I narrowed my eyes, my hand shielding them to keep my hair from my view. The Mini Cooper idled in the driveway for a long time before the door swung open.
Boots landed over the gravel, and my eyes scanned up the black pants and coat. Thick icy-black hair waved with the oncoming storm when he turned to face me. With liquid smoke in his eyes, Julian’s gaze met mine through the threatening winds.
Julian Blackwell was in my driveway.
An arctic chill breezed past me, and I pulled my cardigan closer around my chest, trying to cover my tank and midriff.
“What are you doing here?” As the words left me, I felt stupid for asking them. He was only returning my car. The carhehad fixed.
Julian walked up the path toward me with one hand in his pocket, the other grasping my keys in his palm. Each step he took, his eyes remained on mine and never veered down my body or past me or around me. A deadlock. He stopped only inches before me, and I had to lift my head to see his covered face. He could easily reach out and touch me, but he didn’t have to. His intense eyes cut through my skin, grabbed hold of my soul, and gently caressed it. There was a serenity lurking behind the walls of his madman illusion—a false imprisonment of a wonderland I wanted to wander in. A place I could get lost in.
“Your keys,” he stated, holding them out between us with a stone-cold stare.
I held out my palm when he dropped them into my hand, physically not touching me and making sure of it. A faded song of breaths counted the next few seconds, neither one of us saying anything or making an attempt to move.
Then a loud clatter came from inside the opened door, sounding like glass shattering, and Julian’s eyes blinked once before they ripped away from mine.
My heart dropped when it dawned on me. “Oh my god, Gramps!”
My feet moved quickly, up the steps and through the front door.
Gramps laid motionless over the kitchen floor, the broken plate surrounding him, and his hat had slid across the floor from his balding head. My eyes bulged, a panic struck my chest.
“Gramps!” I cried out, running toward him. I collapsed to my knees near his body.
His eyes were closed. Mine were burning. He wasn’t moving.
What do I do, what do I do, what do I do… my mind was in shambles, my heart left somewhere outside, probably gone with the wind.
Julian appeared and crouched down near Gramps’ head, pressed two fingers against his neck.
“Get away from him!” I shouted, pushing against his shoulder. “Don’t touch him!”
Julian caught my wrist in his hand, and I froze. “He’s still breathing,” he spoke evenly, his voice coarse and detached. “I’m going to walk over there and call the doc.” His fingers remained firmly around my wrist, his gaze holding mine.
Julian bounced his eyes between my panicked ones, then moved my hand to Gramps’ neck and placed my fingers over his pulse. “You feel that?”—A gentle tap of Gramps’ pulse hit my fingers, and I nodded, tears streaming down my face, my lips trembling— “He’ll be okay. Hold on to his heartbeat.”
Julian jumped up and disappeared behind me, grabbing the house phone from the wall.
“I’m right here, Gramps. Don’t you dare die on me, you hear me?” Tears sputtered through my words, and I sucked in a more stable breath as his pulse thumped against my two fingers beneath his paper-thin skin. “It’s all my fault,” I cried to whoever was listening. The spirits who followed me, Gramps, Julian. “I shouldn’t have pushed you so hard. I shouldn’t have upset you. I’m so,sosorry.” All my words tumbled out, one right after the other. Gramps was sick, and I’d made him so angry because I’d asked too many damn questions. “This is all my fault.”
Gramps’ eyes blinked open, and a gurgled moan escaped from his lips. I scrambled closer. “You’re okay.” I sighed in relief as he came to, another tear falling from the corner of my eye.
Gramps shifted on the floor, and his startled gaze darted around the kitchen.
“Don’t move, Benny. The doc is coming,” Julian stated from behind me.
Dr. Morley took his time checking Gramps’ vitals and his head. Gramps sat in the dining chair, glaring at Julian, who hadn’t moved from the counter.
The doc removed the thermometer from Gramps’ mouth. “Your temperature is at a hundred. I told you to stay in bed. You keep overexerting yourself, you’ll never get better.”
Dr. Morley was oddly tall. He stood close to seven feet at full height, making him the tallest man I’d ever seen—a large frame of bones. His knee caps bulged even as he stood, his elbows too even when his arms were straight. The bottoms of his slacks hit right at his calves, his sleeves at his forearms.
“Clowns. I got dizzy, is all,” Gramps mumbled. “No need for all the dramatics.”
“For once, listen to him, Gramps.”
Winds howled around the house as rain pounded against the kitchen window. The storm was here, the skies black in the late morning, and the house’s lights flickered.
