Lane
Landing at the smaller regional airport by charter plane put me at least an hour closer to Bess. I jumped out of my seat, grabbed my bag, and ran to a car my assistant had ordered to be waiting for me and instructed the driver to “Haul ass all the way to the middle of Nowhere, Pennsylvania.”
I hated not being in control, let alone stuck in the backseat of a ridiculously posh car, but this was the only way I was going to make it alive to the mountains. It was still black as night out, to say nothing of my ratcheted nerves, pulsing through my entire system.
As soon as I sat down, I called Jake.
“Lane, what the fuck?”
This is howheanswered the phone for me.
“What the fuck to you?”
“I sped all the way up to Buttfuck, Pennsylvania, to check on your piece of ass in distress, and at first I thought maybe I slept with her years ago. She looked so damn familiar, I couldn’t stop staring. That country doc probably thought I was mental.”
“Jake, don’t go there now,” I warned him. I knew where he was heading and I wasn’t in the mood.
“Oh, I will,” he shot back.
Fuck.
My hair felt damp from sweat. I pulled my leather jacket and sweater off, leaving me in just a plain white T-shirt.
“Lane, do you want to tell me what you’re doing messing around with the girl who almost died in my gym years ago? I may not have showed up until you destroyed my chance at pussy for the night and she was being loaded into an ambulance, but her face hasn’t changed. Jesus Christ, can’t you get laid in Miami?”
“She doesn’t remember that night.”
“What? You’re bullshitting me.”
“No.” I cracked the window open, still feeling incredibly hot.
“And you haven’t told her?”
I began to wonder if I could ever tell her, let her in on the fact I was there to witness that piece of her personal history. Especially now, it felt beyond the statute of limitations. She probably didn’t even want to remember that night. I’d tried to forget it so many times myself.
Yet, it still haunted my thoughts. No longer in the limo, my thoughts were back in the gym.
After I’d realized the whole place assumed I was Jake—he’d been copying my longer hairstyle since he finished playing college ball—I’d decided to play the role. I hadn’t been happy about it, but I’d done it.
With Bess out cold on my mat, I’d pretended to be busy taking vitals when her eyes opened and looked straight into mine, dazed and confused.
“Bess, come on, we got to get out of here. Get you home,” the friend said, trying to lift Bess up.
“All right, everyone, stay focused with Lexie while I take care of this,” I said out loud over the DJ, playing the part of Jake, and began to help Bess over to the side of the room. She’d barely come awake, her palms sweaty, face pale, eyes out of focus. The other girl and I semi-carried her out of the yoga room and to a bench, where she slumped over once again, becoming unresponsive.
I grabbed the friend and demanded, “What the hell did she take?” She looked like a deer caught in headlights. “Don’t fucking clam up on me now. Your friend needs help,” I said, shaking her shoulder a bit.
“I don’t know for sure, she parties pretty hard,” was all she said, turning her own glassy brown eyes the other way while Jimmy or Timmy or whatever the fuck his name was stood nearby and called 911.
“Why the hell would she come to yoga like this? Unless she’s so addicted she can’t go anywhere without being like this? And what kind of friend are you to bring her like this?” I crowded the other girl while I berated her, who I’d learned was named Camper.
Pacing the floor, my bare feet sinking into the plastic bullshit material, I waited for Camper to answer me.
Quietly she said, “Well, she’s always like this, but I didn’t ever think it was a problem.” Then she ran out of there, not even bothering to grab her shoes, flying by the paramedics running in.
The EMTs were annoyed. You could tell they thought Bess was another college girl who couldn’t handle her alcohol or whatever. They started taking her vitals, placing a neck brace on her small form, and sliding her on to a portable gurney. One was on the phone, calling ahead, “Yeah, gonna need a stomach pump, charcoal. Out cold, slowing pulse, but did come to for a minute or so. Dumb friends moved her from her original place.”
I was just trying to do what I thought was right, but I wasn’t Jake, and I didn’t have the credentials to run a gym.
