Won't Let Go Page 8

  I hear the chair wheels slide against the wood floor. Then footsteps come towards me. I lift my head up slightly. Embry stands at the edge of my bed as if asking permission. I pat the empty area with my hand.

  Slowly Embry sits down. It’s weird. The mattress sinks down as if it’s affected by his weight. He’s a ghost, disappearing in the blink of an eye, seeming to be a mix of gas and vapors. Yet he touches things, opens doors and now, he sits on my bed like a solid mass of real human flesh and bone. I don’t get it.

  “I’m sorry I make you cold.”

  I didn’t realize I was shivering, but when he lifts up a corner of the blanket, I slip under, eager to wrap myself in the comfort it offers. I smile. “Ever the gentleman.”

  He tilts his head to the side, eyes looking blank. “I think—I think my mom told me to always be a gentleman in the presence of a lady.”

  I laugh. “She did not,” I say. That sounds like a corny line straight out of a romance novel.

  “Maybe not, but she could have,” Embry says seriously.

  “Well, then, she taught you well. I think she’d be proud,” I say, and wonder where his parents are right now. Why haven’t they visited in over a year? So many questions. I stifle a yawn.

  “It’s late. We should talk more in the morning. You can tell me all about your day tomorrow,” he says, but makes no attempt to move.

  Instinctively I reach out. “Please stay.”

  Embry quickly pulls his hand away from me and rests it in his lap.

  I inch my own hand further, faster until it’s resting on top of his.

  A shudder of electricity courses through my hand and up my arm.

  I gasp with surprise.

  He shakes my hand free, making an effort to stand.

  “Wait. Don’t go,” I say, grabbing at his hand again, forcing him to clasp his fingers with mine. “You—you feel so real,” my voice trembles. His hand is cool to the touch, but firm, solid. Like it’s skin covering a web of veins, blood, and bone. Real. “How is this possible?” I breathe.

  Embry looks down at our clasped hands, his own eyes wide with surprise. Taking his other hand, he places it over the top. “I don’t know,” he says. “But I feel you. The tingling. It’s almost warm. Do you feel it?” he whispers.

  “Yes,” I exhale, searching his eyes. They usually hold a shadow of darkness, but now, they’re a bright sparkling azure blue.

  “Curious,” he says, letting go of my hand. Before I have a chance to protest, he takes a finger and draws a line from my forehead, down my cheek and across my jaw. I hold my breath as my skin tickles with the current of his touch and the coolness that follows.

  I never thought it possible, but my heart swells with emotion. Feeling. There’s no reasonable explanation, but I think—no— I know, that something inside me just fell a little bit in love with Embry Winston.

  The second he pulls his finger away, pausing to brush a few strands off my face, I sigh with the loss of contact, frustrated because I want to feel it again.

  Is it possible to love a ghost? And what about the real Embry?

  Chapter Eleven

  My eyes flutter open, and at first, I only see black. Blinking, I force them to adjust to my surroundings. I’m still in my room. I can make out the posts of the bed, blankets still envelope me with warmth, and the bright orb of an almost full moon peeks through the sheer curtain of my window. But a dark figure in the corner catches my attention. “Oakley?”

  “Yes. I’m here.” The leather of the chair squishes as he stands. “Is everything alright?” I’m sure if I could see his face it would match his concerned tone. His dark silhouette moves closer, outlined by the moonlight. The only sound he makes is the light tap of his sneakers and the swishing of his jeans until he’s standing over me.

  Looking up to him, I smile. “Everything’s fine. I just woke up and was—surprised you’re still here.”

  Embry bends his body into a crouch, arms folded on the mattress. “You asked me to stay,” he whispers, his head only inches from mine. His breath is icy as it brushes the exposed flesh of my cheeks and neck. A shiver works its way up my spine. “I—I shouldn’t be so close to you. I don’t want you to freeze.” And for the first time, the low rumble of a chuckle escapes his lips.

  I pull the blanket tighter against my body. Right now, I feel as though he’s not close enough. The shivers that spread over me and raise bumps on my flesh, happen at will. But the truth is, I don’t feel the cold the same way as before. Now, knowing that Embry won’t hurt me, that in a way he’s so perfect and innocent, lost even, I find the chill that surrounds him comforting. I stare at his features, the straight line of his jaw, the perfect arch of eyebrows and his eyes. From here they look like dark spheres—the secrets that I’m holding in are tearing at the strings of my heart. Would he ever lie to me? Somehow I doubt it. So, maybe I shouldn’t keep things from him.

  I push my body up against the headboard of my bed, bringing the blankets with me. Reaching out, I take his hand, cold and soft, and I tug. If I’m going to have to tell him everything, I want him even closer.

  He looks at me with a questioning gaze. “What are you doing?”

  I tug more as I twine my fingers with his.

  “Come here, lie with me,” I say.

  Embry lifts himself onto the bed, stretches his legs out and crosses them at the ankles. Releasing my hand, he tucks the blankets tight against my body. He’s tall, his feet reaching almost to the end of the bed, and he has to tilt his head down to look at me, into my eyes.

  I’m not sure what I’m more nervous about, his closeness, the way his gentle eyes search mine for understanding and answers or that when I tell him the truth about who he is, and what happened, he’ll never look at me this way again.

  Embry reaches out and smoothes down my unruly hair. “Are you comfortable?” He then tucks some strands behind my ear, thumb sweeping a trail of coolness across my jaw.

  I swallow the lump in my throat. “Yes,” I croak as my lungs take fast shallow breaths. I form the sentence in my mind, the one that will start everything; I have something to tell you. Only when I open my mouth to say the words, they are trapped. I take his hand again, squeezing it, hoping it will give me strength. But not only does he not seem to notice, it doesn’t ignite me with the power I’d hoped.

  I can’t do it. Not yet. I still feel like I don’t have enough information, that there’s a piece to the puzzle I’m missing. How could his brother, his only brother, purposely and with thought out intention, try and take his life. What could have happened between them that was so horrible—unforgivable? I hope to find that answer tomorrow when I visit Elliot Winston in prison.

  So it’s settled.

  I’m a chicken, a big fat scaredy-cat.

  I won’t tell him anything, not until I have more to go on. So that when he asks the questions I’m sure will swell his mind, I’ll at least be able to answer them. I think he deserves that.

  Embry’s voice, smooth and velvety, pulls me away from my thoughts. “What’s your favorite thing in the whole world?”

  I can’t help but giggle. “I have no idea.”

  “Think about it. Please.” His thumb rubs tiny circles on my hand.

  I shrug my shoulders, “Um—” I would have said my friends, even Bryce, but in California I’d become something different. Now, I realize how silly I was because it was as if they were all that mattered. I didn’t care about school, about what was on TV, or most of all my parents. I only cared about what my friends and I had going on. They were my favorite thing, because with them I always felt I was a somebody. Shallow.

  Now I’m realizing there is so much more out there beyond friends and parties. Embry has no one, and I understand a little bit about what that’s like. I’d rather be with him, just the two of us, because we matter, than be with a dozen people just as shallow as I was. You don’t need a whole bunch of people to show you are a somebody. You just need the right person to make you feel
like you are. And right now, for me, that person is Embry. Dawsyn and Allison both enter my mind, and one day soon they might almost fit that bill, too.

  “I honestly don’t know. But I’m hoping that living here will become something to add to the favorite list. However, my favorite breakfast is a nice big bowl of Apple O's. I’m pretty sure I could eat those every day. I love my car to pieces and my worn out collection of concert tees.”

  Embry nods with what I think might be approval, but I’m so caught up in the idea of favorites, I don’t think before I ask, “What’s your favorite thing?” As the question slips out, and looms in the air, I realize my mistake. “Oh God. I’m sorry. You don’t have to answer that.” And I literally want to smack myself in the head.

  “It’s okay. I’m not sure what the old me would have said but—but now—I think you’re my favorite thing in this world.”

  “That’s cheating. You don’t have anything else to compare it to,” I say.

  “All the more reason to believe it’s true.”

  My breath hitches, body tenses up, and God, the surge of electricity I felt earlier rushes through my veins, lighting me on fire, again. And just when I think I can’t take any more heat, Embry cools my body off with an explosion of frigid iciness as he presses his lips gently against my forehead. The ragged breath I take comes out as a wheeze when I exhale, as I tilt my chin up, looking into his eyes. I’ve been rendered speechless.

  Embry whispers, “Amazing.”

  I nod. I’ve never been so over taken with emotion; it’s swelling in my heart, begging for him to kiss me again. To feel that sensation over and over. But just as I’m enjoying the high that Embry’s kiss brought, I realize it can’t last. Not really. Because one day Embry will be gone for good. Suddenly the desire that caressed my body is taken over with a depressing amount of misery. This isn’t right. I shouldn’t let myself get so attached.

  It’s as if Embry realizes something is jammed inside my head, possibly being over analyzed because he asks, “What are you thinking?”

  “Nothing.”

  Letting go of my hand, he traces the line of my eyebrow. “You are—thinking about something. You’re eyebrows were twitching—” he lightly drags his finger across my bottom lip, “—and you were gnawing on your lip.”

  I lick my lip—sure enough, I taste coppery blood. Hope he can’t see the red that has flushed my neck.

  “I was thinking about what’s going to happen to you, I mean after we figure out who you are.” I gulp. “I don’t think I want you to leave.” It’s a selfish admission but one full of so much truth it hurts.

  Then as if it’s the most natural movement, an instinct I’ve developed over a long period of time, I move my head to rest in the crook of his arm. It takes a few breaths and the speeding up of my heart before my eyes grow wide with amazement, again. He’s so real. I expect his body to stiffen, for him to realize I’m even closer and pull away; instead he wraps his arm around me, pulling me in further. “How do you feel so real?” My breath billows from my mouth like fog.

  “Is this too close? Am I making you too cold?”

  I don’t answer. I snuggle in even closer to my ice-cube ghostboy and force back the shivers that want to rake my body.

  “I don’t know. If I think about being invisible—which I’m not right now—I disappear. If I think about wanting you to see me or wanting to touch things, I appear solid as if I’m still human. It’s like changing the color of my shirt, I had to kind of teach myself, force all the energy into believing it’s not impossible and then it becomes possible.”

  “Wow,” I say. “But don’t you sleep? Or are you just constantly here? Where do you go when you disappear into my closet? I know you said you don’t know, but you must go somewhere, right?”

  “No sleep. I’m always awake, seeing things. And I do go somewhere. If I let my mind wander, let myself become nothing, I’m in a place. I don’t know where it is, but I don’t think it’s heaven and I’m pretty sure it’s not hell—”

  “What’s it like?” I’m eager to understand.

  “Well, it’s nothing short of amazing. It always starts out the same, an endless sea of whiteness. A blank canvas until I imagine things filling up the space. Maybe I’ll picture a couch, and it’ll appear, or wish to read a book, and it’ll materialize in my hands. I can make it whatever I want.”

  “Why don’t you just stay there? If you can imagine anything in the world, why come back? It sounds perfect.”

  Embry shakes his head. “Because it never feels quite right. There’s always a pull, an unseen force that eventually pushes me back to this world. And what good is having everything if you can’t remember what you want, what you like?”

  I take a deep breath, fascinated. “It’s like—it’s like you’re in the middle,” I say, thinking about the fact he’s a ghost. It must mean his body and his soul are separated because he’s not fully dead yet. A part of him still lies in that hospital bed. But machines force his heart to beat. So he’s not fully alive either. “I think you’re in a kind of purgatory. Not in heaven and not in hell, but stuck in the middle for some reason.”

  He squeezes me tighter. “That actually makes sense...”

  I realize two things now. One: I have to figure out how to stop Embry from being stuck in the in-between. And two: I wish I could tell someone about him. Embry could answer so many questions about what happens to people when they die, when they have some sort of unfinished business. Only, I realize I wouldn’t want people interrogating him, taking him away from me. I’m already unsure if I’ll ever actually be able to let him go.

  We both lie silently, motionless. I force my body not to shiver, hiding the fact I’m cold. Only eventually I don’t have to. My eyes become heavy and the need for sleep takes over. But even then, in my last waking moment, I hug Embry tighter, not willing to let go for anything.

  Chapter Twelve

  I dreamt of Embry all night. It wasn’t the ghostboy who had me wrapped up in his bone chilling arms. It was the other one, the real one. We were having a picnic on the beach. Waves lapped gently against sand and rocks. The sky overhead was so clear it was hard to tell where it ended and the water began. He fed strawberries to me, tickling my lips with their sweet taste. He held me close and whispered in my ear, nuzzling my neck. We talked for hours, of stuff I can’t even begin to remember, but it was magical all the same.

  Until I woke up.

  My dream was nothing like this moment, and the Embry standing before me isn’t kind and gentle.

  He’s angry, furious even.

  “How could you keep this from me?” he says through gritted teeth, the creased and crumpled papers from the library clutched in his hand. The ink is streaked from getting drenched in my pocket, but the words are apparently still readable. At least the amnesia didn’t take that away from him.

  I had forgotten all about those papers stuck in the back pocket of my jeans, heaped on the floor in the bathroom. And how they got into his hands, though I’m desperate to understand, seems like the last thing I should care about.

  My body trembles at the fierceness in his eyes. “I—” I swallow down the lump in my throat, “—I needed to know more.”

  It’s the truth. Today was planned out entirely. Wake up—hopefully still in the arms of Embry—go see Elliot—Embry’s brother—and understand.

  God, I want to understand what happened.

  Need to understand.

  “You needed to know what? It says it all here, doesn’t it?” He thrusts the papers into my chest.

  “No it doesn’t Oakl—”

  “Don’t call me that! Don’t ever call me that again.”

  I look away, because the disdain in his voice slaps me, but it doesn’t stop me from saying, “Sorry,” in a breathless whisper.

  I should have told him the truth.

  I shouldn’t have kept this from him.

  He doesn’t hear me, or maybe doesn’t want to, because he goes on, “My na
me’s Embry, Embry Winston. It says it here in black and white.”

  It’s the way he says it, the tone his voice takes on. He’s still full of anger and yet in the undertone—so slight I think I’m making it up—there’s frustration.

  I take a step closer, pushing aside his outstretched hand, still clutching the paper. “You’re not mad at me.”

  He shakes his head vehemently. I reach my hand towards him but he pulls back so quickly his body blurs. “You kept this from me. You—lied.”

  “I know. I just wanted to have answers...But that’s not what’s really bothering you. I know it’s not.”

  Embry takes another step back and falls into the office chair, defeated. “I can read these words, understand them and yet...I—”

  I close the distance between us again and kneel on the floor in front of him. Because, if this is the only thing I understand today, at least I get it. Had there not been Embry’s eleventh-grade picture in the inset of the article, I never would have believed it was about him.

  “This is me, isn’t it?” He laughs in a mocking tone. “Of course it is, I can recognize my own face and yet—”

  “You still don’t remember,” I whisper.

  Was it really all going to come back just by reading an article, especially one that points all the blame of his accident at his brother? I didn’t think so, but that doesn’t mean I’m not upset. I had hope and now that’s been crushed. The sheer amount of devastation in Embry is enough to make my heart clench, my stomach turn, and my eyes fill with tears.

  Embry’s sunken head rises to meet my eyes. His own are no longer full of anger, but pain and hurt. It’s something I’ve sadly seen a lot of in those blue orbs. “How can I not remember? This article—” He tightens his fist around the papers, and a loud scrunching noise fills the air, “—how could my own brother do this to me? What horrible thing did I do to him, Alexia, that would make him do this to me?”

  “I don’t know.” I rub my hands up and down his thighs, hoping the action calms and soothes him. “But we’re going to find out, Embry.” The sound of his name rolling off my tongue catches me off guard. Since I learned it, in my head he was Embry, in my heart he was Embry, but this is the first time I’ve spoken it to him. I search his eyes for some glimmer of recognition, but they’re hollow.