Page 14 of Reckless
“I’m acting like a kindergartener who just got kissed by a boy,” I grumbled. “Stop it.”
I’d barely made it into the four-story hospital when Millie swooped down on me and gripped my arm. “Oh, thank God you’re here. Gage Strickland is on the third floor, and he’s really freaking out.” Millie pulled me toward the elevator. “His mom says you know him, and since he’s some kind of local celebrity, we thought it best—”
“Millie.” I curled my fingers tightly around her arm, trying to detach her. “That’s him.”
“Who?” She squeezed my hand when we neared our destination and could hear shouting even through the solid metal elevator doors.
“Gage.” I lowered my voice so I couldn’t be overheard. “Gage Strickland. It’shim.”
She followed my line of sight as the doors swung open. “Who?” Recognition hit, and she gasped loudly. “Mr. Rock Star? The band you were going to run off with…”
I stepped off the elevator, eyeing Gage standing in front of the nurse’s station shouting at one of the doctors. He turned and looked at me, his eyes brimming with determination, and the last seven years melted away. I was a naïve sixteen-year-old girl again, the girl who had it all—before it was stripped away in one fell swoop. My heart thundered, my stomach did flip-flops, my throat ran as dry as cotton wool. I wanted to reach out and grab on to him, never let him go this time, but of course, I couldn’t. I’d pushed him away, and there was no coming back from that now.
Gage’s eyes locked with mine, the green dragging me in, reminding me what it had been like when he’d made my heart bloom like a flower. A shock expression mixed with familiarity crossed his face but was gone in a breath, displeasure replacing whatever it was I had glimpsed.
Millie whispered into my ear from behind, “Ooh, he’s hot. You’re gonna rekindle that, right?” I’d only known Millie for about six months now and often forgot that she’d only moved to New Hope last summer. She didn’t yet know all this town’s secrets.
I almost laughed but managed to stop myself just in time. This was not the time or place. This moment had nothing to do with me or Gage.
“No.” When had I become such a blatant liar? “I don’t even think about him anymore. Not like that.”
Millie paused for a beat. “I imagine you’d have to tell yourself that. I bet all his songs are about you. Wouldn’t that be so romantic?”
“Maybe a few of the first ones, but we moved on a long time ago.” Just the thought of the song he wrote for me nearly had my knees buckling. It was the reason I didn’t listen to the radio. “Now, I’m sure he has a supermodel on his arm every night.”
“Well, he’s a hell of a lot better already than that last one of yours.”
I cringed. From the moment I began dating again, five years after my family was ripped to shreds and Gage left, it’d been a string of disasters. So I’d given up dating. I had my mother to take care of, anyway, and a furry melee at home to keep me company.
When I didn’t say anything, only stood there, Gage turned away, glared at the doctor, then strode down the hall.
“I don’t think your past history matters right now. That’s a man in pain.”
My eyes filled with tears at Millie’s words. Gage was going through what I had, only in slow motion. He was fighting the knowledge that he was about to be forced to watch his mother die.
At least he would be that lucky, the jealous side of me said. Horrified that I was resentful because he’d have time to say goodbye and I hadn’t, I shook off the envy.
“Cover for me?” I asked Millie, and she nodded.
I took a shaky step forward, darts of anxiety bolting through me.This was Gage, the boy I’d nearly given my virginity to. He’d been that important to me.
He’d stopped at the end of a dead-end hall and stood gazing out the window. I reached out a trembling hand and touched his arm, and Gage jumped as if my fingers had shot fire. When his eyes met mine, there was a tornado ripping through his gaze. I couldn’t remember ever seeing him so distraught.
The large ball of fear that had lodged itself in my throat dissolved in the face of Gage’s pain.
“Gage, what’s happened?” I kept my voice soft, and though I knew what the problem must be in general, the best thing for him was to talk about it.
“What’s happened?” He dragged his fingers through his mussed hair and began to pace the narrow hall. “What’shappened? My mom is sick. So sick that she isn’t going to make it. She’s going to die in less than a month, probably,” he said, dragging out the vowel as tears rose in his eyes. “Okay? Is that what you want to hear?” He glared at me and rubbed a hand over his face.
I winced under the accusation. “No, of course not.”
“Well, she is, and it’s all because she’s so fucking stubborn.” He shoved his hands into his pockets and stared down at the floor, gulping in breath after breath. “She didn’t get herself checked out soon enough because she doesn’t ever want to admit that she’s not superwoman. She’s going to die because she didn’t want to see the doctor because she’s so fucking strong all the time that she never needs a checkup like a normal person. How fucked up is that? And now I’m the one who has towatchherdie, and it’s like she doesn’t even care! She’s actually almost chipper about it.”
In a flurry of movement, he whirled until he was facing me, the golden flecks mixed among the green in his irises throwing sparks. “Do you know what she actually said to me?”
Witnessing Gage so emotional like this took my breath away, and I struggled for a second to get enough oxygen to respond, “What?”
“She actually told me, ‘you’re an adult now with your own life,’ as if that’s going to make this any better.”
