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  REACTION

  (Book 1)

  JESSICA ROBERTS

  Copyright 2012 Jessica Roberts

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without the written permission of the author.

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, incidents, and dialogue are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or people, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  EBook Edition: November 2012

  ISBN 978-0-615-71092-1

  For my family ~

  Kassidy, my bestest friend

  Chase, my strength

  Trey, my smile generator

  Jo, my muse

  And Kyle, my three final words…

  Chapter 1

  Harmony…

  I’d previously had that in my life, but only once, briefly, three years ago. It was during the time I’d started my first year of college. My own apartment, a new old car, a life free of deadbeat stepfathers, all of which was fulfilling enough. But if it wasn’t, I also had a best friend, soul mate, and boyfriend all in one.

  Yes, life had been near perfect.

  With the wistful thoughts, chills scattered down my spine, which I assured myself was a result of the cap-sleeved shirt I’d chosen to wear this morning before packing up the rest of my stuff in the hospital room.

  “It won’t be the same here without you,” my favorite Nurse Kathy interrupted my thoughts as her heavy-set wobble took us slowly toward the hospital’s main entry—and exit—doors. “What am I going to do every day at ten and two?”

  I laughed. “Anything will be an improvement to rubbing a stranger’s feet.”

  “Excuse me, did you just refer to me as a stranger?” She gave me a reproving glance. “After all we’ve been through?”

  My smile deepened.

  “But you have to admit,” Dr. Adams said from behind us, “she’s right about the foot massage part. Anything would be an improvement to that.”

  Her face crooked sideways. “Quiet, you!” And once again, the motherly rebukes made me giggle…for probably the last time.

  I glanced toward Doc and caught his wink.

  “Regardless,” her look challenged him to interrupt, and then turned back to me, “I’m going to miss you.”

  “You too.” I spread my arms to catch her hug. Before I had a chance to thank her for thousands of rubdowns and two weeks of personal conversation and diligently taking care of me as if I were a daughter, she walked away, giving Doc and I some privacy. And just like that, she was out of my life. Weird, I’d probably never see her again.

  Doc and I stepped forward, passing through the automatic glass exit into the great outdoors.

  “As I said before,” Doc spoke, “give me a call for anything, especially anything unusual or out of the ordinary, as we talked about. Otherwise, I’ll see you at your first follow-up appointment in a few weeks.” He patted my back—his goodbye hug—and walked back inside.

  Behind me was the careful cradle of the hospital; in front of me, a warm September rain. I wasn’t sure why I paused, but I was sure the more I waited, the harder it would get. So I hugged my arms, took a reassuring breath, and stepped into the downpour.

  The sun shower was temperate, and thankfully gentle. A beam of warmth pressed through me. The peak of sunlight and the misty smell of wet, St. Louis earth brought back a tumble of memories. Nothing too detailed. Nothing about that long ago stormy night when everything changed. Nothing about the car slipping off the wet road, hitting me, and then landing me in a prolonged sleep, fighting for my life. Well, more than just fighting for it, also dreaming of it. Dreaming of him.

  My car was exactly where Creed said it would be in the visitor’s parking lot. I put the key in the lock of my brown, boxy old car—Penny, as I used to call her, opened her stiff door, and then with little sprinkles on my hair and shoulders, relaxed in the driver’s seat as if it hadn’t been a long time since I’d driven her. Three years had passed in a blink, almost as if I’d spontaneously traveled into this new future of mine.

  When I was younger I would have given my sticker collection to travel a few years into the future. But now that I very literally had, a few years into my future didn’t feel very different. Sure, little things change, like fashion trends and movies, but as far as life goes, unless you make changes (and of course I hadn’t, given that I’d been lying in a coma all that time), nothing really changes.

  As I turned out of the parking lot and drove Penny down the road, I pondered on my time at the hospital, two years and seven months to be exact. And yet, the wild part was that it felt like a mere six months, due to the fact that while I rested in my coma I dreamt about a favorable period in my past—a six-month courtship with a guy who quite literally knocked me off my running shoes. The beginning in History class, our first kiss on the beach, the time he told me he loved me….

  But what stuck out most in my mind were the little things that made me fall for Nick. Like how he’d enter a room and steal everyone’s attention. Or the way he’d temper his amusement with that easy half smile. Or how his strong, protective arms seemed to defend me from the world. Yes, all the subtle nuances of his personality were what kept him so real and current. In fact, I could hardly stand thinking about him when the real him was just down the road.

  Turning off the windshield wipers, I peered out the front window and up toward the grey sky, hopeful the clouds would take a break for the rest of the day.

  I knew where he’d be with the rain on hold. It was harvest time.

  *******

  The cool, misty streets were as familiar as yesterday. Even more familiar, the red brick apartment complex I hadn’t planned on pulling into. Bob the boss, owner and manager of the building, had hired me on as his helper when I’d first moved to St. Louis for college. If I wasn’t at school or with Nick, I was in the little office helping the old man who coughed incessantly. Filing papers, answering the phone, writing out contracts, delivering those reviled, pink, tardy-rent notices every month to over half the tenants—that was the worst part of the job. But what I remembered most was Bob.

  Once in a while, when I’d work late, he’d bring me dinner from his favorite Chinese restaurant. On a few rare occasions the subtlest compliment would surface about my penmanship or accuracy with the rental logbooks. A simple man, but one I’d learned to care about and respect.

  And the memories of him were surfacing so swiftly. Dr. Adams warned me this would happen. That when surrounded by people or places from my past, recollections would automatically emerge in my mind.

  Doc also suggested I set one goal every morning to work on for the day. Today’s was to keep my nerves at bay, which, in the comfort of my hospital room earlier, seemed a manageable goal. But as I drove by the door to my former apartment on the second floor of building three, a little knot settled in the lower part of my stomach, causing my nerves to flair and my car to land several stalls away from the front office. Eagerness nerves; that’s all they were. Who wouldn’t feel a little edgy when reuniting with an old past and an old friend after three years? Even if it was my kind boss, Bob.

  The white peeling paint falling off the old office door brought on a crack of a smile. A hundred times I’d arranged to strip and
repaint the old thing, but I’d obviously never gotten around to it. Intending and doing were two very different things. Yet at the moment I was relieved it looked exactly as I remembered it.

  The first thing I heard when I pushed on the rigid door was Bob’s familiar hacking cough. It took all of two seconds to find my nerve, dash past the swamp cooler and around the front desk, and squeeze the old man from the side. I didn’t even give him a chance to turn forward and see who had attacked him. Mixed into my flowing emotions was distinct relief that he and the small office hadn’t changed. And I couldn’t help but feel a little satisfied at how naturally my nerves had settled. Today was here and happening.

  “Bob! It’s me, Heather.” I let go and allowed him to see for himself. “How are you?” My hand was still on his shoulder and my face was aglow with gladness, but Bob’s face didn’t change its bland expression in the slightest. It was as if his mind was still filing papers in the large silver cabinet he stood in front of. “I left without saying goodbye. I’m so sorry.” My hand remained on his arm, not only to drive home the sincerity of my words, but also to secure my reality, as if my touch alone could somehow make my uncertain memories a bit more certain.

  To gather his thoughts, Bob glanced to the floor for a time, something I recalled he used to do regularly. “Well, just thought you’d left is all,” he finally decided to say with that scraggly, patient voice I’d grown to love. “With your apartment cleaned out and such.”

  A distinct breath released from my chest, but in the next moment my eyebrows drew in. “Didn’t my friend tell you what happened to me?”

  Creed told me he’d moved all my stuff out of the apartment a few days after the accident, and he also mentioned that the basement apartment of the duplex he lived in on the other side of town was ready for me to move into. What he hadn’t mentioned was the part about leaving my landlord/boss high and dry.

  Guilt hit first, which quickly turned into a small feeling of concern as I stood there in the hub of my old life, in my new life, unable to fully explain to Bob how I’d gotten from A to B. And then uncertainty came because nothing really meshed. Yes, I was back, but not really. It wasn’t the same. Things had changed. Not me, not my surroundings, but the relationships. And I couldn’t seem to work out how I was going to change in order to fit back in.

  Plus, my thoughts, which weren’t certain about much of anything yet, were still a little clumsy from the coma. I couldn’t remember several large chunks of my life. And much of my childhood was gone. The dramatic events were there, though: my mother’s death, my step-father’s drinking, the fun times with Creed while growing up in the little town of Nevada City together, and of course the last six months leading up to the accident, as clear as Bob moseying past me and slowly steadying himself into the chair behind his faded old desk in the corner of the room.

  All of a sudden, my stomach rolled at the thought of Nick; the consideration of seeing him again, in person, being in the same room with him, standing next to him, talking to him like I was talking to Bob.

  “I’d see that blue truck of your friend’s parked outside once in a while,” Bob said as if reading my thoughts, gradually stowing away a few office supplies into a side drawer. “I think he thought the same thing I did, that you’d come back sooner or later.”

  “Really? You’d see his truck?”

  “He came by for weeks, park out yonder.” He pointed out the open door and down the road a ways. “Waiting for you, I suppose.”

  Now my nerves were definitely flared as I thought of Nick, sitting in his car, waiting for me, mulling over our relationship, dealing with what surely must have seemed the cruelest of betrayals.

  Nick had a surplus of patience; it was one of his gifts, innately in him. He also had an immense amount of discipline—another character trait that completely melted me to him. Rather than being instinctive or automatic, his discipline was acquired through experience and over time, and took effort on his part. The reason I knew this was because I’d learned how to push those deeply buried discipline buttons. In fact, I wasn’t above admitting that I reveled in it. On occasion, there was nothing more titillating than pushing a few and watching his controlled grin loosen or his calm eyes turn feisty.

  I knew enough to stay away from the temper button. I’d seen it set off twice: once by his father, and the scene wasn’t pretty; then once by me, at the hospital two weeks ago. Yes, I avoided that button at all costs. But sitting in his car by my apartment watching for me? Oh, he must have been furious! Buttons must’ve been buzzing and beeping all over the place!

  “You’re kidding. He really did that? You would see him? Are you sure it was him?”

  “Now don’t go getting all wound up on me like you used to.”

  Too late. I was already wound up. Still, my face softened, consoled by Bob’s memorable mild reprimands.

  I talked with Bob for a few more minutes, asking general questions about the apartment complex while trying my best to keep thoughts of Nick at bay. When it was time to leave, I rounded Bob’s desk and gave his shoulders a hug, then passed the front desk toward the exit. “I’ll come back in a few days to visit again and explain why I left.” As soon as I’m able to explain it to myself, that is.

  “So long as you’re alright. That’s what matters now, don’t it?”

  Smiling at his kindness, I motioned goodbye and then closed the office door on a few of his coughs.

  The ten-mile-an-hour speed limit road that bordered the apartment complex—which used to drive me nuts and evidently still did—reminded me to slow down and not be so anxious. My reunion with Nick could wait until after I went to my new apartment and settled in.

  *******

  The weather had turned dark and overcast, characteristic of a St. Louis September day. And the characteristics of the streets and structures surrounding the college were exactly as I remembered them. The familiarity was like swallowing a much-needed self-confidence pill. Besides, I had to drive through that part of town regardless, so why not stop by and see if he was at home? That way it would be over and done with, and I could move forward. Yes, that’s the logical thing to do, I told myself.

  When I turned into his cul-de-sac I parked square in the driveway, marched straight up the front steps, and eagerly rapped on the front door like I used to…okay, so I knocked softly, but still, I was there. My body was there anyway; the rest of me was still in the car.

  My skin simmered when the door jarred, and I flung my wringing hands down at the last second. But it was Meat who appeared in the doorway, not him. Meat was Nick’s heavy-set roommate who, as I recalled, had a heart as big as the rest of him.

  Restlessly I stood there while his brain registered me. “Anchovy? Holy Crow!” He’d given me the nickname “Anchovy” while on a double date together some place in my past; the validated memory was another welcome relief.

  “Good to see you, Meat. Um, is Nick here by chance?” My heartbeat was kicking out of my chest and my thick tongue almost stumbled over his name, but I was pleased I got out something remotely coherent.

  “Nah, nah.” He shook his large head, his chin wibble-wobbling about. At his response I immediately felt my shoulders relax and my hands loosen their fists. “He doesn’t live here anymore. Man, it’s been a long time. You look the same.” He shook his head again, slower this time. “Where’d you run off to?”

  “It’s kind of a long story,” I told him, smiling awkwardly.

  He slurped some spit through his back teeth as if dislodging a piece of food there. “Dang, you just bailed on my boy like that.”

  “It didn’t really happen that way,” I defended.

  “Does he know you’re back? Have you seen him?”

  “Yeah, no, I mean, sort of.” My thoughts, like my words, stumbled with what to say, finally deciding on, “Do you know where he’s living now?”

  “Dang, when you left, he changed. It’s like I didn’t know him anymore.” He paused, looking at me speculatively, and
then finally said, “He’s living by his aunt and uncle’s. Got himself a place near their farm.”

  The basement apartment could wait. What did I really have to go to? Creed was at work for another two hours, and I certainly didn’t feel like being alone; I’d had enough of that in the hospital bed the past two weeks after waking from my coma. And who was I kidding? I was dying to see him.

  The decision was made.

  As I drove the Interstate towards the farm, my thoughts mulled over the past, widening to make sense of things, attempting to piece it all together.

  Before the coma, during the six months when Nick and I fell in love, Nick thought I continued to harbor feelings for some guy from my hometown, for Creed.

  The same weekend of the accident, Creed had come out to St. Louis to surprise me. Catching wind of this, my stepfather, Bill, suspected whatever he wanted to.

  Meanwhile, when I didn’t come home the night of the accident, or the next morning, and I wouldn’t return Nick’s phone calls, Nick searched out my home number and called my step-dad, who didn’t know what he was talking about when he’d said I’d run off with Creed and eloped.

  And for the past three years, that’s the thick of what Nick had to swallow.

  The first time he saw me since my disappearance was when he came to the hospital a couple weeks ago, right after I’d woken from the coma. Evidently I’d called for him several times. The hospital did some research and found a “Nick Richards” in a few of my college classes. They obtained a number and located him. That’s how he found out, and that’s why he came to the hospital.

  An interesting encounter that was. His more than nasty, downright rude behavior told me that our three year separation—in which time he obviously had no idea what I was doing—was still an open wound for him.