Maldeamores (Lovesick) (Heightsbound #0.5) Page 19

  “I’ll be right back, Napoleon. You okay?” I ask. She whimpers and thumps her tail twice on the bottom of the crate.

  I step out into snow that’s up to my ankles on the highway. It’s so silent I feel alone in the universe. My mind cooks up some quick horror movie references, like dead bodies turned into zombies or killers lying in wait for me to check out the setup and then jump up and slaughter me. That’s what I get for watching Dracula on Christmas. I walk toward the car on soft footsteps with no crunch.

  “Hello?” I call out and my own voice jolts in the silence.

  The driver’s side door is open and I can see that someone is slumped over, being held in by the seatbelt. I run the rest of the distance, my feet sinking in the deep snow as I reach the bank. I step up the incline and yank on the door. A vodka bottle falls out and the person rolls toward me. She’s got blond hair and glasses. There’s a deep gash on her forehead that has bathed her face in blood. But I still know who she is, and I gasp in shock.

  It’s Jan. My sponsor Bryan’s wife from co-dependency workshop. The woman who makes him miserable and whom he can’t live without.

  “Jan?” I say. “Jan, can you hear me?”

  My hand searches her neck and I place my fingers under her ear to see if I can find a pulse. The blood on her face is cold and has gone tacky to the touch. Everything about her is cold and I start to shake uncontrollably. I reach in my coat pocket and pull out my phone, only to immediately drop it in the snowdrift. Falling to my knees, I start to dig and tear my fingers through the fresh powder.

  “She’s just out cold. From drinking. Maybe some hypothermia but she’ll come around as soon as we get her warm,” I say to myself.

  I can’t feel my phone, it’s like searching for a lost ring in the ocean. I decide to use my feet to push away the powder. I spot the edge and dig it out; my fingers are frozen.

  I rub the snow off on my coat and dial 911.

  “What’s your emergency?”

  “Car accident on Eastbound 44, please help me!”

  “How many vehicles? Do you know your coordinates?”

  “I’ve only been driving maybe fifteen minutes from Poughkeepsie, but I don’t know how far, because of the snow. It’s just one truck. She’s hurt. Please come!”

  “Stay on the line, ma’am. We’re sending someone out. Just one person injured or are there more passengers in the vehicle?”

  “Just her.”

  “Is she responsive?”

  “No,” I choke out and now I’m crying.

  “Do you know CPR, ma’am? Can you administer CPR until the paramedics get there?”

  “Yes,” I sob. “I’ll have to put the phone down.”

  “Put it on speaker if you can, ma’am, and I’ll walk you through it.”

  I put the phone on the seat and brush Jan’s hair out of her face. “Jan, it’s Belén, please, please don’t die on me.”

  “Is she breathing? Start with chest compression in the middle of her chest.”

  “She’s sitting up in the seatbelt. Should I try to lay her down?”

  “I don’t want you to move her. Just do the chest compressions until the ambulance arrives.”

  “Should I breathe into her mouth?”

  “Not if there’s blood, but, ultimately, it’s your choice.”

  “Her face is covered in blood,” I try to say but I’m crying.

  “Then I wouldn’t, just work with her chest.”

  I press both of my hands into the middle of Jan’s chest as the quiet blizzard rages on around us. It’s just me and Jan in the cab of a truck on a silent Christmas night—both of us trying to wake her sleeping heart back up. Sharp pain shoots up my wrist and into my elbow with every single thrust. I push as hard as I can, for Jan, for Bryan, even for myself. I can’t let Jan die on Christmas.

  Bryan spends his every waking minute trying to protect her and it’s never enough. I can’t let him down. I can’t ask Bryan to face a day without her. Because even if the specialists say it’s wrong or the average person says it’s sick, I know better than anyone that nothing, nothing in this life except for Jan has the ability to fill him up.

  I don’t know how long we sit like that, me straddling her lap as her head lolls to the side. Tears run down my face, while thickened blood stains hers. I push and I push, trying to transfer the life in me into her, trying to drag her back over the snow bank from the land of nevermore.

  I don’t even hear the sirens but I see the red and orange lights. The snow is bathed in their flashing color, a dizzying assault on the whiteout, the peaceful calm of Christmas night.

  I think they pull me off of her and carry me through the snow. Maybe they ask me questions but I’m too traumatized to know.

  They put Jan in the ambulance and me and Napoleon in the police cruiser. They take us to the animal clinic first, on my insistence, and after that to the hospital. I answer more questions for a sleepy cop and get my elbow x-rayed. The nurse offers me Christmas cookies with my Percocet. They also offer me Xanax and I decide to take it. For the worst Christmas ever, the pill might be my very best Christmas present. I sit in the waiting room while they process my paperwork. The holiday music is scaring me, because nothing feels worth celebrating.

  Then Bryan walks in and I stand when I see him. My phone has been burning in my pocket since I found Jan but I didn’t want to be the one to tell him.

  “Bryan!” I say and I wish I could take it back when he turns. I’ve almost never seen a human face look so stricken.

  “It was me who found her. I did CPR until the ambulance got there. I did my best. I tried to save her.”

  “I was so worried. I sat by the phone for hours. It was her first night out with the new truck. When she didn’t make it home for Christmas dinner I – ” and then he breaks down into a sob.

  “Go, Bryan. I’m here if you need me.”

  He squeezes my hand and his is frozen cold. His face looks ashen, his eyes haunted. I hate that I can relate to how he’s feeling.

  The giant tinseled silver bell that dangles over the reception desk is blowing gently in the warm air blast from the hospital’s heating system. There’s a pink Christmas tree in the corner with pink lights and white glittering doves for decorations. It all looks offensive because Bryan is about to lose his wife, the only person he knows how to love.

  I hear him scream. It’s a gruesome and horrible sound. The sound of losing every minute with Jan and all the pain that he’s felt. Jan has gone and left Bryan all alone. Maybe she was trying to escape him this entire time but it never worked, no matter what either of them did—be it right or wrong. I cradle my arm in its sling and step out the automatic doors into the swirling gusts of snow.

  I relate to Bryan’s cry, his battle call of anguish, because there is nothing that can make him better or soothe his torment. Only Jan could do that. Only Jan could make him feel whole. I know because I suffer from it myself. Jan and Bryan had the affliction too—they were both cursed with lovesickness.

  Chapter 20

  I take the long way to the veterinarian’s in the morning because I don’t want to drive by the spot. I don’t want to know if the truck is still there, angled onto the embankment. I don’t want to see if there are tracks in the snow from when she went off the road. Most of all, I don’t want to ask myself if her last thoughts before death were of Bryan.

  The roads are plowed now and much easier to maneuver. I find my way to the animal hospital even though when I came last night in the police cruiser, I think I was delirious. It’s my left arm that’s down and I consider myself fortunate to be able to go get her. The vet’s bill will be outrageous enough without the added cost of a home delivery.

  Napoleon has perked up and she’s ecstatic to see me. Her coat isn’t lackluster anymore and her eyes have
their normal clarity. I pay the vet in cash—it’s all of my savings from the lab job and a little taken out in advance on my credit card. I guess I should have gone to vet school.

  She’s had an IV drip and some x-rays and steroids. There is a growth in her abdomen, but we can only speculate without a biopsy. I’ll have to wait for Lucy to come home because I haven’t got the money. Napoleon’s tail thumps hard and fast when we pull into the driveway. There’s another car parked right up against the garage. I don’t recognize it but it’s got New York license plates. I kill the engine and undo my seatbelt. Then Lucky walks out from behind the house and my heart stops when I see him.

  His hair is shaved into a close buzz and he’s wearing a winter parka with fur around the hood. He’s so damn tall and gorgeous and insanely fit, the man could stop traffic even covered up by a gigantic winter jacket. But he’s more than that, because he’s Lucky, my cousin, my primo hermano, who knows me better than I know myself. His posture screams manliness, his whole persona yells confidence.

  I step out of the car and run into his arms. He lifts me off of the ground and spins me around before placing a chaste kiss on my nose.

  “I’ve missed you, Len. So fucking much!”

  “Did you drive up in the snow? Are you crazy?” I ask, pulling him toward the house by the hand, after we’ve let Napoleon out and she runs ahead of us. I have to use my right hand to get the key out of my left pocket and the sling suddenly feels like a straitjacket.

  “I left last night—well, early this morning. Right after you called Tía Betty from the hospital and told her about the accident.”

  “You’re nuts, were the roads awful?”

  “You’re the crazy one. Driving out in the country by yourself in a huge snowstorm.”

  I make us coffee and throw some bread in the toaster.

  “Tía Betty said you knew her. I didn’t want you to be alone.”

  “She was my sponsor’s wife, Jan. Probably a terrible person and definitely a raging alcoholic. But he loved her, Lucky, like nothing else. A match made in hell but with very willing participants. Know what I mean?”

  “What do you mean ‘your sponsor’? Are you in AA, Len? I didn’t know you had a problem.”

  I curl my legs in underneath me and take a sip of my coffee.

  “No. Co-dependency group. It’s every Tuesday night in the basement of a Chinese restaurant in a strip mall. It’s depressing. It’s all about people wasting their own lives by over-caring for other people. Well—one other person. Most of them are enablers and their partners use. Jan was an alcoholic and Bryan was sober. But it didn’t matter because he was love-drunk on Jan and made just as bad of decisions as she did.”

  “But Len, why are you there? Are you in a relationship?”

  I shake my head and take another sip of my coffee. “I’m there because of you, Lucky, because my feelings for you aren’t natural and neither is the way I deal with them.”

  “Jesus, Len. I try to make decisions to help us get over this and instead of helping you out, it just seems to make it worse. I don’t want you to be fucked up. The sacrifices I make are so that you can be a normal person.”

  Lucky stands and paces the small living room. He runs his hands through his hair and then shoves them in his pockets. His face is distraught but the tension makes him even sexier. Lucky is intense. I can’t get enough of his intensity.

  “I think there’s only one thing that makes me okay, and that thing isn’t an option. If you hadn’t helped me lose my virginity, Lucky, I’d still be standing before you a virgin. I can’t get turned on without you. Once I tasted your lips it ruined every other kiss for me. I don’t want them. I resent every caress that isn’t yours, Lucky. Your touch branded me first and I’m ruined.”

  He paces back toward me and I can see the outline of his thick cock through his jeans. I’ve turned him on with my words and I didn’t even mean to. I feel hyper-vigilant and sleepy, drunk and sick all at once. I’ll lose my mind if he rejects me and I’ll end up locked up in some gated psych ward, my mind on a repeat loop of my first and last kiss with Lucky.

  “Let’s find an escort, someone who can take you. I’ll stay in the room and be with you, watching every single minute. We’ll look at each other like last time. It’s the only way to do it.” Lucky is on a mission, has pulled his jacket on and is holding mine out to me. “I bought a bag as soon as I got to town. We’ll hit up that spot. We can find someone there, the sooner the better.”

  “Why were you getting a bag?”

  “I’m clean, Bey. I promise. Have been for a long time. Old habits die hard.”

  “Including me,” I mumble, but I don’t think he hears me.

  “I was fucking nervous about coming.”

  He’s dragging me down the stairs with my good arm and my jacket is falling off without the sling arm to hold it. I stop on the last stair, the cold winter air picking up my hair and making my cheeks pink.

  “Lucky, did you plan on sleeping in my bed?”

  He turns around and looks at me, frantic energy dominating his face.

  “Did you know we’d be alone here and there would be no one to disturb us? Why did you come here, Lucky? What is it that you want from me?”

  He came here to make love to me. He knows it as well as I do but he’s reluctant to admit it.

  He’s shaking his head from side to side, slowly, but it’s the way his face displays the guilt, which is, in and of itself, enough of an answer for me. Lucky is driven by the exact same motive and he’s even more ashamed of it than I am.

  “Bey, let’s find another way. We can figure something out,” he says but he already looks doubtful.

  “So I can fuck you by proxy? I’d rather not, Lucky. I’d rather spend my whole life longing. I got wet back there on the couch, just from seeing you hard. My body talks to yours, and I don’t want it to stop. I’d rather that connection than getting off on a random person. It’s not what I want.”

  “What do you want, Bey?”

  “I don’t want to die without first giving my body to you. I want you, Lucky. I want . . .” I take a deep breath in, “I want you to fuck me.”

  I swear I watch his face change as the words leave my mouth. He transforms from being my brother-cousin—the face I know so well—into a grown man full of lust and bursting at the seams with enough passion to ignite the both of us.

  “Lucky, this might be our last chance.”

  I exhale slowly, close my eyes and say a little prayer in my head. When I open them he is charging me, lifting me into his arms and crashing back through the door to the house. His mouth is on mine, his fierce kiss that I know well but could never get my fill of. He’s filling me up, he’s kissing me like he owns my, mind, body and heart. And he does.

  “Bed?” he says without taking his mouth from mine.

  I point to my bedroom and he kicks the door open. I have a king-size mattress and a box spring, but no frame, so my bed is low to the ground. Lucky puts me down and I kick my shoes off. I get my one hand out of my jacket, but I could barely get my clothes on, let alone take them off again.

  Lucky removes his shirt with one swift grab at his back and yanks it over his head. His dog tags swing forward he leans down, making quick work of his boots and pants. I’m struggling one-handed with my jeans. Lucky is in his underwear and he crawls over me, lining up our bodies. With his weight on his arms he kisses me delicately. Then he grabs the other side of my jeans and tears them down my legs. He lowers himself onto me and his huge, underwear-covered bulge presses right against my hot center. I spread my legs and bring him even closer to me.

  Lucky nips my earlobe and then his tongue sweeps right inside my ear; he nips the shell and travels his love bites down my jawline. I roll my hips and press into his bulge. He shoves back hard, telling me with his b
ody he’s in charge. My skin prickles and I bite down to keep from humping him.

  He bites up my chin until he reaches my lips, then nibbles gently on the lower one before sucking it completely into his mouth and diving in with his tongue.

  I roll my hips; I can’t help myself. My body is on fire and my mind is in overdrive.

  “Maybe I can fuck it out of you, Lenny? What do you think about that?”

  “Yes!” I say, my hand grabbing his ass for the first time. It makes me crazy how hard and muscled he is.

  “Say it, Len, I want to hear you say it again.” He’s teasing me by dragging his hard bulge through my tender lips. I rub against him trying to satiate the furious drive, trying to get him inside me.

  “Please, fuck me, Lucky. Please fuck it out of me.” It comes out breathless and desperate and it ignites something in him. He tears at my shirt, popping some of the buttons. It only comes halfway off due to the sling, but my bra has a front clasp and he flicks it. My breasts spring free. He sucks one nipple into his mouth and then rubs it along his lips by moving his head. The other he tortures with slow circles of his thumb until it hurts. He pulls that one into his mouth and runs his tongue over it, then sucks, pulling it into a point. First he concentrates on just the nipple, then opens his mouth and pulls the whole areola in, grazing it with his teeth.

  I’m breathing in gasps—I’m so wet and ready, I might come just from rubbing up against his hard pole and he’s still in his underwear.

  “Please, Lucky,” I moan.

  Lucky slides down my body and kisses my injured arm. He licks little tastes down my plumb line, dipping into my belly button. My body swims in heat as he tickles me with his tongue, straight down from my belly button, until he reaches my clit. He gently licks through my folds before plunging his tongue into me. My back arches with the sensation.