark. Even if I hadn’t heard his voice, I would’ve felt him. I would’ve known.

  I’m never this awake unless Sam is nearby.

  “I won’t lie to you. I’m a little bit disappointed. You don’t seem very happy to see me today. Let me guess, you’re still mad about yesterday?”

  If I could, I would smile. Maybe even laugh out loud. Instead, I will myself to breathe more quietly, focusing on the deep, reassuring sound of his voice like an invisible blanket that I can wrap around me.

  “Well, as much as I hate to upset you, I can’t bring myself to go back on what I said. Il Divo does not make me feel calmer. It just makes me want to watch The Godfather for the ten-millionth time. Which makes me want to join the mafia, because, you know—shot calling.”

  My chest feels like it’s full of bubbles. I want to shake my head and laugh at him for thinking that borrowing my Il Divo album would somehow alleviate his issues with authority. To begin with, I don’t even really like that group. My mother brought it, because she thought it would give me pleasant dreams. But instead, I always end up dreaming about The Sopranos. I guess Sam has the same problem, except he’s from a slightly older generation.

  We’re so perfect for each other. If only I could tell him how alike we really are—maybe then he’d see me as more than a pleasant little vegetable he can share all his secrets with.

  There’s a deep thudding noise from somewhere off in the dark, and Sam sighs. He must be exhausted, or he wouldn’t allow himself to show even that much weakness. I can hear him fiddling around with the things on my bedside table, which means something is bothering him and he doesn’t want to talk about it. At least not right now. For right now, he just needs to be somewhere quiet. Somewhere he can relax and be himself.

  Luckily, that place is with me.

  “I need to get you something motivational. Something with a lot of power chords, like Green Day or My Chemical Romance. Something with passion, and guts. Not like…Jesus… Taylor Swift?!”

  I try to picture the look on his face, but this is where my stunningly vivid imagination always fails. I’ve spent thousands of hours trying to piece together bits of him—sounds, sm
ells, even little details I’ve overheard—but they never seem to form a concrete picture in my mind. Not one that comes even close to being good enough for Sam Philips.

  “Okay, I’m going to do us both a favor and pretend that this CD isn’t yours. It probably belongs to one of the nurses. I’ll just hide it over here in this plastic plant, and when you wake up, we’ll never speak of it again.”

  There are so many reasons to love Sam, but the most important reason is this: he’s the only person I know who believes I’ll ever wake up.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “The virtuous man contents himself with dreaming that which the wicked man does in actual life.” –Sigmund Freud

  “Dr. Philips, what are you doing?”

  Sam pulled his hand back from the potted plant so quickly, it probably looked like he thought it was trying to bite him. Act natural, he told himself. You belong here. There is nothing remotely inappropriate about this situation.

  He forced himself to stand up slowly, nonchalantly. “Just checking on my patient, nurse…” Oh, crap. “…Nurse Bouchard.”

  The woman in the doorway couldn’t have been more than five feet tall, and she wore bright pink scrubs with cartoon donuts on them. She was easily the oldest and chubbiest of all the nurses in the department, and she spoke with a thick southern accent.

  She was also the most terrifying creature Sam had ever crossed paths with.

  “You know, it ain’t 1955 anymore, Dr. Philips,” she drawled. “You can call us by our first names.”

  Sam laughed nervously. His ‘Oh, crap’ moment had just been upgraded to an ‘Oh, shit’ moment. For some reason, he glanced down at his patient, as if she could give him a way out of the situation. As usual, Sleeping Beauty just lay there peacefully.

  “You’re no help at all,” he muttered to her, under his breath.

  “What was that, Dr. Philips?”

  Apparently a bit of geriatric hearing loss was too much to ask for. “Nothing.”

  Nurse Bouchard narrowed her eyes at him.

  “You don’t even know my first name, do you?”

  “Of course I do.” Sam could feel himself starting to sweat. He was a doctor, for crying out loud, and she was just a nurse.

  A nurse who had been working in the medical field at least forty times longer than he had, and who could probably kick his ass if she really wanted to. True, he was a lot taller, but she was a lot thicker. And meaner.

  Just then, his pager went off. Hallelujah, there was a god.

  “Oh, sorry,” he looked down at the blinking device, which had most likely been manufactured before he was born. “I have to go. I’m urgently needed in Radiology.”

  “Go on then,” she said.

  As he headed for the door, there was a brief moment when he wondered if she was going to step aside, or just stand there to see if he was man enough to go through her. Thankfully, he didn’t have to find out. At the last second, she moved, but she didn’t let him leave without muttering a parting shot under her breath.

  “Interns.”

  “Lilliputians,” Sam muttered back, but only when he was a good fifteen yards away. Then again, she probably wasn’t that short, by most people’s standards. Being six-foot-five and gangly tended to make everyone under five-five seem munchkin-like from his point of view.

  Which, by extension, probably meant that he seemed like a giant from Nurse Bouchard’s perspective. A gentle giant, though, since he was clearly no threat to her. Bumbling and absent-minded, on occasion, but not a threat.

  As he took a shortcut down the emergency staircase, Sam mocked himself silently. Gentle giants and literary midgets—these were the kind of thoughts his brain churned out after working back-to-back 12 hour shifts. Not thoughts of studying, or sleep, but jokes about mythical creatures. It was no wonder most of the nurses thought he was a freak.

  There was no one at the desk in Radiology, so Sam waited around for a couple of minutes. Once it was clear that nothing major was going down, he started wandering around the department, trying to figure out who had paged him. It was late, so there weren’t very many people around to ask, but the general consensus was that no one actually needed him in Radiology.

  This was typical of his experience with the hospital environment so far. Unlike the way it was portrayed in all those medical TV shows, there was very little running around and “STAT!” Instead, it was a lot of really long hours, and very long, very boring waiting periods. Sadly, there was also basically zero sex-having in the on-call room.

  After meandering around in Radiology for a good half hour, Sam finally located the department’s night-shift receptionist and realized that his page had been a wrong number. He thanked the girl for paging him accidentally—which really seemed to weird her out, since he didn’t bother to explain that he’d been grateful for the excuse to flee from a testy ICU nurse—and then plotted a sneaky course to the on-call room. Sleep would cure his idiocy, maybe.

  On the way, he slipped his cell phone out of his pocket and turned it on. He hadn’t checked it in hours, but he wasn’t surprised to see that there were five messages from his friend Brady, and two from his mom. He ignored the ones from Brady, and pulled up the first one from Mom.

  When can I tell Caroline you’ll be here next?

  He thought about answering her with one word, Never. But that would’ve been rude. Instead, he ignored the somewhat repetitive question and went to the next message. Okay…a picture of a pot roast. And to the next message, right underneath: You could come this weekend. I’ll make your favorite. He’d only been avoiding his mother for a week this time, and she’d already progressed to food blackmail. This Caroline girl must be ultra-super girlfriend material.

  Sam kept walking as he typed out a response.

  I’m working back to backs all weekend. Remember?

  As for the proposed set-up, it was probably best not to bring it up. Maybe he could just delete the text and pretend like it hadn’t gone through. Then, when he did eventually drive home for the weekend, maybe he wouldn’t have to deal with a modern—and more tearful—version of the Spanish Inquisition on why he wasn’t interested in dating a girl who lived four hours away, and was work buddies with his mom.

  It wasn’t until he was standing in front of room 714 that Sam realized he wasn’t going to the on-call room after all. His sleep-deprived feet had led him right back to where he’d started, before he’d gotten paged away from Sleeping Beauty’s side. Oh, well. The empty bed next to hers was just as good a place to catch a few winks as anywhere else—provided he didn’t get caught. He probably wouldn’t, not this late, when staffing was low and most of the patients were either permanently unconscious or drugged into a hard core stupor.

  Still, he made sure to check the hallway for short, irate nurses before he drew the curtain between the beds and lay down.

  As usual, when he closed his eyes, his mind switched into hyper-drive. All of the mistakes he’d made that day—and in the weeks, months and years before—flashed behind his eyes like a gag reel of regrettable events. Questions he’d gotten wrong during rounds, words he’d misspelled on patient charts, and stupid things he’d said to the cute nurse on the fourth floor.

  And of course, at the very end of the reel, there was his greatest and most secret mistake.

  The shallow, rhythmic breathing from the next bed provided the soundtrack as Sam’s mind filled in the blanks.

  The warehouse party had been a private gig, hosted by one of Brady’s friends from undergrad. Sam remembered Brady telling him to watch out for jail bait. Some indie rock star was doing a secret show, and underage college girls in short skirts had flocked to the dimly lit scene like…well, a flock of some kind. Brady was in his element, of course, which left Sam lagging behind and feeling awkward because he was a head taller than pretty much everyone else in the room.

  “Dude, lighten up.” Brady’s voice repeated his usual shtick. “Find yourself a girl and bore the pants off of her, why don’t you?�
�

  “No thanks.” Sam wasn’t in the mood. It didn’t help that he was on call, and nursing a Coke that he wished was a beer.

  “Why? You still having PTSD flashbacks about Karen?”

  Sam shook his head. “Carrie. And I just told her we needed a break.”

  Brady laughed. “Dude, she changed her Facebook status to ‘in a relationship’ after two dates. You don’t need a break. You need a fucking restraining order.”

  As much as Sam wanted to disagree, he couldn’t come up with a good enough counterpoint. Carrie had been a little Swim Fan-esque. Instead, he took another slug of Coke and gestured for his friend to make the rounds without him.

  “Go ahead. Pillage and raid to your sick little heart’s content.”

  Brady, of course, didn’t hear him. He was already several yards away, circling a pair of blondes with matching little black dresses like a mako shark with a surgically-implanted, hormone-seeking chip. The guy might not have been all that good-looking, but he made up for it with countless hours at the gym and a complete lack of shame.

  After a while, Sam got tired of watching Brady strike out, and he let his eyes wander the room until they settled on something interesting. That was when he saw her.

  She was sitting alone, at a table tucked into a dark corner. While everyone around her laughed and flirted and danced with reckless abandon, she was perfectly still, like the eye of a storm. Self-contained. Remote. Unreachable. She was beautiful too, but it was more than that. There was a sadness, a story behind her eyes that begged to be discovered.

  Even from several bar stools away, Brady had noticed Sam watching her, and wouldn’t stop harassing him until he finally agreed to at least go talk to her.

  The longer Sam watched her, the more interesting she seemed. In front of her, there was an untouched glass of wine. Her cell phone sat on the table, its case sparkling with what looked like actual rubies. It was weird, the unimportant things a person remembered. Her fingernails were painted dark blue. The way they tapped on the trendy cast iron table, it was as if she was trying to drum her way through it. She was agitated, he should’ve realized it at the time—but his need to unravel a mystery overpowered him.